digitaldust

On Monday night I gave a rambling talk about how phenomenology, complexity theory and real human emotions need to be taken into account when designing web sites.

Here are the slides ~20Mb (sorry it’s big, but it is colourful!)

Ed Mitchell asked me a few moons ago to give a talk on designing the web, not web site design and that has been sitting at the back of my mind since then. Then in my typical fashion I realized a couple of days before I was meant to talk that I had nothing prepared. So I had to quickly distill everything that was floating around into this. It’s a bit rough around the edges but it does get the key concepts across. I’m working on a version 2 now which might be a bit more understandable.

So what was I on about? I’m going to put up a fuller discussion of this at some point. But the basic gist is this.

Human experience is an emotional, experiential and multi-varied thing (Hence complex). Current Web Design (and by this I don’t mean the graphic design of the web) and that thing that gets called Web 2.0 is trying to build the web to support these people. However in many cases they are trying to produce the complexity within the system and reduce the human experience of the system. Also a lot of the sites being built are clean and mechanical. I believe that the experience of the system should be human, and that the complexity should be left up to the humans. Simply put, simple tools, humans are the glue and build emotion into the system so that it can be engaged with on many levels.

After only a short hiatus as a house coach Heather has got a new job. She’s joined the exciting new world of new nu meja for a new job as new project manager… well they’ll all be new projects to begin with. So from now on she’s doing fun and funky stuff down with the guys at Team Rubber.

Knowing that they have a people working on city wide wireless coverage makes me glad I’ve moved to Bristol.

St Werburghs ‘joins’ the backbone.

It is all the little things going on like this that makes Bristol seem so exciting. It has a great mix of creativity, bunches of people with tech know-how and a crusty/hacker/maker ethic underlying it all. And the BW folks live just down the road in the community centre. Pity I can’t seem to get on to this node though.

Update: Oops, it’s just the backbone there. So not likely to get on that. Still, I can see you’re WCC node down the road, just can’t get on

Piers has just posted some nice rules for working the classroom.

There are 3 golden rules:

1. Move around

   As you move around the classroom, you spread your influence and it’s easier to stop children switching off. Moving your questions around, i.e. not always asking the same children, keeps everyone involved.

2. Vary your delivery

   Whispers, sharp yelps, different visual cues all keep children on their toes and focused on what’s coming next.

3. Balance criticism and praise

   If you have to reprimand a child make sure you come back to them later, and find something good to say about what they’ve said, how they’re behaving. It stops children making a virtue of being naughty.

As he says they are gold dust… the condensed tacit learning from a lifetime in teaching. I have to admit that the moving around and variation of delivery are things that are heavily on my mind at the moment.

As part of my “Academic Development” I just had a session where I had to lecture to peers and get feedback. One interesting point that came out of that and out of everyone’s microteachs was about movement. From the beginning I’ve been trying to move around a lot so I don’t end up as some kind of human speaking pole behind a laptop. Recently though I am moving less and not cycling back and forth across the room… it feels a bit more natural I think to not move too much.

The interesting thing I noticed whilst critically watching 9 other people teach in a short space of time was how the obviously confident ones didn’t move… but also the really uncomfortable ones didn’t either. And apparently I prowl around a bit to begin with and then settle down.

Although maybe a lot of energy can be built up by movement it is distracting and the biggest indicators of excitement do seem to be in tone of voice and body language. Probably the most exciting of our short lectures I saw was on Gerbils, and the lady giving it mostly just leaned against the podium. But most importantly the excitement showed through. Which is exactly what Piers said his humble mentor missed out.

This cracks me up. My new life, exposed in all it’s glory.

And he has some friends, Mr Undergrad and Mr Postgrad.

Wow! From the new house I can drive to work and do it door to door in 15 minutes. Even though UWE is 5 miles away.

Driving to work seems like such a luxury. In nearly 10 years of working life I’ve never done it, up till  now. It feels very weirdly grown up, something I probably get from doing similar trips into university with my father in my late teens. He was the adult there and there were lots of other grown ups all driving into work at the same time. So, together with buying a house and commuting and teaching I’m feeling all very mature and adult. OMG what is happening to me!

But this driving thing is being a bit naughty so I’m back on my bike on Monday. I can pull some wheelies on the way to work.

Heather and I finally completed on our house this morning and are moving in today!

Very exciting. New house, new job, new city, new life!

All of Heather and my life is now packed up and has been taken away by a Laurel and Hardy team of movers. Hilarious guys but they’ve done a great job.

So now we’re homeless and waiting for our new house to come through. Frustrating but exciting at the same time.

I took the pictures, but Elvis and Tilba did all the photoshopping and graphical doohikery. They have problems with trackpads but are great with mice.