One of the things that can be easily forgotten about technology is that it is a tool. Technology is often thought of an as entity unto itself, as if it were self determining. That mistake can lead to oor use of technology, and it is a mistake that is all too easily seen.

The truth is that technology, like a hammer, iron, train or AJAX is man made for use. To that end there is good use and bad use. Take a hammer; using a hammer to sow the hem line would constitute a poor use of technology. The internet is not that different.

Technology on the internet has two problems; the first is that the technology available is evolving very quickly. With the evolution is a desire for many to show that they are able to implement the latest and best fast. The second problem is that people don’t always understand the technology they are implementing.  To that end two questions ought to be asked; “what is the technology doing for me?” and “what will the technology do for the people using my site?”

For me there are some great examples of very simple technology being used very well. Take for example the use of technology from The Welcome Trust in the image above. There is nothing complicated about what you see here. An image to the left changes as a user hovers over a title on the right, presumably taking them to a story if they click on it; nothing too complicated. However, this piece of technology is right in the centre of their homepage and one must ask the question why. Some people have flash banners with trendy images scrolling across in flash, but the welcome Trust doesn’t. (An example would be Glaxo UK. Although they don’t have a big interactive banner, there’s moves about and is far less accessible).

The reason is that a flash banner wouldn’t do much for their image, nor would it be that useful for the person using their site. The welcome Trust have given the user control of their site, and taken control at the same time. Again, nothing complicated at all; but very effective. It suits the tem because they have a reputation as thought leaders, and by giving people access to the thought that makes them a leader promotes the integrity of their brand. In that respect, by doing something very simple they have in effect been very clever.

The same debate about the purpose of technology has surrounded social media. The technology has been called narcissistic, pointless, and noisy and so on. Now I assume that ‘web 2’0’ in and of itself doesn’t have enough of a personality to be narcissistic, humble or otherwise. And that really is the point. Much like the use of any technology there is good and bad use and that depends on people.

Social media is no exception. I would think that the use of Twitter in both Iran and in China could not be regarded as a bad use of technology, however, the person on Twitter who keeps telling us what she had for breakfast is not bad use of technology, it’s just inane. However, the girls in Australia who were stuck in basement for 48 hours and updated it on Facebook (and didn’t call the police or their parents with the phones they used to update Facebook) displayed a rather poor use of the technology.

Technology like any tool, used just for its own sake has no purpose; it is obtrusive and can destroy the integrity of a website. However, well placed and well chosen technology that serves a purpose can make life easier for a user and more lucrative for a site owner.

Technology in that respect is as much about achieving goals for you as it is for the people who come to a website. One of the reasons that site load time has become an issue today has to do with the simple fact that faster sites are better used. Much the same debate has surrounded the use of Flash vs Java script. A technologies ability to promote you, your website and your message are some of the key consideration that ought to be made when choosing the appropriate technology, but they have to be considered in conjunction with the knowledge space of your users. It is the combination of these elements that merge together notions of brand, intuition and cultural knowledge space.

For these reasons concepts like the ‘hype cycle’ prove to be an important map of how we can understand technology in the broadest sense. Technology develops, get’s adopted, misused and after a ‘peak of inflated expectation’ and ‘trough of disillusionment’ finds its place. Flash seems to be going through this process at the moment, and the likelihood is that after the disillusionment is over most people will have a better understanding of where and when it can be used well and effectively.

So what can you do to ensure that you’re not misusing technology, using it badly, or just plain wasting your money on something that will prove a greater burden on your site? Following web conventions is often good practice. But some of us want to be creative, throw caution to the wind and be the boldest! And understandably, a part of the excitement of digital media is the fact that it is possible to be new and exciting.

There really are a few simple and effective ways to make sure that your technology deployment isn’t going to be a bad decision.

1^st Take a litmus test. Pull together a profile of how people in your corner are using technology. Take notes from newer websites and see what kinds of innovations people use; asses these innovations by asking meaningful questions about their efficacy.

