Visible Language 

About: Visible Language is an academic journal published by Routledge. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Reading (process) & Graphic design. It has an ISSN identifier of 0022-2224. Over the lifetime, 489 publications have been published receiving 5644 citations.

Thoughtful Interaction Design: A Design Perspective on Information Technology

Abstract: JONAS LOWGREN AND ERIK STOLTERMAN THOUGHTFUL INTERACTION DESIGN A DESIGN PERSPECTIVE ON INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY MIT Press, 2004 ISBN 0-262-12271-5, 198 pages, hardbound, black and white illustrations, $35.00 When I picked up this book, I thought I'd give it a quick browse. The early pages confirmed this approach as it identified its goal as representing design to information technology (IT). However by the end of the first chapter I knew I needed to read it thoroughly. The authors are in the Scandinavian human-centered tradition that emphasizes development of the human side of technology use. As designers in search of digital solutions, they traverse design processes, understanding people and technology in use and development. This book is important because designers increasingly work with information technologists and epistemologically their worlds are quite different. What is important, what constitutes evidence for a solution, how a process unfolds and what is the goal are all somewhat different between these disciplines. Many designers lack basic understanding of science or logic and find interdisciplinary work difficult or even troubling. This book serves to provide a bridge from design to IT. Another book is needed for traffic going in the other direction, from IT to design. In an early chapter the authors develop terms for the design process in order to speak clearly about it; the terms are vision, a largely intuitive first organizing principle for what will unfold; operative image, the externalization of the vision that bridges the abstract and the concrete; and specification, the transition from an operative image into a specific something to be built. The way a designer works, holistically, fluidly and in a search for the character of an emergent whole, is significantly different from that of an engineer. The authors enumerate design ability with the following (p. 45): * Creating and shaping demands creative and analytical ability * Deciding demands critical judgment * Working with a client demands rationality and ability to communicate * Design of structural qualities demands knowledge of technology and material * Design of functional qualities demands knowledge of technology use * Design of ethical qualities demands knowledge of relevant values and ideals * Design of aesthetic qualities demands an ability to appreciate and compose After establishing design fundamentals, a chapter explores design methods and techniques. …

Slips of the Pen.

Abstract: A communication system with same frequency repeater station capability operates on a single channel and generally includes at least one repeater station which receives and transmits simultaneously on a single frequency, and a plurality of remote receiver transmitting stations, all of which operate on the same frequency as the repeater station. The repeater station includes a continuously operating transmitter, the keying of which is controlled by a local oscillator. Each of the remote stations includes a similar transmitter which is normally quiescent, but which is energized for local modulation and transmission by a push-to-talk button. Each cycle of the repeater station oscillator is modified by pulses received from a remote transmitting station, to reduce or increase the period as needed to produce identical periods and synchronization in each oscillator. The pulses received at the repeater station are not perceptible during its own transmission and hence, no control is then exerted. Hence, an equilibrium condition is immediately established at the repeater station in which the departure from coincidence of transmitted and received pulses at the repeater station is proportioned to its need for control. The transmissions from the repeater station are received by the remote stations not then transmitting. Intelligent modulation of the pulse period at these receiving remote stations is then evident and may be recovered.