Sitemaps for sore eyes
Friday September 14th, in the year of our lord 2007Members Josh Kopel and John Romanski posed an interesting problem for group postulation: is there a better easier faster cheaper way to map a project? After a few warm-up laps groups were formed and writing implements were distributed. The groups were assigned the task of reverse engineering the user experience of Flickr and pulling a concise map from its vast non-linear interface. Approaches varied greatly.
- Boy posts picture of cat in costume, Girl likes costumes - searches for costumes - finds cat, Girl befriends Boy, Boy messages Girl, Girl and Boy meet at Flickr Meetup, Girl and Boy get married and share cat.
- Nouns: User, Photo, Group, Set, Comment, Message, Slideshow, Tag
Verbs: View, Search, Read, Register, Upload, Browse, Tag, Note, Email, Comment, Print, Link, Group, Set, Slideshow, Befriend - Mapping Software Idea: an application that takes a site plan and visualizes all possible connexions between pages, with smooth transitions to show where you are going and where you have been using pretty ghost bubbles for inactive pages.
- Flickr’s incorporation of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and interactive self-actualization. The overlap of community, function, personal documentation, with the encroachment of corporate lechery.
- Real-time white board scheming a la UPS, requesting Postal Service accompaniment.
A few other points of interest:
Josh Kopel and his Make:Philly collaborators are preparing workshops on the Arduino microcontroller and working with LEDs. More details to follow.
Update: Details can now be found at The Hacktory website.
Chris Matta will hack your iPhone and configure your ssh settings to allow instant access to your web server. Thanks go to Alex Hillman for introducing the iPhone hacking process to the group. Instructions coming soon.
Alex’s beautiful big clock screen saver can be downloaded here.
Photography credit goes to Roz Duffy. Video coming soon.

