Transparent Designs

Transparent Designs PDF Author: Michael L. Black
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421443546
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
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.

Transparent Designs

Transparent Designs PDF Author: Michael L. Black
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421443546
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 278

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

Transparent Design in Higher Education Teaching and Leadership

Transparent Design in Higher Education Teaching and Leadership PDF Author: Mary-Ann Winkelmes
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 100097832X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
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.

Transparent Plastics

Transparent Plastics PDF Author: Simone Jeska
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3764374705
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 159

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Book Description
A fascinating guide to building with transparent plastics. Prominent international avant-garde architects such as Shigeru Ban and Herzog & de Meuron frequently use transparent plastic for their structures. Transparent plastic seems ephemeral and thus captures the spirit of the times.

Specifications and Drawings of Patents Issued from the U.S. Patent Office

Specifications and Drawings of Patents Issued from the U.S. Patent Office PDF Author: United States. Patent Office
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 1104

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Book Description


Transparent Architecture

Transparent Architecture PDF Author: Gordon Gilbert
Publisher: Goff Books
ISBN: 9781939621450
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
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.

Transparent Drawing

Transparent Drawing PDF Author: Kurt Ofer
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781911339342
Category : Architectural drawing
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
Architect Kurt Ofer has formulated an utterly unique way of drawing, which gives a superior understanding of form. By following the method of "transparent drawing," you ignore an object's opacity and see beyond its surface, allowing you to draw it in a very distinct and holistic way.

Plant Analysis, Distemper Color, Book Cover Designing, Carpet Designing, Oilcloth and Linoleum Designing, Wallpaper Designing ...

Plant Analysis, Distemper Color, Book Cover Designing, Carpet Designing, Oilcloth and Linoleum Designing, Wallpaper Designing ... PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Decoration and ornament
Languages : en
Pages : 543

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Book Description


Transparent Designs

Transparent Designs PDF Author: Michael L. Black
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421443538
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
"The author traces the emergence in the late 1970s and early 1980s of the belief that personal computers should be easy to use. He asks readers to consider the consequences of a computational culture grounded in the assumption that the average person does not need to know much, if anything, about the internal operations of the computers we have come to depend on"--

Illustrated official journal (patents)

Illustrated official journal (patents) PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 508

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Book Description


International Library of Technology

International Library of Technology PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Agriculture
Languages : en
Pages : 554

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Book Description