2^nd Once you’ve come up with some designs take a sample of your audience, see how well they understand what they see. Ask them to perform the kinds of tasks you’d expect them to perform and find out what they think is lacking. Don’t be afraid of criticism at this point. It will work in your favor. If you can get them to asses some of your competitors, Maybe even order different uses of technology according to how well they meet their needs.

3^rd Ensure that the technology you use does two things

a)      Promotes the content you want promoted

b)      Does what your users need it to do

Finally, test, re-test and test again. The best thing that you can do is keep making sure that your website is doing what you set it out to do. During the whole process it’s always a good idea to collect clippings and store them. Having a source for inspiration as your development process runs its cycles is always a good idea, you never know how an idea can transform into a great piece of inspiration, making your website the reference point for others as they go through the same process as you.

Some years ago I was a research student studying qualitative methods for the first time. This was a breakthrough in many respects. For a long time the social sciences were obsessed by the need to be perceived as a science. The impact was an under-appreciation of qualitative methodology. At the time I had been studying the visual system and human decision making (quantitatively); the shift to qualitative thinking posed somewhat of a challenge. You see, I had been indoctrinated into the world of third person rigor. Today however, I am glad that I had been indoctrinated one way and given the opportunity to learn again.

It occurred to me that if first person methods were going to be used then qual. and quant. results had to be consistent with each-other. What’s more, if they were going to be consistent with each-other they ought to point in the same direction when insights from either are discovered. Given that this seemed the only logical way of thinking, I felt excited at the prospect of finding a system to link the results of sta­tis­ti­cal analysis with the results of thematic narrative.

Gestalt psychology had discovered certain rules about human perception. For example visual grouping was found to be a common property of perception. We see a group of people next to another group of people and we lump them into two groups. We have no other evidence that the two groups are separate groups or that they are even groups, but we group them because that’s what we see.

Something we know about the visual system is that in the brain there are edge sensitive neurons and line sensitive neurons. Take the Kanizsa illusion (the Kiwi fruit here is a great example); there are three circles with a chunk taken out of each of them, however, we see a triangle in negative space. Here the brain’s line and edge sensitive detectors pick up on the same cues they would receive if there had in fact been a triangle, and by what is thought to be a process of synchronous neural firing (Neural Binding ) the elements are bound into a perceptible representation.

This is an examples of bottom up processes that we can easily understand. However, the mind isn’t just a receptacle of content. There are top-down systems too. How these interact with each-other is incredibly important in order to understand how people navigate their environments. Understanding this relation would instruct people about how the content on a page is navigated in relation to the information people come to a web page to see. To some extent we know how top-down and bottom-up systems interact, but there are several models. Qualitative methods for me posed a means of solving the problem of which models to choose between.

My belief was that given a good analysis of peoples reports to stimuli, combined with what we know about cognitive systems we could develop a single piece of insight greater than the many separate theories to choose from. The results I got were pretty good; presenting complex scenes and visual illusions to people, then systematically providing cues to control top-down systems gave me enough evidence to show the method worked.

The Digital Connection

Human computer interaction, web-design and social networks offer researchers a great context to understand human behavior. In the same way that I had been inspired by my first adventures with qualitative analysis, the internet offers as much prospect. The digital world, despite changing the means by which people interact, at a base level doesn’t change the fact it is human beings doing the acting.

Research has begun. Data is collected by researchers and some interesting things have been discussed. Principles of web design are based on many of the principles of Gestalt psychology. For example the Principle of Proximity is an excellent example of just this. Similarly web conventions and ’site principles’ are an example of an applied understanding of the rules governing perception and attention.

On an altogether different scale Oblong’s spacial operating system (FYI – the inspiration for the technology in Minority Report , see the video below) shows humans extending the way in which they operate in an otherwise artificial environment. What’s important in this context is it is human behavior!

On a social scale several people have taken an interest in understanding human networks, the impact of their connections and the proliferation of information amongst them. Obama, Dell and Starbucks quickly took note of this (and boosted their profiles as a consequence). In an immediately accessible context Tom Smith at Trendstream is a great example of looking at analysis on a global scale. In a smaller context Josh feldberg has done some great analysis of political party followers on Twitter.

Amalgamating

There seem to be very exciting opportunities for research online. Much like the Kanizsa illusion, connecting lines of interest builds a bigger picture. Much like any good piece of art, seeing there are different levels to human behavior is crucial for deep insights to develop. On the one hand navigating our environments is important, however, as social agents with purpose, the ability to act within a network is a definitive feature of the changes that have made new media interesting. Similarly, understanding that these levels of insight are not mutually exclusive offers rewarding prospects that are intellectually and practically rewarding.

When I began conducting research one of the things that struck me was the importance of patterns. Qualitative analysis was different from quantitative research only in as much as we weren’t measuring against the normal distribution and computing significance. The great thing about new developments today does not come from seeing how many ways technology can be applied. Rather finding effective applications for trends in a human context and applying these is the crux and boon of working in a digital context. That is in effect the measure of our success.

Oblong’s Spacial Operating System

g-speak overview 1828121108 from john underkoffler on Vimeo.

Articulation isn’t just words, it’s presentation. The technology you use for that presentation and the way in which other people access your messages are all part of good communication. There is a lot that goes into even the simplest communication and working those things out matters. It matters because even a simple dish has to made with a certain amount of care.

By talking to you about what you do, by understanding what you want to achieve and by fully articulating your assets with you an excellent offering can be created.
By combing that information with information about your audience a good and resonant offering can be assured. That is the basis of developing an online offering, and doing it in partnership with someone who cares about understanding you is a good deal indeed.

By working in collaboration with you and developing a strategy to answer the questions you need answered. By establishing what the needs of your audiences are and by articulating what will be meaningful to them we will be in a good place to secure an offering online that has all the nuts, bolts and structure to ensure your success.

Why? What? How? Three questions people coming to you want answered. But more than that they are three questions you can answer about your users. Whyare they there? What will they do? How will they do it?
Ford knew that people wanted to get to places faster, but a faster horse wasn’t an option. Thankfully cars are a better technology than horses and offered something to people they didn’t know they wanted. In principle information design is much like the history of car design. Cars offer people a technology to help them achieve what they want to achieve, developing technology online, understanding what people want from technology – those are the secrets to a good online presence.
Whatever the problem — mapping the way people use information and working with them to uncover the best patters for you is a serious goal worth accomplishing.
Doing that in the most elegant way possible, that’s what I do. Do you want to be a thought leader? Do you want to be a trusted source? Are you seeking loyalty from customers? Each of these questions can be answered “yes” with information design.

The internet today is about change. It is a changing environment and that makes for busy work. But that’s also where the fun is. My role is to look within the change and find constancy that is relevant.

Digital work is as much about insight as it is about knowledge. Trends take more than one form, and trends are sometimes hard to follow. For example, page layout, design conventions, social media as well as best practice and the ever present anti-pattern can all impede or promote your campaign, message or offering.

My role is to ensure that you have the best information in a world where information is always changing. That doesn’t just mean compiling a list of sources, it means structuring information that is right for your offering.

I have had the chance to look at  several industries. That has allowed me to see what people do well and where mistakes are made. It’s that kind of knowledge that I bring to the table. And by working around your campaign – by working around you, by ensuring that you have a platform for developing your offering online – I aim to ensure that you will be making the right messages to the right people.

In this post I’d like to show my own exploring of my identity through sound and vision. I put these short videos together in 2009 as an experiment, trying aesthetically express my sensibilities. Each of the three depicts a different aspect of me. As usual I am always grateful for peoples views and ideas.

Association Framework

Association Framework from Alex Crockett on Vimeo.

