The Container Principle: How a Box Changes the Way We Think
there is more than just information exchange. How can an interface foster online conversation? By portraying participants more vividly, by defining contexts and boundaries, highlighting relationships, emotional reactions and rhythms in an exchange. And finally, the "close up" is how the individual is seen and chooses to be seen in online communities. Perhaps the most interesting section, because it is the most challenging from a design perspective, is how to create a meaningful "data portrait." Usernames, photos and fantasy avatars allow us to keep track of distinct identities online, but give us very little information about a person and as representations they can often be misleading. Data about a user's networked life conveyed through abstraction and metaphor may be one way to make an individual more vivid, but this introduces other issues of privacy, surveillance and control over one's identity. Donath makes a compelling case that because networked social spaces are designed interfaces, issues of privacy, surveillance, healthy group dynamics and the health of the larger commons are also design issues. That she presents these issues in their ethical complexity is a testament to her concern and hope for design strategies that pay attention to all the implications of networked life. The Social Machine: Designs for Living Online is "a manifesto about what the connected world can be like." Social interaction design can not only be a catalyst for healthy online communities but also a catalyst for more interactive physical spaces that are themselves increasingly networked. Think about what our cities would be like without parks, benches and gathering spots. These are public spaces, not overly determined or rule bound, as they are spaces to be alone or together with others. But they are conducive to openness and vivid presence. It is in this spirit that Donath wants designers and users of social technologies to think in new ways about how we become vividly present to each other in virtual spaces. the contAiner principle: how A box chAnges the wAy we think
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