2. He started his own open source project,
ShiftSpace.org,
inspired by open source world of software.
but no designers followed him.
3. DON’T DESIGNERS KNOW HOW GREAT
FREE COLLABORATION CAN BE? ARE THEY
TOO AFRAID OF TRYING? DO THEY JUST
NEED A HELPING HAND? OR IS THE
PROBLEM THAT WHAT WORKS FOR CODE
JUST DOESN’T REALLY TRANSLATE INTO
THE DESIGN PROCESS?
4. Many discussions confused sharing with
collaboration, or were trying to advocate
the use of open graphics software for
purely ideological reasons.
More pragmatic way of open design?
5. He started a class at Parson School for
Design, with the warning:
“In this class, we’re going to explore the
possibilities of Open Source Design while
learning HTML, CSS & WordPress theming.
However, I should warn you that I don’t
have much experience in HTML & CSS, and
I will practically be learning WordPress for
the first time along with you guys.”
6. The first assignment was ‘The Tutorial’.
The students made (non-digital) tutorials
on such topics as
‘How to curve a football’, ‘A recipe for
banana bread’, ‘DIY 3D glasses’,
‘Finding an Apartment in NY
(Without Paying a Broker)’ and ‘How
to Sell Multiple Pairs of Shoes’
7. Then, he made a platform for students to
share their knowledge and code while they
learn HTML, CSS and WordPress.
It firstly was
the mailing list,
then changed to the Subversion
repository system,
then to Github finally.
8. He has managed to convince the students
why free and open source content
available online is relevant to them
and will advance their creative work.
But he has not yet managed to convince
them
why they should contribute too, why
they should give back to the
commons.
9. He understood that assigning an arbitrary
contribution was the wrong way to go.
The next semester:
- WordPress 2.7 icon design challenge
- helping their friends with making online
portfolios with Indexhibit
- posting their contributions on the class
blog and on the Indexhibit forums.
But aren’t they still altruistic?
The students probably were not
actually planning to use after the
class ended.
10. The next semester:
- write the kind of tutorials that they would
have liked to find for themselves.
They focused on CSS and WordPress,
and not only about technical side
but also about design.
And they received thank you
comments from random users on the
web.
11. But their ‘sharing’ just has been
happening post mortem to the
creative act?
Interface linguistics like ‘text’?
“For better or worse, both visual and behavioral
languages are not confined within such rigid
structures.
Ironically, it is the openness of these languages
that makes networked collaboration harder.”
