Design Patterns for Future Content

Design Patterns for
Future Content
By Don Day
Learning by Wrote
Thought Leader Thursday, 18 August, 2016
http://TheContentEra.com

Looking Ahead:
• A brief history of communication systems
• What are Design Patterns?
• Where are they used?
• How do they apply to our craft?
• Follow the footpaths:

Introduction
• DNA is life's solution to replicating designs that work well in a niche. Species are effectively
Design Patterns.
• Knowledge is not inherited (ie, genetic memory or brain backup); it must be transmitted
forward. Information and knowledge does not persist itself!
• Conundrum: Designing usable information systems is a balance between competing goals:
• Permanence
• Portability
"The seeds of destiny are nurtured by our roots in the past."
(TV series Kung Fu: "The Legend Continues")

Cave of Beasts : By Clemens Schmillen
- Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/in
dex.php?curid=31399425
Quick history of persisting information:

(Akkadian diplomatic letter found in Tell Amarna. {{PD-Art}} source:
[http://www.sff.net/people/tanuki/claytablet.png])

By Alfred P. Maudslay (d. 1931) - From Quirigua section of
Biologia Centrali-Americana, Archaeology. OCLC
191709278. Scanned & uploaded to en:Wikipedia by
Infrogmation. Transferred from en.wikipedia; transferred
to Commons by User:Banaticus using CommonsHelper.,
Public Domain,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6716
180

It was certainly permanent…
• Information generally did not stream to the people;
• People streamed to the information!
But then, information became
more portable

Heracles Papyrus (P._Oxy._XXII_2331.jpg), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=309972

Early wooden printing press,1568, capable of producing
up to 240 impressions per hour.
Public domain image via Wikimedia Commons
In the big inning,
Gutenbərg created
moveable type.

And on the 6th day, Publishing
Semaphores, heliographs (visual range)
telegraphs, facsimile (wired)
radio and television (broadcast)
AOL/Prodigy (commercial networks)
internet (“Information yearns to be free.”)
And the next big thing; teleported quantum qubits?
“Any sufficiently advanced
technology is indistinguishable
from magic.”
Arthur C. Clark’s Third Law

Portable, yes.
Permanent?
Apollo era lunar photographs:
Good data, poor rendering technologies at the time.
Good rendering today, poor ability to read encoding.
Evolution of storage formats:
Vast improvement in capacity;
Vast increase in technological complexity.
Still readable in a dystopian future?
Paper as the Ark for humanity's knowledge and literature?
Pulp vs rag?

What enables information to survive?
• It must be plainly readable
• The encoding (characters) must be defined
• Its storage must be resilient and portable
• Meta meanings must be obvious (like inflections in speech)
• And the means?
Design patterns in the storable representation

Examples
Markdown:
A First Level Header
====================
A Second Level Header
---------------------
Now is the time for all good men to come to
the aid of their country. This is just a
regular paragraph.
HTML:
<h1>A First Level Header</h1>
<h2>A Second Level Header</h2>
<p>Now is the time for all good men to
come to the aid of their country. This is
just a regular paragraph.</p>
∴ Design patterns in the storable representation

Design Patterns: What are they?
• The re-usable form of a solution to a design problem
• Originally applied to architectural design methodology
• Applies in principle to any domain with problems that
have been solved before.

Design Patterns:
• Fundamentally are templates and descriptions
• Express a design theory (information types, for example)
• Have high independence at the scope of application
• Codify wisdom that works: reproduce proven solutions

Definitions in this context:
Resource – A unit of information that can be accessed by an identifier (not including paths or
ranges).
Collection – A list of resources, assembled either by query or curation. The web is a pool of
resources and collections.
String – A word or sequence of words managed within an application as a resource (messages
and labels).
Component – A range or path within a Resource.
CMS (Content Management System) – A giant spreadsheet covering a stack of resources that
magicians cast incantations over to make something good come out.
Note that a Component CMS may manage either a resource or a string within a resource

