Critical Design & the Brunner Collection
In exploring the online Brunner collection, I find the interface easy to use and visually appealing. I think the amount of text provided to introduce each collection is appropriate, and appreciate that more information is included once you navigate through the collections. When I was looking at specific images, I’d use the included tags to navigate to other similar objects, and I wonder who created the tags for each object—if other users or creators might have tagged the artifacts differently. I also wonder about the translation of the tags: are there additional ways to think about specifics of images based on the specificity of language used?
Further, after reading Frischknecht’s “Critical Design Methodology,” one thing I see as a growth area for the collection is the interactivity of the site. Frischknet mentions association and order as common interactions, but it seems that these are already done for users on the site. I think it could be powerful for users to be able to create their own clusters by associate and order. Further, I wonder how the site’s interactivity would change if users could annotate the texts and/or view others’ annotations.
While the site is functional, easy to use, and visually appealing, I think there are ways for the collection to boost engagement through new ways of interacting with the collection.