Read the papers.
Sketch a pair of designs for visualizing newsgroup discussions. These can be impressionistic - the point is to think about what these information spaces could be like if they were truly spaces. You should do two designs:
- An overview - this is the landsape scale - what does the space
of many groups look like? You can use the treemap visualization
of Netscan as a starting point if you want, but think about what
would make this "legible" - what are neighborhoods? What makes
one area look different than another? You may want to draw from
real-world metaphors - are there arid desert spaces? towns?
Are you showing accumulated information over time, or current
activity or both? You can think about some of the issues we
talked about in class, such as what does int men to navigate
such a space.
- The conversation scale - what does a single group look
like? THink about the information in the group accumulating
over time - how does this form a space on which the current
discussion is occuring? There are two main approaches to
depicting a conversation. The more common one, with online
conversations, is to focus on the words and threading, showing
the evolution and history of the postings. If, however, we
think about how we would depict a real-world conversation, then
the participants are the focus. You may choose either approach
for your sketch, or take a pass at both.
Please submit
the URL of your critique and sketch online by Tuesday evening.