But first, a word from our sponsors…

Design Patterns in Content,
physics model
Atoms:
o Term, title, query, description, body, etc.
Molecules:
o Arrangements of atoms to create StructuredData design patterns
Compounds:
o Arrangements of StructuredData molecules to create ComplexStructuredData
design patterns
Recipes:
o Arrangements of any of the above to represent TypedContent design patterns

Design Patterns in Discourse
Rhetoric: Principles of effective communication or persuasion
Diction/Elocution: Public speaking as an art form
Memes: Shared experience preserves culture
(Richard Dawkins: tunes, phrases, fashion, foods)
Proverbs/Quotes:
“Life is a daring adventure or nothing at all.” Helen Keller
“Early to bed, early to rise, Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”
Aphorisms: "Fate/Time/Memory is a cruel mistress."
Language: Words for snow or lava in various languages
Embedded sense: emoticons ;-), shortcodes [flame on], SHOUTING

Design Patterns in Layout
• Affordances to the main resource:
• Navigation tools, search field, faceted search selectors, hover tips, etc.
• Intent indicated by formatting:
• Emphasis, offsets, size, arrangement
• Visual conventions (SGML Shorttags, Markdown)

Design Patterns in Markup
Information Types (high level rhetorical/structural templates)
Name/Value pairing (metadata)
Declarative tags, presentational or descriptive intent
Expressed as patterns of use (archetypes)
• Condition -> Cause -> Remedy (TroubleShooting Pattern)
• Term -> Definition (DefiningList Pattern)
• If {This} Then {That} (IFTTT Pattern)
• {Example} Where {Values} (TemplateTweaking Pattern)
• Title -> Discussion (TopicTemplate Pattern)
• Title -> Query/Collection (MapTemplate Pattern)

Architectural Forms
•Definition: shrouded in SGML archives, but here’s a definition on record:
Eric van Herwijnen, Practical SGML

Example: IBM's InfoMaster Architecture

Principle: Pave the Footpaths
• Folksonomies and markdown are still developing footpaths
• Without standards, you have no common tools;
• Without common tools, you have no persistence of process and sharing of content
• "HTML5 spec is a living document."
• Translated: we are still watching where the footpaths end up.

Trends and Footpaths: What about…
• Letters? Photo albums? Diaries and journals?
o Microblogging is the new normal (Twitter, Instagram, messages, etc.)
o Microcopy is the new essay, “gist in 140 characters”
o Search is the new ToC
o Dictation is the new keyboard (Siri or “OK Google” on phones; Alexa on hubs)
• Clipping services (Evernote, Flipboard, etc.)
• Newspapers? (Feed aggregators)
o Feed aggregators
• UI and UX? (evolving to Customer Experience)

Agentive Technology
• Speech-based interfaces to intelligent back end services
o Siri, OK Google as information brokers
o Alexa as device control (home automation hubs)
• Smart home technology (lighting hubs, thermostats,
coffeemakers)
• Interaction design (e. g., assistance with navigation)
• Connect requests with services
• AI, chatbot agents that facilitate phone routing, basic
troubleshooting

Challenge: Find and pave the footpaths
• Foretelling is "seeing the news before it happens"
• Scaffolding is "preparing things so that the news you want to happen
happens"
• Trope: Three kinds of people:
o Those who make things happen
o Those who watch things happen
o Those who wonder, "What happened?"
• Technical Communication at the crossroads:
o To make and pave new footpaths beyond traditional writing

Learn about:
If This Then That (interface to conditional content and procedures; match requests to
resources) (http://ifttt.com)
APIs (interface to reference content) (http://apigee.com)
Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML):

“Make it so!”
Don R. Day
Founding Chair, OASIS DITA Technical Committee (current version: DITA 1.3)
LinkedIn: donrday Twitter: @donrday
About.me: Don R. Day Skype: don.r.day
"Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?"
--T.S. Eliot

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