The Screenless Office
screenl.es
screenl.es
"Another aspect of contemporary screen-based culture is the constant psychic conflict often referred to as the "Attention Economy". In just trying to watch one youtube video, a typical user is confronted with dozens of other appeals to focus somewhere else: comments, ratings, related videos, advertisements, video responses, etc. Because screen-based interaction is premised on temporal immediacy, we are, as users forced into a state of hyper-attention where we must constantly fight against the, largely commercial, attempts to make us look at something else. When we remove the screen (and by necessity, simplify the interface) we introduce a new form of temporality, where the speed of interaction might more accurately reflect our ability to percieve and understand information."
I think this is the important part of the whole idea. On the other hand, and, in my opinion, you can achieve a similar experience as:
1. use a laptop and/or desktop
2. disable your notification system on your desktop
3. browse the web with an extremely simple browser, like w3m
4. one display
5. full-screen mode
6. don't scroll gradually; read from top to bottom and use pgup/pgdown
I found this the best way to focus on content and work, however, most workplaces won't tolerate not responding to instant messages and notifications.
I actually don't think that IM is a net positive for me. The channel support in Slack/Teams/Stride is.
Yep. No problems with dedicated phone number, dedicated im address, dedicated email, etc. Group chats, group discussions, mailing lists, git commit messages, wiki edits, etc - those are the ones that can be very hard to follow, especially if you're involved in many.
If employees want it and the company doesn't provide it, they'll do it themselves, which is part of Slack's core business model.
People focusing full-time on the task at hand is an illusion and always has been; if it was real, it'd be bleak, depressing and more like forced labor / code monkeying than an ideal. There's a few people that can do it and actually enjoy it, but I'm fairly sure the vast majority would go mad.
This. IM conversations take longer than in person ones (or video chats), have a higher rate of misunderstandings, cannot be flagged for follow up or bookmarked for reference, and the red blobs contribute to higher stress levels. It adds nothing to productivity, IMO. Yet being ‘present’ on slack is the new being at your desk before the boss.
Huh? More filtered than email? Where in most cases you used to have sieve level server side filters and any kind of filter on the client side (in the real, desktop email clients era)? The capabilities of email filtering have been diminishing for many years, so I may even believe this is becoming true these days, but it certainly is shocking.
You have a slack SLA?! How is that even measured, does slack have some kind of reporting tool?
I think one of the best parts of Slack is that the messages can be referenced by simple URL. For example from a ticket.
And searching helps find many old nuggets of information that were in a casual chat.
It's awesome, the first times in a long time that I have the feeling of "job done" when I shut down the computer.
I was previously using a tilling window manager (xmonad), but you can always collect garbage on another workplace.
With cwm, the possibility to really hide a window or to group them is unbelievable.
Posting this on Debian command line with the evilwm and Firefox. No notifications, quiet, minimal.
Am I just spoiled by smooth scrolling on all my devices, or is this hard to do for anyone else? For whatever reason, any "jerky" scrolling (e.g. using the arrow keys, page up/page down, "two finger scrolling" on laptops with bad drivers) just messes with my reading. I think the issue is that I don't like the feeling of text disappearing and reappearing somewhere else–I want my actions to control where the text is going fully so I don't have to re-track it with my eyes.
Give yourself an afternoon, i quickly adapted and now peruse the web mouseless fulltime; once your eyes know where to jump it becomes a lot easier to read and to focus, your eyes don't have to readjust as often and reading web pages becomes more book-like.
More than Pgup/Pgdown i find Spacebar and Home to be my most common choices for scrolling.
The project could really use some better copy on the landing page.
So, while I agree with you, it really doesn’t undermine OP at all. Especially as it’s common to see people get value from that response; we see creators quite often personally respond with “oh, crap, I didn’t realize, let me work on that.”
> It is constructed using free/libre/open hard- and software components, especially for print, databases, web-scraping and tangible interaction.
> Currently, it exists as a working prototype with software "bureaus" which allow a user to read and navigate news, web sites and social media entirely with the use of various printers for output and a barcode scanner for input.
That's really not clear. Also, your "if you're not reading the copy but instead comments" thing was both snarky and incorrect. Both are fine, but it's not recommended to be both disagreeable and wrong at the same time.
"Another aspect of contemporary screen-based culture is the constant psychic conflict often referred to as the 'Attention Economy'. In just trying to watch one YouTube video, a typical user is confronted with dozens of other appeals to focus somewhere else: comments, ratings, related videos, advertisements, video responses, etc. Because screen-based interaction is premised on temporal immediacy, we are, as users forced into a state of hyper-attention where we must constantly fight against the, largely commercial, attempts to make us look at something else. When we remove the screen (and by necessity, simplify the interface) we introduce a new form of temporality, where the speed of interaction might more accurately reflect our ability to perceive and understand information."
For example:
Because screen-based interaction is premised on temporal immediacy, we are, as users forced into a state of hyper-attention where we must constantly fight against the, largely commercial, attempts to make us look at something else
While I personally like the way this sentence is written, and is similar to my natural writing style, it's not easy to parse.
It could have as easily been written as:
"For most people, the time they spend on the computer is littered with distractions, and intentionally so, as corporations want to capture your attention by suggesting another video, viewing more content or offering a shiny ad."
You keep the emotion and information (lossy), but make it easier to read.
> ... Don't be snarky...
It's quite obvious that the landing page _isn't_ clear to a lot of people (including me). If you understood it with perfect clarity, good for you! Why not help explain it for others instead of being snarky?
My own depiction figures a slew of packing-taped barcodes on the tables and walls serve as references (links, shortcuts, scripts). So, the worst part is probably that organization abstractions are only accessible through the printer... a very slow command line... could be worse. But, I haven’t a clue how any of this stuff is developed without screens.
The landing page isn't helping their cause. The "slow food" concept works great for food, but sorry, it just doesn't translate to "slow computing."
Looking a bit closer, this seems to be a design challenge/experiment. Not intended to be practical, but more like a provocative exercise in new possibilities. I actually like it. It is good to try-on half baked ideas sometimes.
I think it does. If you can remember the Macintosh before the days of the MultiFinder, you ran one application at a time. The interface was simple, and you had to focus on the task at hand. Distractions were limited to any Desk Accessories you might have.
Ok, you did have a screen, but I think it is a good analogue to the Slow Food concept and has its own advantages over the interfaces we use today.
It is an art project, an "artistic operating system", originally an assignment for design students, possibly a cruel joke, a "statement".
It's a peculiar failure of comprehension to look at all of that, wonder what it is, then find the software part and come back to the software developer website to report that it is "a set of software for printers".
Like a textile specialist staring at a painting for days, not getting it, then finally looking at the back side and, relieved, going back to report to the Textile News readership that it's a linen canvas, stretched and decorated on one side.
...and then suggesting they really should mount it on the wall the other way so people can more easily see what it is.
I for one think it's extremely unfortunate that no one bothered to tell them what a Telex was.... Could have saved the team a lot of trouble.
It's artistic because it's designed to make you think about different ways of interacting with technology. It is a choice to build a system under imposed constraints, which the Telex obviously was not.
By calling this creation an "Artistic Operating System",
we assert that it should be unique and personal, even
peculiar in its way of representing and interfacing with
the rest of the media world. In this sense, it is freed
from the implicit social requirement that new
technological projects conform to standard principles of
progress, universality and efficiency. There's no need
to claim to be the "Next Big Thing" or to even suggest
that anyone, other than the creators of this device,
should use it. However, its existence serves as a
polemic for a more diverse, inclusive and participatory
interface culture where new technological systems might
be judged for their poetic qualities instead of
marketability.Implying, of course, that comparable levels of usefulness are already established.
I will reserve my judgment until I see an actual practical demonstration that establishes that usefulness.
Art has little direct use - Michelangelo's David has very little practical value, yet it's significance is immense.
The creators of this project do not care for the practical value of any of this. They wish to experiment in the hope that some poetic qualities of their work will be deemed significant enough to carry on into new works (some of which may actually be useful).
That was my exact understanding.
Utility is an unusual metric by which to measure art
Sorry if it seems a bit snarky, but art is open to criticisms and critiques.
> Our perception of the world around us and how we see ourselves in, it is mediated by the decisions of a few privileged managers, programmers and designers[...]. To suggest any other way of living in a networked society is to risk being percieved as blasphemous, uncool, out-of-touch, escapist or simply absurd. These interfaces have become so embedded in our conception of reality that we now have a crisis of the imagination, where it is difficult to even think of anything different.
