Envisioning containers for sharing media to communicate context, intentions, and needs

For movement building and to not waste the time we put into creating things

During my master’s project, I came a cross a common problem with my cohort. We create a lot of writings, project reports, and insights. Yet, all of these pieces fly around, impossible to study by outsiders. Yet, we want to share about our projects. But who will read my 30 page report? MESH students, for instance, work on a vast field of interesting projects that require deep contextual framing and could be of interest to future students. Only if the information was wrapped up correctly, so it stays useful.

I had come across the 🔮 principles for media movement building and realized that I wanted to apply them to my project reporting. I wanted to share in a way that can be digested by others to continue my work and intentions. I needed to wrap my blog posts into a movement-building container.

So, I developed an interface concept for a media container

The idea was that the recipient of the media container could easily understand the overall idea and basic story of the actors. If the recipient wanted to dig into the technical details, they would have the option to do so, but they didn’t have to start there. That way, complicated heavy intellectual knowledge was accessible but didn’t hinder first interactions.

The interface idea below is a first concept. Below, you can see it in an unfolded state with all information visible. Ideally the user would start with the overall theme and then dig deeper as they desire. Please reference the 🔮 media movement building principles to understand how we need to give people access to organizations that are already doing the work and resources that are focused on uplifting community voices, beyond other concepts.

For the my community I worked with, we saw the great need to make clear where this project needs more work and what opportunities we see in it. The relational meaning to the people who worked on the project (and those affected), seemed particularly important.

I know that there is much more fine-tuning to do. But I see value in it and haven’t been able to find such a container anywhere else.

Secondly, I wanted to contextualize communication within a group of people

This idea relates to above as a way to integrate ways of sharing intentionally into a space. Just as the movement building container from above integrates a project into the landscape of future change-makers, this living-room containers allows group members to contextualize their sharings metaphorically. Here, a visual leverages intuitive understanding of intentions and needs that can be lost in typical chat spaces.

Very importantly, the core idea behind this design is that the group builds this living room collectively, tending to their collective space of communication. Within this eco-system or living room of communication, the group can decide what actual chat space should support the overarching intention.

Other ways of contextualizing the things we share with each other could be to map out relationships and needs. The possibilities are endless, but building visual containers that embody the needs and intentions of the person who shares seem to be essential!

Related marbles

Here are a few notes that relate to this topic:

• 🔮 About a co-creative economy
• 🔮 My collection of metaphorical visuals to communicate context and relations
• 🔮 My collection of systemic interface design concepts
• 🔮 A philosophical & abstract drawing on sensing each other and how we originate in the same things

License for all original work:

CONTEXTUALIZED-MEDIA-AND-CONTAINER-INTERFACES