DAISY Chain
Last week, Andrew Taylor at The Artful Manager posted an entry about “progressive disclosure,” a tech-savvy design strategy for conveying complex information to audiences.
Andrew invited readers to post their success stories, but—no surprise—there were none. Using technology effectively is hard! Most arts organizations are only beginning to look beyond basic e-marketing and websites to think about how the integration of technology on a subcutaneous level could serve their mission.
That is why I was so surprised to find DAISY close to home, in New Haven. DAISY, or the Dynamic Arts & Ideas Search Yielder, is a new tool for the International Festival of Arts & Ideas. Not only does DAISY illustrate the many links between all events of the festival, it provides numerous ways to access information about events. Online browsers can view an alphabetical breakdown of events, or a list that is segmented by theme or genre. For example, Event: Bike Tour has connecting Themes: Environmental, Global and Spirituality. I was curious about how a Bike Tour connected to Spirituality, so I clicked, leading me to a tour of Sacred Architecture. It is more fun than a list, and if you don’t know where to start, there is even a “random” feature that will help you get going.
In the spirit of most ambitious projects, DAISY is not perfect. A simple search of “Bike Tour” in the DAISY system came up empty, and the back button on my browser pulled me back to the homepage instead of my previous search. I am curious to find out who’s behind DAISY, and where else it might be popping up. Stay tuned for an Art Agenda interview in the near.