SWE 4783 Web A - Interlocutors. Goal - Understand and experience interlocutors. Instructions - Read the presentation slide at a time in "slide show". Document your answers and submit in D2L Assignment folder “Web A” by midnight Sunday, Aug 28.

Audience: implies one-way, controlled communication In western culture of the last 50 years, what kinds of things have had audiences? Concerts, plays, films... In these traditional media: A member of the "audience" is typically a relatively passive recipient of something that's delivered at them. Different parts of the content are usually encountered in a defined sequence that is controlled by the deliverer, not the audience member Audience members typically have no chance to modify what's gets delivered at them (other than to skip or sleep through bits of it) Hence, everyone encounters more-or-less the same thing 1. Give an example of audience to a computing system:

But the web of today is very different from traditional media Someone using the web can: Choose what to view and what to ignore, and view chunks of content in whatever order suits them (e.g. think hyperlinks and banner blindness) See content outside its original context (e.g. RSS feeds let people see content outside of the originating sites) Modify what they encounter on your site, and what other people will subsequently encounter, in all kinds of ways, including (but not limited to): Changing the format (e.g., by using a different stylesheet or no stylesheet at all) Blocking certain kinds of content (e.g. Javascript, or pop-ups, or images) Making the content easier for themselves and others to find (e.g. by tagging it, posting it to social networking sites) Creating peripheral content that is encountered by other users (e.g. comments, ratings, reviews) Changing the content itself -- this is the essence of wikis Easily see (and affect) what is being said about you / your site / your products elsewhere 2.  Give an examples of I, II, III. Give the URL and what you see at different intervals of interaction. You should have some screen shots (done with ctrl and prt sc buttons)

So, do we really have "audiences" for "websites"? Maybe we did once, back in the "website as electronic brochure" days of 1995. But is "audience" a term that makes sense today? I'd argue that it isn't for many kinds of site. Audiences are dead. Long live interlocutors!

Here are some definitions of Interlocutor An interlocutor is someone who participates in a discussion or conversation, sometimes as a go- between. If you and your friend are in an argument and aren't speaking, a third friend could act as an interlocutor, delivering messages back and forth. Interlocutor may refer to: Interlocutor (music), the master of ceremonies of a minstrel show Interlocutor (politics), someone who informally explains the views of a government and also can relay messages back to a government Interlocutor (law), an order of any Scottish Court Interlocutor (linguistics), a participant in a discourse

Audiences are dead. Long live interlocutors! So we need a new shorthand term for "people who are using our web-based stuff in all sorts of contexts (not all of which are under our control), and who may expect to be able to contribute in some way".  The best term I've come up with so far is "interlocutor" -- as in someone with whom you have a conversation. We can have: Intended interlocutors: the people we are aiming our site at Unintended interlocutors: people we didn't intend to attract, but who are nevertheless using the site Positive interlocutors: people who are important or meaningful in some way Neutral interlocutors: people who don't have any effect on us Negative interlocutors: people whose interactions with us have some kind of detrimental effect And so on.  3. Using one of the sites used in #2 – discuss the intended and unintended interlocutor for the site - Discuss the positive, neutral or negative interlocutor for the site.

Studying “interlocutor” when designing interfaces helps with: Understanding that there are people who are not necessarily expecting to interact with the interface in a passive, soak-it-up kind of way (although some may well be). Increasingly, the people using sites are expecting to have opportunities to: Point out deficiencies or good points, and have their views acknowledged Enter into dialogue with the site Be treated as an individual where relevant (and have their privacy protected) They are the web users of today: creative, non- deferential, busy individuals. Treating web user as "audiences“ at our peril.

Think of the D2L interface. 4. Consider audience users to the D2L site – describe possibilities of these audience users. Now consider interlocutor users to the D2L site – describe these possible users and their interactions.

Last one! Scenario of usage : (This is what the user want to do) 5. Describe two different interlocutors using D2L. For each please give: Scenario of usage : (This is what the user want to do) Starting screen image: User’s Actions in the interface: Final outcome and screen image: