[spectre] join the open timeline for the history of webdesign

Mon Oct 4 19:12:05 CEST 2004

dear list, dear geert,

a remarkable step in the timeline of webdesign was the introduction of 
standards. according to the source, the website www.designtimeline.org 
conforms to the html 4.01 standard:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN">

yet due to the fact that this is simply not true (2 invalid tags in the 
front page's frameset and 33 in the question box frame) it does not 
display correctly in (rather) standard-conforming browser as the apple 
safari or the mozilla based camino browser (both on os x).

question to the list:
- does practice and theory in design drift apart even more these days?

lg
martin

On Oct 4, 2004, at 17:38, geert wrote:

> Call for Participation:
> Open Timeline for the History of Webdesign
>
> www.designtimeline.org
>
> We would like to invite you to contribute to the online collective web
> design history timeline. This project wants to map your first 
> encounters
> with the World Wide Web. It is part of a larger project entitled A
> Decade of Webdesign that culminates into an international conference 
> in Amsterdam,
> January 21-22, 2005 (www.decadeofwebdesign.org).
>
> Open History Timeline
> As a core part of the project, beginning before and continuing after 
> the
> conference we will initiate an 'open research' website/database into 
> the
> first decade of web design.  The online forum will take the form of a
> visual and textual timeline generated out of a self-customizable 
> questionnaire.
> Using a custom content management system the site will allow for:
>
> . Users to add images, comments and links to make a collective history 
> of
> the web as it developed.  Such elements might include histories of 
> their
> own first homepage; the first use of a technology; original html code;
> reminiscences of key designers, innovators, critics and technologists.
>
> . Using a question based interface users can write their own questions
> and respond to those of others.  All questions entered will then be
> available, ensuring that no one set of views or way of writing 
> predominates.
>
> . Multi-lingual use.
>
> The site is designed for use both by the general public and as a simple
> structured tool which can be used for both research and teaching.  This
> project is intended to be of interest to a broad range of disciplines
> from design to computer science and from history to sociology. If you 
> are a
> teacher we would like to invite you to consider integrating this site
> into your curriculum, as a piece of independent research for students, 
> as a
> set workshop, or as the basis of a sustained project.
>
> Conference
> Until recently web design discourses have been dominated by a frantic,
> market driven search for the latest and coolest. The ongoing media buzz
> around 'demo design' has prevented serious scholarship from happening.
> Technical innovations such as frames, shockwave, flash, WAP and 3G have
> dominated the field. Until 2001 a substantial part of the sector's
> activities was geared towards instruction and consultancy. The dotcom
> crash and IT slump have cleared the field-but not necessary in 
> positive ways.
>
> Due to budget cuts organizations now believe they can do without 
> design altogether.
> Instead of asking ourselves what the Next Big Thing will be, we firmly
> believe that future design can be found in its recent past that offers 
> a
> rich mix of utopian concepts and undigested controversies. In short, 
> these ten years of web design has seen design change as much
> as it has seen the impact of a new form of global media. We want to 
> celebrate
> this and to use a consideration and testing of the recent past to 
> provide a
> platform for thinking about what is to come.
>
> Sessions for the event will be:
>
> -Histories of Web Design
> What do social, technical and cultural historians propose as ways to
> make an account of the last decade?
>
> -Meaning Structures
> As automated site-design becomes increasingly important the history of
> the interweaving of technology and culture up to the point of semantic
> engineering is mapped out
>
> -Modeling the User
> Creativity and usability have often been set up as the two key poles of
> web design. This panel asks instead for a more sophisticated narrative
> about the change in understanding of user needs and desires over the 
> last ten
> years
>
> - Digital Work
> Following on from the Digital Work seminar this panel brings together
> key observers and critics of the changing patterns of work in web 
> design
> along with designers
>
> - Distributed Design
> The web amplified an explosion on non-professional design.  This panel
> will ask what happens to design once it becomes a non-specialist 
> network
> process.
>
> Confirmed Speakers
> Michael Indergaard, John Chris Jones, Peter Luining, Peter Lunenfeld,
> Geke van der Wal, Franziska Nori, Danny O'Brien (NTK), Danny O'Brien,  
> Steven
> Pemberton,  Helen Petrie, Ros Gill,  Adrian McKenzie,
> Schoenerwissen/OfCD, Jimmy 'Jimbo' Wales, etc. Further speakers are 
> yet to be confirmed.
>
> Organization:
> Media Design Research, Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam,
> http://pzwart.wdka.hro.nl/
> Institute for Network Cultures, Hogeschool van Amsterdam
> http://www.networkcultures.org
> Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
>
> Register by sending an email to info at networkcultures.org.
>
>
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