Monthly Archives: May 2016

Reading Summary 3: Making Bathrooms More ‘Accommodating’

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The main purpose of this article is to argue about the setup of bathrooms. The author feels that the terms for entering bathrooms have been fixed. Bathrooms are clearly marked men and women but the author feels that it’s unfair especially for transgender people. The author also feels that if a mistake is made by a male of female and the wrong restroom is entered, it can put the person at risk to discomfort or even real trouble. Throughout the article, the author uses examples from different cases that have come about from the controversy of bathroom usage, specifically transgender cases. The author argues on the side that is for changing the bathroom laws and for bathrooms to become more accommodating to the transgender community. Bathrooms usage laws have been a controversy for many years because, “The problem is that this vastly oversimplifies the experience of transgender people and the biology of chromosomes, which can appear in other combinations.”

Reading Summary 4: His & Hers: Designing for a Post-Gender Society

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The main purpose of this article is to argue for gender neutral design. The argument was made by one of the United States’ leading textile designers. The designer sees “gender-neutral design as the next frontier in the workplace.” The author starts off by stating, “We are living in a time of gender revolution. Traditional masculine and feminine roles are being challenged through advances in science and technology, and by cultural shifts stemming from the evolution of sexual politics and media depictions of gender.” The author believes, “Identity is no longer clearly defined as female or male, but by increasingly visible manifestations of sexuality or lack thereof.” She also believes that some of the today’s landscape are still designed in a Modernism point of view. Modernism is defined as a movement shaped by a predominantly male perspective. To help build her argument, the author uses examples such as the LGBTQ movement, workplace hierarchies, and bathroom setups.

Reading Summary 6: Better Online Living Through Content Moderation

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The main purpose of this article was to teach about content moderation. Content moderation can be achieved through content control features. “Content control features — block and ignore functions, content/trigger warnings, blocklists and privacy options — are valuable to people who need to moderate their time online.” Control features are used as a way for people to either avoid people or certain types of posts that they may dislike. The article argues that using these controls can make the online experience more enjoyable. Control features are looked at in both a positive and negative light. They can be positive because a person has the choice to block thing that makes them upset or uncomfortable that they shouldn’t be forced to endure seeing. They can be negative because the person using these features can be judged as weak or too sensitive. This article focuses on three areas to help build a better understanding of content moderation and why it can be positive: 1) Computer-Chair Psychology, 2) Threatening Legal Recourse, and 3) Moving Towards a More Personal Agency over Online Experiences.

Reading Summary 5: Color Walking

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The purpose of this short article was to teach us about color walks and to tell us about the authors’ own experience with color walks. Color walks were created by William Burroughs. “Back in the day, William Burroughs dreamed up a tool to inspire his students: color walks.” The authors of this article came across the experiment while working on the colors show and decided to give the experiment a try and write about their experience. In their trial of the color walk the chose to be flexible and switch from color to color. The authors stated, “We first ran across color walks in this blog post from Sal Randolph, which features two great quotes from Burroughs: “Color: William Burroughs Walking on Color”.”

The instructions on how to do a color walk are simple. To perform a color walk, “Just walk out your door, pick a color that catches your eye, and watch your surroundings pop as you follow the color from object to object.” In this article, the color walk started at WYNC, in lower Manhattan on a Sunday afternoon. The first color they started out with was blue. Blues led to pinks which led to violets. Their color walk took approximately 14 minutes. At the end of their walk the described the walk saying, “…the colors hung in our brains and eyes.” They also stated, “We walked away seeing a world brimming over with colors: the rusty orange of a rooftop water tower in the sun, a bright blue mohawk, and the humble yellowy greens of a new leaf all jumped into our eyes.” The authors provided a short timeline of their color walk, which included pictures, using Timeline JS.

At the end of the article, the authors offered their own advice for others interested in trying the color walk experiment. They provided three pieces of advice. The first, “Give yourself an hour of uninterrupted time, no commutes, no errands, just eye time.”  Their second piece of advice stated, “Pick a color, or let a color pick you–follow the one that makes your heart go thump-thump.” The final piece of advice that the authors gave stated, “If you get lost, pick another color. If you get really lost, you’re on the right track.”