Reviews

Information Flow and Knowledge Sharing
By: Flávio Soares Corrêa da Silva (Department of Computer Science, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil) and Jaume Agustí-Cullell (Campus de la UAB, Bellaterra, Spain)
Hardcover: 296 pages
Publisher: Elsevier Science MAR 2008
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0444529357

After surveying the reduced attendance at the March CHIFOO meeting, I coughed up an extra buck for a few more chances at a door prize. I was rewarded with a copy of Information Flow and Knowledge Sharing and after checking the selling price ($130) on Amazon, I figured I’d gotten a deal. All I had to do was read it!

Facts are facts - right?

Well, maybe…

...by the time I had made it to the end of the first intermission on page 64 I had been gently reminded that your facts might not necessarily be my facts (a point all too readily apparent when one considers how differently John Boehner and Harry Reid perceive the same reality). No, this book isn’t about politics - it does however lean more towards philosophy (the rational investigation of questions about existence and knowledge and ethics) than towards a “how to” guide of User Experience design.

About those intermissions: the authors have presented their material in ten chapters that have been separated by seven “intermissions” (view the Table of Contents: http://bit.ly/epDrJ3). These intermissions take the form of an illustrative story intended to reinforce the material being covered. I found the technique helpful although I was at first skeptical.

- What is the difference between information and knowledge?

- Why is knowing the difference important to those of us designing user experience?

- Why is remembering that your truth differs from the truth experienced by your users important?

These are some of the questions raised by Corrêa da Silva and Agustí-Cullell. While obvious answers are never provided, the aware reader is lead to conclusions by the questions asked.

Information systems are constructed to represent simplified models of reality. The language and media chosen to represent the information system impose limitations on the accuracy and completeness of the system. The creation of an information system is influenced by the interests, prejudices, purposes and goals of its creator. The interpretation of an information system is influenced by the interests, prejudices, purposes and goals of its receiver. While the creator certainly intends to specify a perfect system, distortions caused by: language and media choices, interests, prejudices, purposes and goals result in an imperfect information system which is further distorted upon receipt.

In other words: in a perfect world requirements would unambiguously be stated, a system design would be created to satisfy the requirements, specifications would unambiguously capture a design that addresses the requirements and a system would be developed that accurately reflected the specification. As we all have experienced such a scenario is rarely the case! Compromise and negotiation are typically required at every step due largely to the assumptions of perfection made on both sides of the communication equation: sender and receiver.

Chapter 6 on Ontological Reasoning runs a scant ten pages (two of which are full-page illustrations). I often find when learning that the initial presentation of a new concept is greatly enhanced by the use of a concrete example. For the first few pages of this chapter I was struggling until the concrete example of a map was introduced. The map represents a concrete instantiation of a geographical information syntax. The communication space embodied in the map contains the simplified representation of reality as captured by the cartographer who represents the sending agent in the example. By agreeing upon the ontology of a map, the reader accepts the usefulness of the simplified representation provided by the cartographer and the chosen syntax (the scale, symbols and detail provided). The map reader represents the receiver in the transaction. The simple 1:1 interaction between sender and receiver is expanded by introducing a tourist (with map) asking a local for assistance in finding a place. The transaction now contains three participants who have agreed to the map’s ontological usefulness each of whom has a different goal but all of whom have accepted the map as a valid communication vehicle. Although there are no conclusions drawn from the chapter’s material by the authors the reader should be able to extrapolate to UX design scenarios past, present or future.

About those illustrations: OK, I’ll admit a certain bias towards art. The fifteen illustrations in this book appear to have been the cut-and-paste efforts of non-artists who assumed an artist would take their drafts and create an illustration suitable for inclusion in a book costing $130. While they serve some purpose many are quite trivial and gratuitous.

More about those intermissions: The intermissions tell a story in narrative form and through the story the narrator poses philosophical, metaphysical even existential questions that relate to the crux of information flow and knowledge sharing. UX/UI design is all about both. That said, by the time I had reached the intermission on page 215, I was tired of the intermission narrative.

Chapter 10 is entitled: Conclusion and begins by letting you know that the authors initially intended to write one sort of book but over the course of years ended up writing another. Their final point (well not quite final since an Epilogue follows) seems to be that information may not always be what it appears to you to be and that knowledge is transcendent.

If you are not up for a bit of philosophy this book is probably not for you. If you are expecting a traditional text that lays out a meaningful information flow pattern that you can follow while performing the UX/UI/IA types of work you likely do while at your “day job” this book is also probably not for you. If you’re willing (and have the time) to open yourself to some of the fundamental “big issues” that form the basis of our design thoughts - take the time to read this.

While it’s clear that this text has been translated, it’s also clear that an English-speaking subject matter expert review would have greatly helped smooth out some rough spots. My concern being: muddy information flow and knowledge sharing in the technical chapters could be similar to the obvious (English) gaffes in the intermissions.

On the series:

The stated aim of the book series “Capturing Intelligence”; is to publish books on research from all disciplines dealing with and affecting the issue of understanding and reproducing intelligence artificial systems. Information Flow and Knowledge Sharing (reviewed above) is the second book in this series. The first book in this series:

Fuzzy Logic and the Semantic Web
Edited by: Elie Sanchez,
Hardcover: 496 Pages
Publisher: Elsevier Science FEB-2006
ISBN 10: 0-444-51948-3

...shows the positive role Fuzzy Logic, and more generally Soft Computing, can play in the development of the Semantic Web, filling a gap and facing a new challenge. It covers concepts, tools, techniques and applications exhibiting the usefulness, and the necessity, for using Fuzzy Logic in the Semantic Web. It finally opens the road to new systems with a high Web IQ.