FORUM UNIVERSAL INTERACTIONS
suggest its essence in terms of mechanisms
designed to facilitate the perception,
operation, and intelligibility of information
via the elements of interaction in the
system. Here, I highlight concepts such as
transversal media, redundancy of access
to information, possibilities of interface
adjustment, and learning while using. For a
snapshot of the VnR screen, see Figure 3.
Transversal media means being
able to access or generate information
from different media integrated into
the system. One can insert photos,
videos, audio, and videos in sign
language directly from the browser
window (Figure 3a). This concept
plays an important role in the design
of VnR since it respects the diversity
of conditions of its members. As
consumers or content generators,
users can communicate via the media
that is most comfortable to them. The
transversality of media also means
that this use permeates all editorial
content, from sending a comment
on an announcement to contacting
the system developers. In addition to
allowing commenting, a collaborative
function enables people to contribute
to the announcements of others, adding
new media content (e.g., inserting
the sign language translation to the
announcement in video format).
Redundancy of channels for accessing
information. When someone edits an
announcement in VnR, the system
automatically creates a presentation of
video content for a Virtual Presenter
workshops conducted in the scope of the
e-Citizenship project, described here.
THE E-CITIZENSHIP
PROJECT
e-Citizenship: Systems and Methods
for the Constitution of a Culture
Mediated by Information and
Communication Technology [ 7]
was a research project supported by
FAPESP-Microsoft Virtual Research
Institute. e-Citizenship is understood
as empowering people to regard
themselves as citizens through the
co-authorship of systems that are
perceivable, operable, understandable,
and make sense to them.
The semioparticipatory model
allowed researchers from UNICAMP
to investigate the relationships that
ordinary people, especially those
not familiar with ICT, establish
in their informal communities,
organized around a special interest,
using artifacts of society including
technology. Lack of familiarity
with ICT would not be a difficult
problem if we were not working in a
real scenario of social vulnerability,
digital illiteracy, and few years of
formal education.
The project was located within
Vila União, one of the areas of greatest
social risk in Campinas, in the state
of São Paulo. Members of the offline
social network in the neighborhood
were invited to participate. Twelve
local people joined the project, among
them residents, workers in nonprofit
organizations, associations, and
cooperatives, as well as community
representatives. From those, nine were
migrants from other regions of the
country. Seven were between 51 and 61
years old, four were between 30 and 50
years old, and one was under 30. Nine
participants were women working in
occupations ranging from: hairstylists,
maids, seamstresses, cooks, artisans,
and caregivers. Vila União follows
the Brazilian standard in population
change, in which the percentage of
female heads of households is high.
This group represents a snapshot of the
disadvantaged in Brazil’s population,
without claiming to be complete. Besides
this group in Vila União, two other
groups were concomitantly involved in
other cities. The activities were hosted
in a telecentre, a physical space where
various community initiatives for digital
inclusion associated with federal and
local governments occur.
These local people joined the
researchers, students, developers, and
observers constituting the participants
of the workshops. The object of creation
and reflection, and also one of the
byproducts of the project, is Vila na
Rede (VnR) [ 8], the inclusive social
network system co-designed by the
parties. The system enables network
members to post announcements
related to products and services, ideas,
and events; comment on one another’s
announcements; and collaborate with
one anotherś announcements, for
example, by adding the ad information
in other media.
Vila na Rede represented the “object
to think with” along the project. The
full description of the system, its design
rationale, and its features are beyond the
space limitations of this article. However, it
is worth commenting on some differential
aspects of VnR that when combined
Our postmodern
society is plural;
we live in a world
of differences with
many contradictory
worldviews.
Figure 3. A snapshot of Vila na Rede with resources for all.
(a)
(b)
(b)
(d)(g)
(e)
(c)
(f)
