Q + A With Berkman Fellow Judith Donath on "Designing Society"
This afternoon, Berkman Fellow Judith Donath will be our guest at the Berkman Center's Tuesday Luncheon Series, where she will discuss "Designing Society". Berkman intern Yvette Wohn caught up with Judith for a Q + A, where they discussed the influences and implications of online design, the tension between legibility and abstraction in online design, and avatar facial expressions.
How involved are designers when it comes to the actual mapping of what is or is not included? (How do they determine the design components of the online environment?)
The online world is wholly synthetic. If I design a house, I create spaces for people to interact, but I do not change their sensory or communicative ability. Online, when I design a new site, I can choose whether people communicate via text, drawings, or voice; whether their communications are ephemeral or archived; whether they are represented by name, avatar, musical signature, etc.
That said, much design is quite conventional. New social network sites copy features from existing ones, new chat spaces resemble old ones. One of the goals of my work is to broaden the vocabulary of online design, to make the architects of these spaces aware of the full range of possible designs, and of how they may influence the use of the space and how people act within it.
How do you feel about designers (such as those in Second Life) copying designs of famous fashion designers or the faces of celebrities in designing avatars?
There is an ongoing tension between legibility and abstraction in online design. Copying items that have recognizable cultural meaning makes for a highly legible environment - people know what these images signify.
Ultimately I think it is not very interesting. First, these reproductions of real world status symbols are "cheap" - they have none of the costs that give the original its meaning. At most, they function as signals of taste - there is meaning to a person's choice to look like Marilyn Manson vs Marilyn Monroe - but they do not indicate other qualities or require much commitment to that expression of taste.
Second, such copies do not make use of the unique properties of the online world. A rendering of a granite kitchen counter or an Eames chair signals your taste in home decor, but a bit superfluous, as avatars don't get hungry and their legs don't get tired. But they do move, they convey information, they can retain history. The more interesting approach is to find online representations that build upon the properties of a computational, data-based world.
- Continued -
Do you think the potential to change design in online environments encourages people to (or discourages them from) revealing the truth?
Let me rephrase that question. "Do you think different designs in online environments encourage people to (or them discourage from) revealing the truth?"
Then yes. That is one of the fundamental design issues. It is a design decision whether people are anonymous or use their real (and verified) names; whether their words are ephemeral or archived forever; whether others' opinions about you (your reputation) is made to be part of your identity, etc.
That does not mean that encouraging or enforcing truthfulness is always the design goal. It depends upon the type of situation one is attempting to create. To enable a fantasy world, where one wants to encourage people to be creative, to explore acting in different characters, one would choose a very different set of features than if one was building a space for serious negotiations, which again is different from a support space, which is different from a brainstorming space, etc.
If avatars could be given facial expressions, what kind of impact would it have to enable the user to control those expressions? Would keeping a smile during a boring conference enhance trust?
Because we are accustomed to relying on facial expression in the real world, we are likely to give more weight to avatar expressions than we should. We may be more trusting of an avatar with a pleasant expression - but the expression does not mean the avatar is more trustworthy.
Facial expressions have a big influence on how come to trust each other in real life. While they are not wholly reliable - we can fake a smile even if we're not pleased, avoid looking quizzical even if we're quite doubtful, etc. - they are relatively informative. Our face frequently does communicate our thoughts and emotions, and it takes effort not to show our feelings.
The control of online avatars is quite different. With today's interfaces, it is just as easy to paste on a smile, a frown, a look of longing or disgust. Avatar expressions are unreliable as a gauge of the user's state.