Design Considerations

Although all storylines and emergent insights are based on the (auto-) ethnographic diaries, conducted interviews and documented activities that were part of Saskia de Wildt’s PhD research process, it is the careful maintenance of their open-ended nature that makes it possible for you to feel your own way alongside them within this space. In fact, it is by the very refusal to enclose them in conclusive findings, that my research remains responsive and alive. You can follow different cuts halfway your journey, or trail-off in response to an invitation you encounter on the way. This freedom to wayfare is performed in this knowledge-land-scape by you, and materializes through a narrative in which you take up the fictionalized role of a community-based researcher yourself.

Design consultation/collaboration

With financial support from the Queen’s University Faculty of Arts and Science, I was able to collaborate with Camilo Garcia, a visual artists and designer with a specialization in visual systems and publishing (see https://camilogarcia.info/). The final knowledge-land-scape and the following design choices were made under consultation of, and in collaboration with Camilo Garcia, who also coded the back end of the scape.

Wikimedia

Camilo and I chose to build this knowledge-land-scape on wikimedia. This choice was based on multiple features that the wikimedia platform offers in line with the theories that underlie my research. Its open-ended design, for example, allows for the knowledge-land-scape to remain responsive and living. The front-end of the knowledge-land-scape is generated from the wikimedia, which in theory could be adapted and grow beyond my PhD research. In addition, the use of Wikimedia also allows (select) access to the knowledge-land-scape back-end in a format that is accessible to anyone who has an internet connection and familiar to anybody who has made use of the “wikipedia” website.

Access the wikimedia here: link

Community accessibility

Low bandwidth requirements.