Grad.sem.max
Preperation for Graduation Seminar with Steve on 29.10.20
Hack.pact - project proposal
- Make a publication that makes aspects of human diversity, which are relevant to inclusive design of information / media, in a playful, interactive, inclusive and respectful way
- Medium: Browser game, that lets you walk around a map on which you can look at aspects of human diversity, that might be important to consider when designing information, learn about how to include these, develop an understanding of how it feels to be excluded due to certain traits, have an exchange about diversity and to appreciate how diverse people are and that there is no average human being.
- The basic shape of the map should be a sphere, as its surface has no centre, you can walk around it indefinitely and it resembles our planet. Users should be spawned in random positions on the map.
- The interface will allow for extensive adjustments to the game interface, interaction, to be as inclusively accessible as possible.
- When talking about human diversity, only talk about single isolated symptoms at a time, not about diagnoses. Show how an attribute can/will result in exclusion, how that feels for the excluded and how to include users with that attribute. No judgement!
- All the attributes and recommendations should be backed up scientifically (sources for everything)
- At the moment I am creating a map of attributes, and a way how to map them out on a sphere and researching studies to back it up
- I am also looking at online game-engines (Open GL)
- Questions: How to display the attributes? (Hack-pact) What is the best style? 2D/3D? Should there be a character to steer around? How should it look? Should the character morph? …according to its position on the map? How to use the media (text2speech, animations, text, assist tech, responsiveness? Could there be other spaces which you can go to that depict a certain trait in how they are designed?
- Maybe also not a game, but more of a gamified 3D map
- Focus on content and prototype
- Interview people, get personal experiences!!!
Thesis outline
What?
In my thesis I want to deal with human diversity the concept of individuality and the consequences for the design of online interfaces for education and retrieving different kinds of necessary information.
Why?
In my view, this issue is important for two main reasons. The first reason is that education and self-determined access to knowledge is on a rational level fundamental to participate in many areas of society. This begins with gaining a basic understanding of how the world works, in order to make sense of it, continues with an understanding of the mechanisms that surround us and shape our rights and responsibilities as individuals, continues with knowledge of current events and events in the world and ultimately in the ability to produce knowledge. Lack of knowledge is also an obstacle in social interaction, can support the forming of social bubbles and in the long term also influence important developments in society as a whole, such as those of a political nature.
The second reason is more of an emotional nature and has to do with the feeling of being excluded. Whereas the concept of inclusion may often seem elusive, the feeling of exclusion is unmistakable, familiar to most people and even measurable. It has a strong impact on well-being and the will to participate in society. Exclusion can develop into a vicious circle in which the exclusion of individuals leads to their increasing withdrawal and, in the long run, to even greater exclusion.
The internet is more and more becoming the primary source of information and also is increasingly important in education these days. I therefore consider it important to find an approach to designing solutions in this area similar to the concept of ergonomics in product design, which value the individuality and diversity of people and put this at the forefront of the development process.
How?
I would like to divide this examination into two main parts with a number of sub-points. First of all, I would like to take an in-depth look at human diversity. This part will be preceded by an examination of the concepts of normality, average, individuality. Afterwards I would like to deal with different human attributes that can lead to a need for adaptation or different preferences when interacting with corresponding interfaces. I will start with the widest possible consideration of the whole range of human abilities and disabilities, and then move on to culturally determined differences in the reception of information on the internet and in online education. Then I will look at the different types of learning and finally look at infrastructural factors such as access to the Internet. In the second part I will look at different forms of interfaces that can be used for information retrieval and education, analyse them and draw conclusions for the design process from this and the previous analysis. I will discuss online educational platforms, wikipedia, news sites, websites of necessary institutions and government and possibly social media. A possible last part could consider the deliberate complication of content, which intentionally tries to exceed human capacities of information processing and thus achieve certain effects, mostly for financial or political gain.
At this point a historical examination of epistemic inequality and epistemic violence could also follow.
Finally I will draw a conclusion, which calls for respecting the full range of human diversity and including it in the design process, in order to create better results in the provision of information on the net, not only for marginalized groups, but for the vast majority of society.
Bibliography
Allen Frances - Normal (2013)
… is a book raising criticism on the inflationary use of psychiatrical diagnosis. The author was co-author of the third and fourth edition of the most influential manual on psychological disorders, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. In this book he is fundamentally criticizing the approach to the compilation of this publication. His starting point is the difficulty of drawing a line between normal and not normal as well as the massive impact of psychiatric diagnosis on individuals. Accordingly, he notes that the over-definition of human mental diversity in the form of diagnoses can have a fundamentally negative effect both on individuals and ultimately on society as a whole.
Todd Rose - The End of Average (2016)
… is a book stating that no human is average and individuality matters and applies these statements to design processes. He develops this observation by means of a historical review, using various examples in which design based on an „average user“ led to complications and how the concept of ergonomics was subsequently developed to attempt to reduce these problems. In this book he also presents the five "principles of individuality", which show how individuality can be expressed.
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 (2018)
… is the collection of the official guidelines of the World Wide Web Consortium on how to develop web content in an accessible, inclusive and usable way. The include mostly technical suggestions on how to treat content in order to be compatible with all different kinds of end-devices, helping-devices and work for a broad spectrum of differently abled users. („including accommodations for blindness and low vision, deafness and hearing loss, limited movement, speech disabilities, photosensitivity, and combinations of these, and some accommodation for learning disabilities and cognitive limitations; (…) older individuals with changing abilities due to aging and often improve usability for users in general; (…) but will not address every user need for people with these disabilities.“)
Aline Germain-RUTHERFORD - An Inclusive Approach to Online Learning Environments: Models and Resources (2008)
… is a paper speaking about cultural differences in learning preferences. The author takes the increasing number of online courses and the also increasing cultural diversity in students attending these as a basis to ask how that affects teaching and learning and state the necessity of designing these courses in a way which satisfies the participants different needs. She presents studies that try to assess where exactly different needs in education emerge through cultural differences and how to integrate them into the design of learning platforms.
Kat Homes - Mismatch - How Inclusion Shapes Design (2018)
… is a book that states, that there is a great necessity for pushing further inclusiveness in design, especially in digital technology, as most designers use themselves as reference when designing, thus letting out people who differ from that set of abilities. The author admits that the concept of inclusion is difficult to grasp and may never be fully achieved, but at the same time expresses how clearly exclusion is felt, and that every small step in the direction will bring a great improvement for certain groups of users. Currently, according to the author, the world around us is designed in such a way that the user has to adapt if possible, or is simply will be excluded. She furthermore focuses on the emotional consequences of exclusion in particular.
Kurzgesagt - In a nutshell
... is a series of short animated videos that are accessible on Youtube.These videos translate complex scientific, economic, sociological and political issues into easy to understand animations with explanatory narration. This conversion of complex content into an appealing and catchy form as well as the style are to me an exceptionally good example of making complex topics accessible in a simple and free of charge way.
Charles Murray - Human diversity (the biology of gender, race and class)
... Didn't start reading yet, might also loose it again