I think that we are indeed losing computing diversity. Even something as boring as an Emacs-based computing experience (i.e. doing everything in Emacs) is often considered other-wordly or out-of-touch. Not having (and not wanting) a "smartphone" is another thing that is often responded to as almost unthinkable.
Going forward, I think there may be a market for a small eink tablet (~4.5" or so) that presents curated news, articles, etc -- something ideal for commuting by bus, plane, or any other passive time without loads of animated ads, popups for newsletters, and absolutely nothing 'social.' This leads me toward a desire for proper epub releases for magazines like The New Yorker and stuff that could scale to a smaller screen.
Services like Zinio [2], which most libraries provide, would be an excellent tie-in for a small device like this.
http://blog.calibre-ebook.com/2011/10/custom-news-fetching.h...
A very cool feature, but ultimately not very practical.
The automation side wouldn't be too difficult either.
It looks like the Himnull project is fairly close, but most likely on the thicker side since it's using a pi.
[1] https://hackaday.io/project/16194-himnull-a-raspberry-pi-e-r...
Combine it with Pocket or some epub newsletter.
I would pay for a decent sized e-ink screen with a stripped down browser that could integrate with a desktop bookmark app and save content for later reading. Not this "experimental" browser in my Kindle.
Or they'd just attach a small digital output screen akin to those old typing machines that you'd then push to the main screen when done. Still wouldn't use much of the battery at least, but would look ugly.
It's surprising to me that the Yota phone [2] design didn't catch on. Having both a normal screen and an eink screen would be a killer feature, since most of what I do with my phone is text based and doesn't require any color.
[1] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/astrohaus/hemingwrite-a...
One of the words the author used was "universality". For me, that has a moral component as well. Consider that information stored in a digital textual encoding is universally accessible. For example, blind people can read it through text-to-speech or a refreshable Braille display. Text-to-speech is also useful for people who have trouble reading due to cognitive disabilities.
So, print things out for your own consumption if you like, but please don't require others to consume information in that form. And, insofar as "the _________ office" refers to a group environment, I think the best word to fill in that blank is "universal" or "inclusive".
BTW, when I heard "screenless", I imagined an office full of people using speech synthesizers as blind people do. In the blind community, "screenless" refers to a talking device with no screen (very often a device made specifically for blind people that lags behind the mainstream, but that's another story).
Digital textual encoding is only universally accessible if the context it is situated within is also textually encoded. The lack of context (i.e., poor accessibility compliance) across digital mediums is the single largest inhibitor for the visually impaired community. Once digital information is prepared for print, the source of output is simply a matter of changing peripherals (printer, braille embosser, braille display, text-to-speech).
The authors may not have intended to directly address the needs of disability, but I do not think that their use of "universality" is misplaced. We should applaud any effort that encourages society to think beyond the constraints of the graphical interface.
E-ink devices are brilliant things, but had I encountered Dragonlance without Elmore's paintings - or only in black & white - they may not have made the impression they did.
So a collection with large, good quality cover art, combined with qr codes that enables/plays/downloads the relevant book/album to your device is a pretty neat idea.
I imagine something purely optical, with no moving parts. You have a glass plate, maybe a few cm high, that you put the object to be scanned on, and the light is reflected into the plate on to a small CCD sensor hidden on the side or somewhere else. It doesn't have to have a great resolution, just enough to distinguish different movies. I tried googling, but it seems something like that doesn't exist (probably the achievable resolution is too bad for real world usage).
Its a bit unfortunate, I'd like to bring back a bit of physicality to my computer interactions.
I'm pretty sure it should be possible to make a waveguide from properly shaped plexiglas and mirrors, so that you can hide a sensor below or in the side, and have it focused on the plexiglas surface. However, I can't figure out the geometry.
I guess if I actually built the project, the RFID tags would be the best option.
Another downside to the barcode approach is also that it requires correct alignment. Maybe you can get greater convenience from RFID.
On the other hand, the RFID approach means you don't have to modify the boxes at all. Because the code should hold some semantic meaning, you could maybe even set it up to download the requested movie on demand, so that you don't have to build your own database...
Regardless, it's a fun idea!
* https://www.amazon.com/Barcode-Omnidirectional-Hands-Free-Su...
