TITLE: Datacloud: Expanding the Locations and Roles of Documentation

AUTHOR & AFFILIATION: Johndan Johnson-Eilola, Eastman Kodak Center for Excellence in Communication, Clarkson University, USA

KEYWORDS: interface design, history and future of computing, contextual inquiry

PRESENTER / CONTACT PERSON: Johndan Johnson-Eilola

CONTACT EMAIL: johndan@clarkson.edu

ABSTRACT:

In this paper, I will present a broader, cultural history of those developments in an attempt to understand not only our past but also our future. This history (illustrated with vivid examples) provides a useful model for understanding how the computer, at different times, has supported and structured work in specific ways demanded by changing definitions of "work" and "learning". Based on historical studies of computer hardware and software, I link the movement of computer documentation into the interface with sweeping changes in the nature of work in information/knowledge economies, the processes of learning, and the development of transnational or postmodern capitalism during the last four decades.

In the second section of the talk, I discuss research I've been conducting with users in information-saturated environments and occupations. Where traditional computer users are often overwhelmed by crowded screens, the people I've studied work comfortably-often giddily-in this environment, immersed within data that they manipulate in open-ended, complex tasks. These types of information-dense interfaces are very effective at supporting emerging forms of work crucial to the rapidly growing information economy, particularly those that rely on the ability to experiment with and within complex and changing masses of information (a facility increasingly required in a range of jobs, from financial analysis to nonlinear audio/video production).

In the final section of the talk, I argue that the field of computer documentation is in a unique position to make central contributions to not only interface design but work and communication in general. The paper concludes with concrete recommendations for integrating learning aspects more fully into computer interfaces.

Last modified October 28, 2001 by Scott Tilley.