CCR 760: Albers (2003) "Introduction" to *Information Design*

Albers, M.J. (2003). Introduction. In Albers, M.J. & Mazur, B., Content and Complexity: Information Design in Technical Communication. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum. 1-8.

In this introduction to Content and Complexity: Information Design in Technical Communication, Albers illustrates the purpose of the edited collection, offers some general and introductory definitions of “information design,” and outlines each contributing author’s projects and arguments. As part of his discussion, Albers explains how difficult it has been to define “information design,” providing what he sees as some promising definitions from five varying sources. It is within the very first definition provided that I found some compelling areas of inquiry as related to the topics of ethics and technical communication.

The quoted definition from Janice Redish emphasizes the importance of considering the user as a first priority for information design, prompting the technical communicator to ensure that (through the design) users are able to “find what they need, understand what they find, and use what they understand appropriately” (2). This definition certainly privileges the user as the most important agent in considering what information ought to be managed and how information ought to be designed and presented, but it also assumes that TCers can know what the user needs. I wonder, then, how this assumption might be complicated when considering that the clients (those folks paying technical communicators for information design) are not the end users and so the end users may not often have a say in such content management and design. I’m left wondering: How might this claim (that end users’ needs are the most important element in determining information design) conceal (or at least fail to acknowledge) the political and ethical implications of TCers being the ones who actually choose, store, organize, and design information knowledge that will eventually be accessed, received, interpreted, and applied by users?

I understand, of course, that some users may be consulted in the information design process, but I imagine that for at least some content on the web--like online dating search engines, for example, where users are given selective and predetermined criteria to choose from when searching for potential mates—most users never have a say in what information is to be managed through criteria or how that information is to be designed. I realize how impractical it would be for all end users to provide input on the information they seek, and so part of the TCer’s job might be to investigate and imagine the needs and wants of potential users. Still, I’m left with the old “chicken or the egg” dilemma. Do TCers design information based on what users need, or do users merely end up relying on what TCers design? I imagine it’s a bit of both, but I wonder to what extent. I suppose I’m concerned it might be dangerous to assume that it’s mostly end users’ needs driving good information design and not the TCers’ and/or clients’ own assumptions, experiences, and goals. Recognizing this dilemma, Albers thoughtfully suggests that information designers “must avoid their own affinities, prejudices, and jargon, while developing a design” (7). But isn’t subjectivity in any composition inevitable and wouldn’t it be more precise to just acknowledge our subjectivity instead of pretending we can avoid it?

Also in his short introduction, Albers sends me through another ethical whirl spin when he explains that information design “must be considered the practice of enabling a reader to obtain knowledge” (7), and argues that the potential problems in creating effective designs has to do with making the design invisible to the user:

The hard part for the information designer is making the design disappear. Rather than being something the reader focuses on, the design must carry the information to the reader in a clear manner while remaining out of sight….In a good design, readers can effortlessly extract the information they need without being conscious about how they gain information” (6-7).

In other words, the TCers job is to make sure s/he erases any traces for how the information was designed so as to ensure the user experiences the content as painless and least confusing as possible. This seems a worthy outcome for TCers since I imagine most users just want to grab the info they need and get the hell out of there without having to waste any time considering the processes TCers took in gathering and designing the information. And though it seems a bit goofy and impractical to confront this argument with Marxist and Freirean claims that it is detrimental to knowledge construction and to the experience of knowledge seekers when gatekeepers aren’t forthcoming about unveiling the structures that so neatly design and package the knowledge seekers seek, I can’t help but see the value in doing so. I’m not going to argue that information designers need some sort of disclosure where users get the 411 on how much information designers subjectively construct the knowledge users receive. I’ll leave this blog post as unsure about this dilemma as I was when I started. I’m left unsure (and uncomfortable) with how TCers and/or researchers in the field might proceed when considering (a) how to be more forthcoming to users about the influences of TCers’ subjectivities, and (b) how to be more transparent about how information designs construct the knowledge users seek and perceive.

Oh my.

CCR 720: Jaszi and Woodmansee (1996)

Jaszi, Peter, and Martha Woodmansee. "The Ethical Reaches of Authorship." South Atlantic Quarterly 95.4 (Fall 1996): 947-77.

Summary:

The authors critically assess the ways in which copyright law has been grounded in Romantic notions of author as a creative and individual genius. They see the notion that authors’ work should be protected by law as their intellectual property as problematic since (a) we know that our experiences and creative works are collaborative (example of Wordsworth collaborating with sis); and (b) copyright laws do not protect certain cultural works or practices considered “naturally occurring ‘raw materials’ (960), yet they protect companies or “inventors” that borrow cultural-driven images, themes, or herbal medications. For example, they draw attention to how indigenous cultures’ “bioknowledge”—knowledge of botanical and medicinal treatments—is not protected under copyright and has instead been exploited by pharmaceutical companies (with the exception of Shaman Pharmaceuticals and the 1993 “Mataatua Declaration on Cultural and Intellectual Property Rights of Indigenous Peoples” pp. 968-969). Using historical and modern examples of how copyright privileges a single creator, the authors argue how indigenous cultures and other individuals (like peasants, indigenous people, and women) are not recognized as contributors or collaborators; instead, their cultural knowledge or material products are borrowed and then copyrighted by the borrower. They conclude by arguing that “Rather than refiguring traditional knowledge as the product of solitary, originary genius, we may have to reimagine the familiar subject matter of Western intellectual property as the outcome of collective, collaborative social activity.

Methods:

· Use Wordsworth’s work as an example of collaborative work placed under a single name (950-953)

· Historicize copyright, highlighting how cultural ideologies of author are informed by movements (influenced by Wordsworth’s et al.), arguing that an author is a secular prophet and original genius (953-955).

· Cite copyright law and other legal documents, historicizing major copyright movements and illustrating how these laws extend upon traditional notions of “author” (953-9)

o 1710 Statute of Anne; Copyright Act of 1842; nongovernmental Brussels Congress on Literary and Artistic Property of 1858; International Literary Association 1878; first Act of the Berne Convention, 1886; 1971 Act of the Berne Convention; Annex to the General Agreement n Tarriffs and Trade: Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS), 1993 (this includes trademards, geographical designations, and patents, but does not include computer software, musical recordings, databases, or cultural stuff like sounds, stories, images);

· Uses examples of African mugs, Native American dream catchers, and Crazy Horse malt liquor as products that have been copyrighted by companies while the cultural influences offer no endorsement or receive any verbal or monetary credit (960-962).

· Uses examples of the exploitation of indigenous knowledge about botanical treatments, showing that companies have appropriated this knowledge for the profitable production of pharmaceutical drugs without acknowledging or monetarily benefiting the indigenous people (964-.

Quotable Quotes:

• “We inevitably draw on the work of others in our creative activities—if not contemporaries working in close proximity, then those working at some temporal remove whom we may or may not acknowledge as ‘influences.’ The laws of copyright encourage us to deny others’ contributions to our creative production by awarding the exclusive right to exploit it economically to ‘author’—understood…as essentially solitary originators” (951, italics in original).
• In reference to an African styled mug made in South Korea: “While the Western models of copyright to which Berne and TRIPs give international reach may provide little or no protection to elements of the traditional culture from which the motif was extracted, the marginal ‘value added’ of the designer of the mug itself would constitute original authorship, justifying a copyright in the result as a so-called derivative work” (960).