Thursday, January 24, 2008

2008 Horizon Project Report just published (by New Media Consortium)

The Horizon Project yearly publishes a report illustrating key state-of-the-art advances and trends in new media technologies, and their use for education, learning and creative thinking.

The report is full of interesting links to new tools and applications, as well as to experiences from universities and organizations worldwide.

The 2008 Horizon Report has just been published and is available on the New Media Consortium Website >>>>>>>

Hot topics are:
* video communication
* collaborative webs
* mesh-ups
* and much more.....

New article published:"Simple, Fast, Cheap: Success Factors for Interactive Multimedia Tools"

I just got one paper published on PsyhNology Journal, on low-cost multimedia development: Read the paper >>>>

Abstract:
This paper discusses key factors contributing to the “success” of interactive multimedia development tools in non ICT professional contexts.
We define “success” in terms of acceptability and large scale usage by entities and institutions who may need to build interactive multimedia artifacts but do not have technical competences “in-house” and must cope with very limited financial resources.
Schools or museums, for example, may want to exploit interactive multimedia for communication or educational purposes, but are bound to many resource-related constraints. In this perspective, we argue that simplicity, low-cost,
and ultra short “time-to-market” are key requirements for interactive multimedia development tools to be accepted and widely adopted by non ICT professionals.
To support his claim, we illustrate an exemplary tool that meets these requirements and was developed at our lab within the Policultura Project.
The tool was successfully used by cultural heritage experts in Italian small museums and by over 1300 students of 55 schools in Italy, and brought important educational and social benefits to all stakeholders involved.

Monday, January 14, 2008

Videos from our students in Lugano...studying new media and IDM....(videos are in italian)

Our undergraduate students at the University of Lugano post these nice videos
after the "hard-working" course of new media....

Facebook and Usability - by Jared Spool

Usability challenges and lessons learned at Facebook - told by Jared Spool from User Interface Engineering >>>

Design for “Infosuasive” Web Applications - paper to be presented at WWW2008 conference

We just got a paper accepted at the "World Wide Web 20008 International Conference".


Here is the paper abstract:

Value-Driven Design for “Infosuasive” Web Applications
Davide Bolchini, Franca Garzotto, Paolo Paolini

An infosuasive web application is mainly intended to be at the same time informative and persuasive, i.e., it aims at supporting knowledge needs and it has also the (declared or not declared) goal of influencing user’s opinions, attitudes and behaviors. Most web applications, in fact, are infosuasive (with the exception of those the aim of which is mainly operational).

In this paper, we investigate the complex set of elements that inform the very early design of infosuasive web applications. We propose a conceptual framework aimed at supporting the actors involved in this process (strategic decision makers, marketers, business managers, brand designers, communication designers, graphic designers, information architects, technology experts) to integrate their different viewpoints, to organize the variety of issues that need to be analyzed, to find a direction in the numerous design options, and to finally represent the results of this activity in an effective way.

Our approach is value-driven since it is centered around the concept of communication value, regarded as a vehicle to fulfill communication goals on specific communication targets. We place the analysis of these aspects in the wider context of web requirements analysis, highlighting their relationships with business values analysis and user needs analysis. We pinpoint how values and communication goals impact on various design dimensions of infosuasive web application - contents, information architecture, interaction, operations, and lay-out. Our approach is multidisciplinary, and was inspired by goal-based and value-based requirements engineering (often used in web engineering), to brand design (often used in marketing), and to value-centered design “frameworks” (as proposed by the HCI community). A case study exemplifies our methodological proposal, discussing a large project in which we are currently involved.





by the way, the conference features outstanding keynote speakers ("outstanding" at least by their title) >>>

Communications of the ACM - new! DIGITAL edition

browse the fully digital edition of CACM, in its new - magazine-like - design:
>>>>>>>>