Anne mentions an article in the recent ACM Crossroads (I have to see if I can get a version from the digital archives, thanks to my ACM membership. Which, oops, I just remembered I have to renew!). She makes some similar points to what I discussed a few days ago.

She also points to a summary of the Urban Tapestries project which says:

The key features defining the relationships our respondents had with ICTs are the importance of control (or lack of it), socio-cultural contexts, expectation management, external or internal locus of control, and personal aesthetics.

It is clear that respondents used UT in order to negotiate boundaries and mark their territories, stake claims and identify their personal preferences ... In this sense, public authoring promotes a sense of control not only over users' territories, but also over their boundaries and their own role in those territories.

It's all too possible that I'm projecting too much of my own thinking on these issues (because it could be argue that those conclusions are not specific enough--to which I'd say that you have to put them in the context of the project), but I find that data very encouraging. I might not be that crazy after all. :-)

Categories: technology
Posted by diego on March 1 2004 at 11:46 PM