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<font size=3>Dear AIR-L colleagues: Please consider this call for essays,
with the usual apologies for any cross postings.... -
Craig<br><br>
* * * * * <br><br>
Beyond Usability: Web Design, Digital Theory and the Humanities<br><br>
This book collection will consider the contributions that the humanities
disciplines can make to understanding and improving the emerging
practices of Web design and use. The editor calls for essays that
describe or theorize ways that the humanities disciplines might enlarge,
enrich or provide an alternative to the scientistic standard of
"usability," which has achieved a critical hegemony in current
discussions of Web-site creation. These essays should begin and
sustain a dialogue across the art/science dichotomy, which the emergence
of usability has polarized.<br><br>
More than a common-sense focus on writing or designing for an intended
user, usability is founded on a narrowly instrumentalist view of language
and design. That is, the form of a site, from a usability
perspective, is merely a neutral container for the content, which always
carries the same meaning regardless of the presentation, expression or
performance. In usability terms, writing or design that calls
attention to itself is bad writing/design because it fails to convey the
message transparently. In contrast, this collection will use the
theories and practices of the humanities to explore how Web design can be
reimagined and refigured if language and form are understood as
constituting meaning, and if verbal or visual expression is recognized
not just as a delivery mechanism of "information," but also a
medium of consciousness and thought.<br><br>
Disciplinary perspectives might include, but are not limited to, rhetoric
and composition, cultural studies, creative writing, literary studies,
history, critical theory, communication, art history, media studies,
women's/gender studies, etc. The collection will speak to an
audience of scholars and advanced students, and include critical pieces
that reflect on institutional and cultural practices, as well as
practical pieces that describe and recommend specific techniques of
humanities-based digital design, online use, and electronic
pedagogies.<br><br>
Send a 500-word abstract and short vita in Word format or RTF by October
1, 2002 either by e-mail to <cstroupe@d.umn.edu> or by mail
to<br><br>
Craig Stroupe <br>
Department of Composition <br>
1201 Ordean Court <br>
# 420 University of Minnesota Duluth <br>
Duluth, MN 55812-2496<br><br>
E-mail inquiries and questions welcomed. Read the latest on the
_Beyond Usability_ project at
<<a href="http://www.d.umn.edu/~cstroupe/beyond.html" eudora="autourl">http://www.d.umn.edu/~cstroupe/beyond.html</a>>.<br><br>
CONTEXT:<br><br>
Since usability guru Jacob Nielsen declared the "end of web
design" in a July 2000 column--see
<<a href="http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20000723.html" eudora="autourl">http://www.</a>useit.com/alertbox<a href="http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20000723.html" eudora="autourl">/20000723.html</a>>--common
wisdom has held that the age of experimentation and exploration in Web
design is over, and that the practices of digital communication now
require a very high degree of standardization, conventionalization, and
predictability based on the scientistic principles of usability. In
Nielsen's words, sites must "tone down their individual appearance
and distinct design.... Users spend most of their time at other
sites. This means that users prefer your site to work the same way
as all the other sites they already know."<br><br>
Commenting on the apparent triumph of the usability approach, David
Walker--see
<<a href="http://www.shorewalker.com/pages/siegel_turns-1.html" eudora="autourl">http://www.</a>shorewalker<a href="http://www.shorewalker.com/pages/siegel_turns-1.html" eudora="autourl">.com/pages/siegel_turns-1.html</a>>--reports
that designer David Siegel, whose 1996 book _Creating Killer Web Sites_
was among the first to define an aesthetic of
"third-generation" Web design, essentially "joined the
Nielsen camp" in 1998 by abandoning his efforts at cutting-edge
design and turning to providing strategic consulting for businesses
developing presences on the Web. Walker asserts that Siegel's
legacy is a dwindling tradition of Web design that ignores the needs of
users, who "need science" but too often "receive only
art."<br><br>
This collection seeks to extend the dialogue between humanities-based
writing/design and scientistic usability into new territory beyond the
promotion of usability as the final word in Web design.<br>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
* * * * Craig Stroupe / Assistant Professor / University of Minnesota
Duluth / Department of Composition / 1201 Ordean Court # 420/ Duluth, MN
55812 / 218-726-6249 / fax 218-726-8228 /
<<a href="http://www.d.umn.edu/~cstroupe" eudora="autourl">http://www.d.umn.edu/~cstroupe</a>>
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