</a>From qsiteq to qvehicleq

Transforming Static Websites into Mobile "Wizdomes": enabling change through intertwining dynamic and configurative metaphors (Part #2)

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Rather than constructing a site, and visiting other sites elsewhere in cyberspace, suppose the focus shifted to the "vehicle" in which one travelled. Such a shift in paradigm is evident in the case of people who choose to invest in a mobile home to travel their continent, possibly with little immediate intention to return to a particular physical location. The focus is then on the design of the mobile home (a caravan) and its capacity to move. The "centre of gravity" of identity is then with the vehicle and its enabling capacity rather than with some particular physical space. A similar shift in identity is evident in the desire of people to possess a vehicle that better reflects their sense of identity than the place they are obliged to dwell for socio-economic reasons.

But this possibility then raises the question of how exactly the design of a "vehicle" might be expected to be different from the design of a "site". In the design of a site, considerable effort is put into ensuring that it is a reflection of one's personal (or collective) sense of identity. The aim is to fruitfully distinguish its unique qualities from those of others -- notably to render it more attractive. Website designers now have considerable experience in building a site to this end -- respecting the basic needs of visitors -- navigational needs within the site, clarity of content, etc. If the site is a more personal one, holding notes, photographs and the like, less effort may be put into facilitating the experience of visitors and more into its security features -- exactly as with the priorities of a householder for whom the needs of visitors are not of major concern.

How then to think about the design of a "vehicle"? Clearly search engines may be appropriately considered as a form of "public transportation". They may even offer facilities to "personalize" the engagement with such transportation -- configuring colours, layout, language, skins, etc.

More challenging, as explored here, is the question of how the cognitive context and pattern, typically associated with a static website, might be transformed by conceiving of it as a personal vehicle for (experiential) travel through the universe of knowledge over time. It is one thing to have a (radio)telescope or radio to receive signals from distant locations (and to send signals back); it is another to be carried to those locations as in a space ship in which one lives and moves and has one's being.

One relevant innovation is the emergence of appropriately configured "avatars" as "vehicles" or "identities" through which to explore realms of cyberspace -- most especially in online gaming environments and virtual worlds. This is a reminder of how quickly society has come to accept the "reality" of what is purely virtual, notably in attributing a degree of reality to web "sites" and their corresponding domain "addresses" as "property" -- possibly of greater value and significance than physical property (at least to the proprietor).

In this respect the comment of Kenneth Boulding (Ecodynamics; a new theory of societal evolution, 1978) is especially relevant to the following exploration: \

Our consciousness of the unity of the self in the middle of a vast complexity of images or material structures is at least a suitable metaphor for the unity of a group, organization, department, discipline, or science. If personification is only a metaphor, let us not despise metaphors - we might be one ourselves. (p.345)

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