Good points Dave, and I agree. But, in thinking about what Jonas said (and my own position), I would argue that the "strong need to understand the foundations of our medium" you mention below must be carefully defined, with the "foundations" necessarily including equal parts "medium" (the tools/interfaces) and "interactive social behavior" (sociological/cultural effects that lead to effective and dynamic community-building).
Favor one side or the other, and we fall short, in other words. This was the thing, btw, that first fascinated me when doing my dissertation, when I realized that what I was actually studying was not human-computer interaction (individual interactions) so much as it was what happens at the point where interfaces meet cultures (social interactions), in order to discover how interfaces shape social groups, and how social groups can shape interfaces (on the fly, or collaboratively-authored in a specific social contexts). To my mind, that was how to learn about how larger dynamic and vital virtual landscapes ultimately shrug themselves into being. Chris On Fri, 14 Dec 2007 06:01:44, David Malouf <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Chris and Jonas' sparked an idea for me in this thread. > > For our work, unless deployed, how do we judge success/failure? I'm > sure this can be translated to other degrees of practice. I mean how > did we know Bilbao was going to be a "success" before it was built. > Most confidently kept their same opinion before (from the model) that > they have after the fact. > > What allows other disciplines to have a more confident set of > judgment that doesn't require the full production of the item in > order for it to be envalued? > > In the case of this cancer community, I mean how does the student > judge whether their notions of community building in this context > will work? Is it comparative to the successes and failures of other > existing communities (related and unrelated)? > > For me this speaks to a strong need to understand the foundations of > our medium so that we can clearly communicate success/failure amongst > each other in the theoretical space. > > So even a partial prototype in my mind only works in the environment > of such foundational analysis and maybe lacking that is why those who > come from areas that have those foundations are drawn towards > completion in order to lay a more accurate judgment. > > > . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . > Posted from the new ixda.org > http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=23446 > > > ________________________________________________________________ > *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* > February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA > Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ > > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
