To conclude a linear reading, I briefly reflect on my process of composing a digital dissertation. I first describe the "key drafts" through which this dissertation interface developed. I then reflect on some of the challenges that emerged while drafting the project. Finally, I identify a future direction of inquiry suggested by my findings.
"Key Drafts" of the Dissertation Interface
The dissertation interface underwent several distinct conceptualizations. The bulk of drafting time was spent between Word documents and PowerPoint slides. The interface itself, though went through three main design stages.
Stage 1
First, I developed a proto-web form in late August/early September 2017. This version was meant primarily to get the chapter documents up and working in a digital environment. Little attention was paid to aesthetic elements other than the basic components needed to make it a functional document. What remained from this stage, though, were font choices and glossary formatting.
Stage 2
I developed the next main interface concept in January 2018, as a PowerPoint proof-of-concept for the webtext as a whole. This veresion presented one method for navigating through all the project's main sections. However, it was too abstract, especially considering the cognitive load required by the icon-codes as visual abstractions. The remnants from this stage included a working aesthetic based on rays of light, which developed into an emerging metaphor of refraction. This metaphor developed as a place of common ground with my committee members for imagining the overall argument this dissertation performed. Additionally, this draft was the first instance in which I featured the case study hub as its own section distinct from but complementary to the arguments pursued in the traditional chapter structures.
Stage 3
The final (present dissertation) version remains largely a proof-of-concept; I look forward to building on my main conceptual frame and working interface now that they've been established. However, this stage of the interface performs the work it needs to do: it presents the chapters, icon-codes, and raw webtext draft data in a digital environment. Having had the chance to look back intensively on my work over the past few years, I'm excited to discover how the design and argument—the inscape—will continue to shift across future refractions.
Inventing a Digital Dissertation
Like the projects under investigation, this dissertation webtext underwent its own shifts in response to roadblocks and resources—its own refractions across drafts. In many ways, these shifts were a normal part of the dissertation process, of a young scholar's first substantial project as I figured out what a dissertation was supposed to do. My initially proposed project was too ambitious and had to be trimmed down; my data suggested patterns I hadn't initially anticipated; I learned what a chapter was supposed to do, and how its intellectual weight fit into the full scope of the project.
On another level, though, these refractions were unique to the nature of the project itself as a digital dissertation. I wasn't sure what chapters would look like in a digital environment, so I had to discover that in conversation with my advisors as I went along. My qualitative analyses quickly became opaque (a significant problem when one of the project's goals was radical transparency), and so additional chapters were required to explain my approach. Overall, much more work ended up going towards contextualizing the project than expected.
Defining Scope and Scale
Some of the most significant shifts emerged in the process of negotiating what a digital dissertation could look like and what it could do. At one point, I sought to narrow the project down somewhat in a way I imagined would shine in a digital environment. I knew it would work. I could see the project's full structure clearly in my mind; I knew that with a little exploration, it could be a beautifully crafted project and a solid argument. However, describing it wasn't enough; I needed to be able to show the idea in order to fully explain it, which would take more time and unstructured exploration than I could afford at that point. I was unable to verbally defend the shift I imagined, and so continued to pursue the project in its initial form at greater scale but less contextualized detail.
Accounting for Time as Invention Influence
One very significant invention influence emerged from my data that I was unable to address: time. I'd initially planned for this to be a time-based project, tracing the webtext development process from start to finish and categorizing the sequence of events. I had the data for it; I'd taken painstaking notes, and had months of data I could dive back into in close detail to examine any given moment in the webtext design process. I soon discovered, however, that this would need to be a separate project. I chose to examine more concrete, macro-level shifts in design that represented interventions from external forces at key moments in a webtext's development.
To investigate time, on the other hand, I want to take an approach that engages my contextual data more fully to tease out time as an ever-present influence in a webtext composer's experiences of invention. Using the qualitative coding system theorized in this dissertation, I look forward to a future project exploring the relationship between pieces and time in designing a webtext's developing inscape.
