Celebrating Text
by Amanda WilloughbyThis entertaining video (via information aesthetics) celebrates the evolving nature of text on the internet. I’d like to see a similar exploration of how text is evolving across the landscape of networked devices. If the internet’s awesomeness is largely due to it’s unprecedented ability to associate and manipulate text, why don’t designers have a more extensive shared vocabulary for varieties of text? I’ve developed my own informal lexicon based on what behavior is enabled by different genres of text.
Microtext: Short formats like SMS suitable for sending messages when using a device with a constrained input, while short on time, or when you want to send a snippet of text like an address.
Minitextin: Formats that enable conversation-like exchanges; work best with an optimized, familiar input, like a QWERTY keyboard. May be synchronous as with active instant message chatting, semi-sychronous as with instant messaging while multi-tasking or asynchronous as in campfire.
Multitext: Texting to groups like twitter or dodgeball; good for spreading information across a network of people, provokes low-touch awareness and passive uptake of information. Context is often inferred.
Intratext: Sending text across multiple platforms like from AIM to cellphone. Or cellphone to blog.
I’d love to know how others have teased apart the many varieties of text based on experiential value.
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February 6th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
I apologize for what will manifest itself as a shameless self promotion by its close.
SMS offers a terse, direct, greatest common denominator approach to extrapolating information from sources within the greater aggregate. In English, big apps that do BIG things [index the web, catalog film schedules, products, prices, weather, transit timetables].
I wake in the morning and text ‘W 20005′ to GOOGL and “Dupont” to dc@traincheck.com on my phone. I brush my teeth, wash up, etc etc, while my phone digs up how cold it is outside and when the next three trains arrive at the Dupont Circle Metro station in DC. I speak to apps using this terse uber geek lingo, each with its own niche format.
The *niche text* subclass reflects the frenetic “I don’t-have-time-to-explain” lifestyle more of us are leading in a hyper competitive world. It will be interesting to see how many “standardizations” of SMS niche text arise with the increasing prevalence of text-based mobile communication.
Are we just shortening our lexicon along with the scope of our immediate interests and attention spans? Would that explain the evolution of “I’ll see you later”?
See ya later. -> Later. and See ya. -> C u l8r and l8r ->lates, late, L8s, L8 A myriad of examples exists…
Although I can type the full station name of any station in DC, SF, or Caltrain into traincheck, I as developer and my partner, a designer, made sure we could type in 3 letter codes to get unambiguous result sets in any metro we model (Much like airport codes). We knew when we did it that this would be awkward for people new to TrainCheck, but not to our content. And people ending up adopting the short station codes once familiarized with the system.
Niche text is the future of mobile information gathering, allowing us to ask more and get more with less cruft.
February 6th, 2007 at 6:08 pm
I think we used to care more about abbreviated words for text messaging in its early days when we had a firm character limit per message and the cost for sending text messages was worth considering, and it was a new form of data input that often took a long time to carry out. I find now that its possible to send long text messages easily, and I don’t care overly about the cost of text messages, and that I can type long text messages in seconds, means I now am quite verbose in my text messaging, or at least I avoid overuse of acronyms. The only acronyms I still frequently use is ‘ur’, ‘r’ and ‘2moro’, but I find with predictive text input, it is often easier to write the full word than to attempt to shorten it. I for one am happy to be an advocate for proper English grammar and spelling, and am happy that the environment is conducive to see it have a come-back!
February 12th, 2007 at 8:50 am
Here’s an interesting story run by CNN on IM text appearing within assignments.
This reinforces the idea that niche text [a la IM and SMS] is infiltrating our lexicon most significantly.
March 3rd, 2007 at 6:04 pm
“Experts have also noted how different types of technology have developed their own etiquette.
For instance, an e-mail can wait two days to be answered but a text message demands an almost immediate reply.” -
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/6411495.stm