In the Nardi & O'Day chapter, A Matter of Metaphor, the
authors refer to the popular work of Donald Norman on affordances of
designed objects and how human memory, perception, and reasoning
contribute to design successes and failures (p. 29). They state
that Norman, "focuses on what happens when individual human beings
interact with singular material objects--with little or no reference to
the social situations or even the surrounding physical context in which
these encounters take place" (p. 29). Similarly, in her work, Museum Exhibitions and the Dynamics of Dialogue,
author Kathleen McLean (Director of Public Programs and the Center for
Public Exhibition at The Exploratorium in San Francisco) discusses a
trend in exhibition design emerging in the 1980's toward sensitivity to
the "subjective representations inherent in exhibition display" (p.
201). McLean states that, "some of the most interesting and
thought-provoking exhibitions were being created by artists, who played
a major role in creating a new genre of self-reflective exhibitions
that challenged the traditional values and interpretations of exhibit
planners and the conventional contexts of museum display" (p.
203). McLean points to artist Fred Wilson's exhibition, Mining the Museum,
at the Maryland Historical Society to illustrate her previous
statement. In this exhibition, Wilson took objects (i.e. tools)
that already existed within the Historical society's collection and
re-ordered, or juxtaposed, them (i.e. as text) in display. One of
Wilson's displays, Metalwork 1793-1880, was an arraingment of
silver vessels with a pair of slave shackles. The artist's
intention with this work was to show that these objects could have been
made by the same person and that how they are displayed influences how
we come to know them in the world. Thus, Wilson's work
destabilized notions of "truth" through the juxtaposition of tools as
text in order to reference the socio-historical context of the
information otherwise viewed as singular material objects.
Interpreting Affordances of Designed Objects and the Influence of Context
No TrackBacks
TrackBack URL: https://blogs.psu.edu/mt4/mt-tb.cgi/149232
You bring up some interesting thoughts about designed objects and how we view them.
In "Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things," Donald Norman discusses design in three levels: visceral (aesthetic), behavioral (functionality and usability), and reflective. He proposes that the best design would incorporate all three levels. For instance, a tea pot that looks great, works great, and brings back good memories from a childhood experience would use all three levels of design. By rearranging objects, Wilson was asking people to look at them in a different light, to self-reflect on the object in a way that wasn't possible before. He was changing the reflective level of design.
In terms of Web 2.0. technologies, I think we can have huge successes in being change-agents among teacher development if we can use these ideas to our advantage. Instead of introducing a technology as something modern and innovative, we should strive to introduce the same technology in a way that would allow teachers to self-reflect and see the product as just an extension of their old teaching methods.