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This fascinating cultural history of the personal computer explains how user-friendly design allows tech companies to build systems that we cannot understand. Modern personal computers are easy to use, and their welcoming, user-friendly interfaces encourage us to see them as designed for our individual benefit. Rarely, however, do these interfaces invite us to consider how our individual uses support the broader political and economic strategies of their designers. In Transparent Designs, Michael L. Black revisits early debates from hobbyist newsletters, computing magazines, user manuals, and advertisements about how personal computers could be seen as usable and useful by the average person. Black examines how early personal computers from the Tandy TRS-80 and Commodore PET to the IBM PC and Apple Macintosh were marketed to an American public that was high on the bold promises of the computing revolution but also skeptical about their ability to participate in it. Through this careful archival study, he shows how many of the foundational principles of usability theory were shaped through disagreements over the languages and business strategies developed in response to this skepticism. In short, this book asks us to consider the consequences of a computational culture that is based on the assumption that the average person does not need to know anything about the internal operations of the computers we've come to depend on for everything. Expanding our definition of usability, Transparent Designs examines how popular and technical rhetoric shapes user expectations about what counts as usable and useful as much as or even more so than hardware and software interfaces. Offering a fresh look at the first decade of personal computing, Black highlights how the concept of usability has been leveraged historically to smooth over conflicts between the rhetoric of computing and its material experience. Readers interested in vintage computing, the history of technology, digital rhetoric, or American culture will be fascinated in this book.
This book offers a comprehensive guide to the Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT) framework that has convincingly demonstrated that implementation increases retention and improved outcomes for all students. Its premise is simple: to make learning processes explicit and equitably accessible for all students. Transparent instruction involves faculty/student discussion about several important aspects of academic work before students undertake that work, making explicit the purpose of the work, the knowledge that will be gained and its utility in students’ lives beyond college; explaining the tasks involved, the expected criteria, and providing multiple examples of real-world work applications of the specific academic discipline. The simple change of making objective and methods explicit – that faculty recognize as consistent with their teaching goals – creates substantial benefits for students and demonstrably increases such predictors of college students’ success as academic confidence, sense of belonging in college, self-awareness of skill development, and persistence. This guide presents a brief history of TILT, summarizes both past and current research on its impact on learning, and describes the three-part Transparency Framework (of purposes, tasks and criteria). The three sections of the book in turn demonstrate why and how transparent instruction works suggesting strategies for instructors who wish to adopt it; describing how educational developers and teaching centers have adopted the Framework; and concluding with examples of how several institutions have used the Framework to connect the daily work of faculty with the learning goals that departments, programs and institutions aim to demonstrate.
In a departure from the realm of pure chromatic design, this surprising new volume in Victionarys bestselling Palette series investigates the use of transparency in design. From crystal clear translucency through a full range of opaque treatments, designers use the latest in materials and printing techniques to create interest and mystery. From the whimsical to the ingenuous, the designs conceal or reveal, incorporating color, pattern and typography in this interplay of layers. Some are interactive, requiring the participation of the consumer or even light itself to produce the desired effect. Other designs quietly demonstrate their visual power, appealing to our innate sense of wonder. Includes a diverse assemblage of examples from the fields of architecture, fashion, print, product, packaging design and more.
This compilation of work by Architect Gordon Gilbert explores the idea of transparency in architecture, ranging from an open physical transparency, to clarity of structure, to the dematerialization of the physical object, and further to evolving and expanding states of architectural awareness. This exploration is facilitated through a revealing juxtaposition of experimental drawing, subliminal texts, and constructed work.With essays by Michael Sorkin, Zvi Hecker, Lebbeus Woods, and Christian W. Thomsen.
This book explores the specific role that glazing technologies play within the world of smart architecture as important components of contemporary and future sustainable architectural and technological research. Smart Architecture begins with a definition of the concept of “smart” in architecture and examines how innovative technologies and materials have shaped buildings over the years. The author then provides a supporting database of contemporary smart architecture—mapping adopted strategies, recognizing common patterns, and evaluating current and future trends in the context of smart building envelopes, energy efficiency, and the development of high-potential innovative building components. The book proceeds with a focus on the specific role that glazing technologies play in this framework and provides a systematic methodology to quantify options for the effective integration of transparent building components within advanced and innovative building envelope systems.