Social interaction has become an option for daily living, rather than a necessity. With such reasoning, it brings to question whether one can communicate accurately a message's full meaning through the internet, or any form of textual communication. Other forms of communication, including face-time and the telephone both involve aspects of linguistics that are not available when using text-based means. As seen in the table below, factors such as: immediacy, gestures, inflection, tonality and facial expressions don't occur with textual based communication. The message is stripped down to it's content. What is left is the style that it is presented in, and this project set out to discover how people interpret such simply put textual messages based on their typographical styles.
Throughout the end of 2008 to 2009, volunteers were scouted to participate in this social experiment. A collection of directed messages were adapted from other social experiment sites, WeFeelFine, PostSecret, and Twitter. A select few personal messages were added to the list as well. Each volunteer was given a document with a message typed in the center of the screen, in basic Helvetica Neue typeface. They were asked to interpret the message and while keeping with the same typeface, manipulate the message so that it better conveyed the meaning they thought was being expressed. The volunteer was allowed to add one punctuation mark, but was not allowed to add graphics, images, or draw on the canvas. This was to keep the authenticity of a standard textual based message. They were encouraged to change the size, the weight, and position of the text. Also, to explore the space of the canvas and be creative. Several results have been collected, and even further experimenting continues.
Inspired by last words and unsaid thoughts, "Talk," lives as a collection of results from this experiment at http://www.whatdidyoumean.com. The interface of the website was designed to have a minimalist aesthetic, as to not thwart the viewer's opinion with any excess design. It includes three simple navigation points include: Home, for viewing the site, Explore, for accessing the message database, and About: for learning about the project. The manipulated messages are displayed in their own spaces, placed side by side on a horizontally scrolling portion of the site. This minimalist design should allow the audience to recognize the different meanings each message has, even though their content is the same.
The goal of this project is to encourage those viewing (and participating) to recognize the differences in the types of communication and to make their own opinion regarding the quality of textual based communication. I believe that tomorrow is a mystery and the next opportunity you have to communicate to another individual is never certain. I personally hope that this project will encourage many to make time to see people in person, make a phone call, or say what they mean clearly. However, the beauty of this project is that it is open for interpretation, it is an experiment in opinion and character, and therefore conclusions will vary.