7/22 Readings, Reflections of Dis-ease and Delight

This is an attempt to evaluate three of tonight's digital pieces (papers, presentations, interfaces, manifestos) using Hocks' terms: audience, transparency and hybridity.
The Lo-Fi Manifesto:
the audience are those of us who are fed up with "expensive consumer and prosumer software that hinders the extensibility of digital discourse and limits digital production literacy to programs and file formats that are destined for disruptive upgrades or obsolescence." Despite the black background with smallish lurid green lettering, I was sucked in. At least once or twice a week since I started this class, and began testing the desktop and online abilities of my aging computer, I have been thwarted, frustrated and sometimes brought to tears, with messages of "incompatibility" and the need to update, delete, reconfigure.
transparency - the familiar page conventions make it easier for me to relate to and more willing to navigate. Again, the black background with green type is difficult to read at least for my eyes.
hybridity - But it is not all clicking. Did you notice the little question mark that appears when you mouse over LOFI - a tiny definition appears "lossless, open, flexible, in(ter) dependent"? And if you accidently, as I did, mouse over the blue box on the left that says Kairos, the blue box extends to give the article's complete citation. How is this stuff done?! I want to compose this way.

Then when you get to "Manifesto" and the 6 points underneath, clicking on them will give you black type on white page, so much easier to read. Point #4, "Accomodate and forgive the end user, not the producer" began with this quote, "There is no better way to lose the good will of audience members than to bombard them with a series of messages demanding the installation or upgrade of software and plugins or, worse, to announce that their equipment (and, perhaps, by extension, financial status or physical ability) is wholly inadequate and beyond the producer’s toleration. Even worse still may be no message or warning at all: just a blank screen or hopelessly malfunctioning digital artifact." Amen!

There is a lot of useful valuable information here, alternate tools and software that propose to free us from the tyranny of Microsofts and Googles. Have you heard of Open Office? Much to go back to and absorb later.

Man in the Dark:
audience would be any of us that are bored and maybe need distraction from doing final project. A substitute for Sudoku perhaps.
transparency - in this case the black background works - sort of offers a black sea for the multi-colored-browns man to float through. Mousing over works and clicking causes shimmys and wiggles. Fun up to a point.
hybridity - well it is a visual piece, no text that I found but it follows conventions of clicking and mousing.

Don't Click It:
Saved the best for last and yes, I clicked many many times until I figured out to mouse over.
audience would be the curious, and those searching for alternatives to page conventions.
transparency - "This is an interface that wants to be navigated under special conditions." Since the title apparently wasn't enough to guide me, this sentence should have. But still it took awhile for me to mouse over.
hybridity - I really like the blend of just enough text and page to guide me and the delightful fun of the test and the visual - sort of an adventure, although at first when I clicked and got the static I was horrified that I had fallen into another "Lionel Kearns" thing.

Clicking, the authors say, gives us the sense of control and immediate gratification. Click and we are there. Like a light swith, they say. So they took the click away and wonder, "if we change the way we interface, does it change our behavior." . . . . And this question I carry into future classrooms, more willing and open to move beyond print and the conventional and embrace the possibilities.