Water

Water from Alex Crockett on Vimeo.

Fin

FIN from Alex Crockett on Vimeo.

Living day to day we sometimes forget the significance of our brains with respect to the ideas that make up our worlds. In our brain are a considerable number of neurons with significantly more connections. Odd as it may sound, there is nothing like the world in the brain, nor are there any clear ideas, just some gray and white mushy stuff. How your brain and my brain know a table is a table or an idea is an ideas is therefore puzzling.

Of course as science has progressed the questions have been framed differently. The way in which the questions have been framed has become and index for understanding how we relate to meaning in the world; understanding thought and the relationships ideas have to each other is important if we want to understand how we relate to our cultural environment. Knowing how our brains work will help us to frame ourselves in the conceptual world of memes and archetypes.

A good place to start to think about our dreams. In our dreams our experiences bear little resemblance to the actual world. But when we dream we are as good as conscience. For all intents and purposes we see, move and exist in a world, albeit a dream world. The question is how? A lot of work has gone into trying to explain ‘how matter becomes imagination’ (to borrow a phrase from one of my favorite scientists).

To start to understand we must return to when we are awake; there is distribution of activity going on in our heads. Memories encoded across regions of the brain are activated, not just to explicitly remember something, but to relate what we hear to the bank of information already encoded in our brains. Those semantic networks that become active reciprocally influence the way in which we encode the environment, we thus further perceive the world and our relation to it in relation to the memeories already banked up in our brains.

Priming offers a rather good illustration. If we are asked to study a list of words, and we are then given syllables and asked to complete them we are more likely to complete the syllables as the words that were in the list we studied. On a semantic level, if we are ‘primed’ with a word like doctor, we would be more likely to think ‘nurse’ than say ‘telephone’, why, because they are semantically related. Similarly, researchers have found that ‘priming’ people with aggressively related stimuli will get people to interpret others behavior during competitive games as more aggressive and will similarly trigger a more aggressive response than one would otherwise have seen.

One other important things about sleeping is that when we sleep our minds have a chance to encode and rehearse information that was important during the day, that is as well as process things that may have been on our minds. The same semantic networks that are active during the day are active in our sleep minus the real world to order them. Of course this is a rather simple account. But it’s the principle that’s important. The principle is that the world that we experience is related to active constellations of information in our brains, formed by the activity between neurons that structure and encode that information. That activity has an impact on how we act on the world, and of course that has an impact on our experiences, which further influences the world that influences us.

As human beings, as minds a significant part of that activity is ideational. A significant portion of our experience is formed through ideas, concepts and semantic activity. Things mean things (if I am permitted a circularity).

And that is the significance of meaning. The meaning we find in things drives us. We relate to meaning of things. Jung in his book The Science of Mythology drew this point out (albeit psychoanalytically), and if we think of the way in which we use representational mediums, like deserted islands (Deleuze), or the significance of a Brand in the modern world, we come close to understanding the significance of ideas in our lives. But they run deeper.

The concept of a schema is important in understanding the same point. Schema, or patterns that represent some part of the world don’t come in-built like the ability to recognize faces (or like the structures that contain the schemata). The concept of the archetype is of this form as is the concept of the meme. They share enough similarities to be synonyms for each other. That is they are both referents for ideas.

Combining all of the elements in this picture we can begin to form an understanding of our relationship with the world of ideas. Ideas, represented often as objects, have significance by virtue of our relation to them. The relationship between the objects we encounter, the ideas that we form them and the ideas we get learn in society act as referents, providing the environment with a sense of significance. That significance drives our relationship with our environment: pressing forward en-mass the development of ideas contained in that environment shape a shematic of ideational content pressing us with meaning. Thankfully this is a partial picture. One I hope develops the importance of ideas in the world as factors in our relationship with it. One that can help us better conceptualize why some ideas work and some don’t as we creativity develop an image of the world we’re in.