Designing User Interfaces and Interactive Design Tools for Cultural Information Systems

ions of human behavior, which serve the interpretive perspective of the author. As abstractions, characters and data are platforms for multiple interpretations by the readers Settings: although written text's content is static, it is framed in an apparent mobile ‘object’ whose routes are mapped within a certain historical, social, economical and cultural environment, influencing both production and use. Communicative tools: words, punctuation, syntax, stylistics, expressions in handwritten, printed or electronic form. S c e n a r i o / s t o r y t e l l i n g : plot is articulated in linear mode despite flashbacks or flash forwards. Target-groups: usually specific due to different national languages, varying educational backgrounds and cultural interests. Alternation of roles between writer and reader is impossible in pragmatic terms and, likewise, feedback is always indirect and delayed (e.g. review). Audiovisual Arts Characters and data (instead of human actors): the construction and analysis of characters and data could be parallel, in semiotic terms, with "texts" although the "languages" of audio-visual modes of representation could be better considered as "metalanguages". Settings: the "final products" (e.g. films, audio CDs) can be actualized or presented in different stages. Communicative tools: although technologies of recording, editing and projecting visual image and sound are rapidly evolving, the basic expressive techniques remain standardized (e.g. long-shots, close-ups, non-diegetic sound, etc). Scenario/storytelling: predominantly linear paralleled to writing texts. Target-groups: usually as broad as possible but sometimes specific. Alternation of roles between writer and reader is impossible in pragmatic terms and feedback is always indirect and delayed (e.g. review). Multimedia Applications Selected data (instead of human actors): characters and data are strongly selective due to their highly abstracted cognitive elements, which form a specific "meta-language". Settings: graphical design interface, digital images, fluid environments Communicative tools: graphics, texts, photographs, various forms of visual and sonic images (e.g. video, animation, music, speech). Scenario/story telling: proposed modes of navigation facilitating various alternative choices to the users. Target-groups: varying from the global to an individual scale. Highly interactive, user becomes a re-writer. Exhibition Design Selected data and human actors: translocation of characters, data and human actors structured under multiple forms of narration. Settings: virtual and real spaces and places. Communicative tools: object arrangement, graphics, texts, photographs, and various forms of visual and sonic images (e.g. video, animation, music, speech). S c e n a r i o / s t o r y t e l l i n g : predominantly interactive, non-linear, linear, accidental. Target-groups: varying from the global to the local or general to the individual scale. Highly interactive, user becomes a participant. Structural Elements of Cultural Representations (Following E. Goffman’s theory of performance) Dramatic realization of data Idealization / Idolization, symbolic abstraction of data or/and leading actors [protagonists] Maintenance of expressive control of leading actors [protagonists], selected data, appropriate communicative tools [use of artifacts], devices depending on the representational form Misrepresentation / Distanciation of the performers, and/or selected data, and/or communicative tools from the target group, due to different cognitive patterns Emotional discomfort or mystification of the target group when the representational models are revealed, analyzed or over dramatized Reality and Contrivance in relation to suitable, beautified and well articulated narrative models 1)