Introduction

There are many barriers that influence how we should, or can, communicate using technology. Whether they are physical screens, the technology, or the perceptual or cultural screens we need to get our message past in order to communicate effectively. These writings hope to address some of the important issues involved.

What

One thing that has always fascinated me is the way humans perceive the world. When I began to study in art school my eyes were literally opened, like many before me, by an exercise in seeing what was there in front of them. We constantly filter out things that are judged unimportant. That is just one of the things we need to be aware of when we try to get our message across.

Since then I have spent almost all of my working life trying to get messages across, whether as a lecturer, or media producer, or while working in web technology. I hope that some of the insights from that may be of value.

Post cover a wide range of things, from the vagaries of human vision to the ways in which how we think, and how we communicate, are affected by things like attention span, daydreaming cycles, or cognitive load.

As both producer and user I’m intrigued by how we are adapting to technology for communication and story telling. Since the invention of photography the ways we can interact have changed fundamentally – bringing profound social and political change. With the advent of digital technology the pace of change has quickened, and we are living through the changes to our lives happening in its wake.

Why

I believe that we are our stories, that in so much as a computer can be an analogy for a human mind our stories—our culture—are the programs we run by. We should all take an active interest in both how and what we communicate.

One of the great lessons in learning to paint is that the materials and brushes you choose, and the types of marks you make, can say a lot about the subject of the picture. The medium may not be the message, but it profoundly shapes it.