THESIS SUMMARY: THE IMPORTANCE OF USERS CREATING SOCIAL CLASSIFICATIONS

The implementation in mobile phones and the affordability of digital photo and video cameras has changed the way and occasions photos and videos are recorded. Financial and social barriers are gone and the action of photographing occurs so much it has almost become unnoticeable to us. All this digital material is stored on hard-drives, optical discs or the web. The increasing volume and presence of cameras has caused an enormous increase in the volume of personal visual data collections.

With the current systems for information retrieval it is difficult to semantically retrieve information from these visual data collections. At this moment the main focus of information retrieval is on the retrieval side. A focus on retrieving information out of existing data collections. With the current state of these systems for information retrieval it is still difficult to get positive results when retrieving semantically information from these sets of data.

In order to create a sustainable system for semantic data retrieval the focus has to be changed from the side of information retrieval to the side of information classification. Creating more valuable sets of data on the side where the information is created. Using the widely available options for meta information within the existing filetypes. A classification like this is of such a scale users should be involved into the process of classifying the data they create. Users have more knowledge about the information they have created than anybody else. It is a fallacy to give users the control to create data and information but to take away or not use the power to classify it.

Driven by the change operating systems are making to a different type of workflow moving away from the hierarchic namespace model. Interface design, group classification and the use of structures already existing within language can create a system that involves users into semantically classifying their data collections for successful semantic personal or public retrieval of visual information.

Download: “The importance of users creating social classifications” download as *.pdf (4,78 Mb).

Two days ago I graduated as Bachelor of Arts and Technology and Master of Arts in European Media. Part of my graduation exegesis is an online project called ‘Medialandschap‘.

The concept for Medialandschap originated from a fascination for ‘citizen journalism’ and the low quality videos created with devices like mobile phones and photo cameras and the growing group of people equipped with this type of media. As such these short videos are most of the time without or with little context. By creating a design where people are able to get more context the value of the individual video grows. The system uses different axes to sort the information.

The interface is connecting videos to videos with subjects alike and places. It sizes videos depending on the popularity. Places show recent activity and the amount of videos posted in a specific location. The interface-design is inspired by the creative methods and designing techniques for information design used in books created by Bruce Mau and Rem Koolhaas. The concept of the interface aims at being very informative and playful. Browsing and clicking through movies without loading lists. At the top of the website are three different broadcasts sorted on popularity, time and things alike.

The project: Medialandschap (Citizen journalism, video, interactivity and simplicity).

image: screenshot, www.medialandschap.nl

Dutch beach cams. Collected cams from around the web. Showing Scheveningen, Katwijk & Noordwijk. Have a nice summer.

The cameras: http://lab.hypernarrative.com/strand.html

http://lab.hypernarrative.com/