Engaging the community can be a little like going deep into a jungle that has various trails going every which way. The discoveries off the beaten paths can be rewarding but they can also have their pitfalls. Sometimes, we can just simply be befuddled and lose our way. This is when a decent compass would most come in handy.
As we try to incorporate multiple points of view through community engagement, we also have to maintain our bearing. There has to be a kind of compass that will help us navigate so that the diversity of voices will be meaningful to us and not amount to noise.
How do we keep the “produserly” (as the Spreadable Media folks would call them) voices compelling (what compass to use?), even as the project continues to evolve organically (like so many trails in the jungle)? One answer that this week’s viewings suggest is looking for inspiration in the world of consumer product design by coming up with a site architecture that has strong aesthetics and a highly intuitive, user-friendly interface.
I think that we should treat the business of moving to a more collaborative media space like the transition from the “dumb” phone to the smart phone. The more complex the communication environment is, the more we should make it ridiculously easy to navigate.
That said, the work that wins the highest mark for me this week is the highly elegant (to me) “Public Secrets” project. The interface needs a little getting used to but when you get it, then you really get it. Just like using a smart phone for the first time.
The creator rightly realized that the theme of exposing the rottenness of the prison system, and its elaboration through the women inmates’ myriad points of view are complicated enough by themselves. Her job is then to find a strong platform that will keep the momentum of the message moving, instead of bogging it down by being too helpful and explanatory.
I love the California redwoods but I think the “Saving the Sierra…” project can benefit from a little more boldness and strategic vision in the design. But the predominant use of audio is a very good building block. I like one of the premises behind the “Highrise” project. It’s true that all too often, we leave the important job of shaping our physical living environment either to professionals / commercial interests or to bureaucrats who couldn’t care less. However, we seem to be seeing this project at a point when it has already done a lot of its evolution that navigating it is ironically like trying to find your way in the busy downtown of a foreign city.
I’ve recently come across the term “trust the process” and I think it applies here. I think we need to rely less on explanation and more on the intuitiveness of interface when we try to incorporate the element of “produser” engagement. Our real job is to make the experience as seamless and engaging as we can make it without falling back into the top-down, linear mode of audience participation. Collaboration should be symphony, not cacophony.
I was most engaged by the Public Secrets project as well! There was a straightforward quality to it that got right to the point. This was facilitated by simplicity of the inside vs. outside arrangement of the voices and the way the voices were presented through the quote blocks.
What began to come up for me as I thought more about the idea of the “public secret” is that it doesn’t really matter that there is a divide between inside and outside because one of the secrets is that these women are confronting the same issues whether they are inside or outside of prison.
Yes, it’s very straightforward but you can tell that a lot of thinking went into the site architecture, far more I think than in the “Saving the Sierra…” website. When you engage so many voices in your project, it’s also your job to optimize the mechanics of listening by thinking through the whole experience, including the aesthetic appeal of the project. Another analogy I can think of (aside from the smartphone) is caring about ambience when you’re throwing a party.
The only downside is that there seems to be more complicated (and expensive) technology involved here than might be accessible to non-profit grassroots organizations.
Grace,
I LOVE your analogy: “I think that we should treat the business of moving to a more collaborative media space like the transition from the “dumb” phone to the smart phone. The more complex the communication environment is, the more we should make it ridiculously easy to navigate.”
This is a brilliant way to express my own unease with clutter and transmedia sensory overwhelm. I have been applying these ideas in my own work, and have been very influenced by this essay-manifesto by Craig Mod:
Sub-Compact Publishing
http://craigmod.com/journal/subcompact_publishing/
I will make a note to bring this up when we meet on December 7, or sooner. It is very intereting to me that you all are not so thrilled by projects like Highrise, but still admire “Public Secrets” made by an artist working in new media, in 2009. So style may not have to do with simply fast shelf-life and disposability in the case of digital media.
What do you make of the Craig Mod essay?
He basically has the same argument as a lot of upstart technology companies who are turning whole legacy industries upside down because they don’t have the baggage of bigness. Consider this quote: “…not quite website, not quite magazine, not quite book. It sums up well the liminal space in which we play as digital publishers.”
All well and good. But how will his idea line up with all the existing legacy magazines out there who have probably just re-invented themselves in the not-too-distant past to be able to feed the content-hungry belly of the beast Web 2.0? Let’s not even talk of publications who started out as purely dead-tree editions. What about something like Huffington Post?
His manifesto is for start-up publications with no baggage, and that’s great actually. I really like his idea of “creating a sense of ‘edge’ in digital space.” That’s that sort of idea which comes from a kind of thinking that puts the user experience first. But he kinda contradicts himself by preferring scroll over pagination. Maybe having pages is a little like hearing the camera “click” on your camera phone. Useless but comforting. I’m sure there must be a branch of study out there that just analyses our interface experience with websites from the point of view of product design. We need those insights.
Your appreciation for the “Public Secrets” project and its elegant interface, likening it to the experience of using a smartphone for the first time, is a powerful testament to the project’s success. It highlights the importance of finding a platform that maintains the momentum of the message without overwhelming it with excessive explanations. Thanks for sharing