They use a standard protocol[1], so I think any reader/writer that implements it should work.
https://www.amazon.com/Barcode-Scanner-Symcode-Handheld-Read...
It just acts as a USB keyboard (no drivers needed), so you could easily hook it up to a Rasperry Pi to do what you want.
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/14028 <= Camera
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/9963 <= RFID reader
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/14147 <= Example of RFID tags
Oh boy... I miss the sound of teletypes, typewriters and, of course, vector based displays ;-)
No, seriously, I miss all those things... I'd kill (no, not really, but close) for a CDC 6600 console, a Tektronix calligraphic display terminal or an IBM 2250.
Alternatively, can those things be remade using modern tooling and/or the availability of cheap electronics from china?
Sometimes a TTY appears. IBM Selectrics are easy to find. CDC and Tektronix stuff is much harder/borderline impossible. Building a vector CRT like the CDC and the 2250 is a major engineering undertaking these days and I don't even want to start what would it take to build a storage tube like Tek had.
I think a x,y display can be built off a CRT that miraculously escaped recycling and, by modulating RGB cannons, you may even get color vectors for free.
I'd love to do such a project, but the analog parts are way above my head. Haven't touched that since college.
It's not quite as extreme as Screenless but I'm totally down with the message.
I'd like for my reMarkable to eventually be more capable of uploading my gestures to my server where I'm running recognition software that can talk to my compilers, theorem provers, etc and send me back more information.
I'd like to work in a space where the devices and artifacts surrounding me are more intuitive and conducive to the way I think rather than blending myself in with the way someone else designed the experience of thinking for me.
That said, the wastefullness of it doesn't appeal to me, though some of the ideas behind it do. I would think an adaptation of a e-ink display would be much more practical and much less wasteful, while conveying similar meaning.
My partner works works with college students, they are a counselor and adviser; meeting with students is the primary focus of their work. I was surprised to see, however, that the computer and display was still a big part of their desk. They have one of those L-shaped workstations with the front portion cleared so they can talk to students and the wall-side dominated by the computer's display.
Does the screen need to dominate their workspace? What sort of constant attention drain does the display represent on them and the students? I also believe it leads to unreasonable work performance related expectations, namely that they are entirely up-to-date on the most recent received email messages and memos, etc. Most of their time is spent working with students, the computerized portion of their work is mostly in the morning, brief snippets in between appointments and the end of the day.
This "screenless" idea seems somewhat extreme, but perhaps having the computing device in a clearly diminutive form-factor would go a long way towards changing their relationship with the machine, as well as expectations for how much time they spend reading email, memos, etc. I definitely think it's worth exploring.
In my opinion, the "open" office plans seem the most extreme version of this idea that the computing device should be central to one's workspace (and by extension, one's work). In some of these plans, there's almost no personal space at all, certainly no room for decoration or personal touches. On the contrary, the entire space is defined by the computer.
http://vanessaauditore.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/privac...
I think it would be interesting to experience a screenless office. Obviously I would think more deeply about things. Some of that thought would be "wasted," in the sense that I would be working things out I could simply look up on Stack Overflow. But I think there is a cognitive difference between working something out yourself and copying someone else's answer. In the former case, it feels like you are sort of exercising your own capacity to think, and in the latter case you can remain somewhat disengaged. The former is like walking a path, the latter is like watching a video of someone else walking it.
While paper is a renewable resource, this project is more of a thought experiment. Are we happy with the way we have become dependent on screens for computing? Every technology brings some tradeoffs—are we happy with the tradeoffs we are implicitly accepting? If not, what are we willing accept in return for change?
From one side, there are studies that show that brief interruptions boost the brain searching for creative solutions.
From another side, nothing gets done because FB, Reddit, cats and the likes tend to pull one in longer than expected. If somebody interupts you they go away after the issue, social media is there with another item forever.
Maybe we are seeing something fundamentally new, coming slowly with this idea?
Seems like a lot of wasted paper
Why waste paper when you can use e-paper and achieve the same result, minus treeageddon?
Put less flippantly: The Luddites hated technology because they feared it would take their jobs. While this project calls a lot of strong technological conventions into question, it doesn’t reject technology nearly as fundamentally as the Luddites did. It also has nothing to do with the feared obsolescence of labor.
It would completely destroy me within days.