From Onthologies to Folksonomies.A Design-Driven approach from complex information to bottom-up Knowledge.• From Onthologies to Folksonomies. A Design-driven approach from complex information to bottom-up Knowledge (with de D. de Kerckhove and C. M. de Almeida)

Abstract

A design-driven approach from complex information to bottom-up knowledge This paper explores the social challenge posed by the complex situation in which contemporary society and all its activities are immersed regarding knowledge management. The addressed question is how information design can contribute to the construction of a hybrid, bottom-up and collective ontologies-in-progress and dialogue with the complexity of the practices around digital knowledge. We argue that it is necessary for information design strategies to deepen its understanding of the semantic web and the new forms of creation of ontologies. The aim is to broaden the analysis of the role of information design in this moment of change so that design can find a concrete space of agency. What could be the role of information design in such a scenario? We claim that information design can develop an essential role in developing more suitable prostheses, more versatile instruments and simpler technologies. It is a territory of power and responsibility because it places in the hands of information design the possibility to define and discriminate what can enter in the grid of shareable knowledge and learn to listen to and to be supportive of bottom-up social processes. That is a great responsibility and a great opportunity. A new design approach is required to dialog with the strategies of a web-based culture, as an example of a complex phenomenon (Lewin, 1992), among which we can find hybrid, bottom-up and collective ontologies, built in process with the contribution of users that trace definitions, associations and variations, in a kind of defective semantics, founded on co-tagging, mash-up and syndication. Design has the possibility to establish a rhetorical of project in order to create a dialogue between the social and the technical tissues. This means not only to produce a toolkit to support new scenarios with sustainable models, but also to suggest a vision of a different cultural apparatus, to offer a new way to online interaction, and new points of access to knowledge. Keywords: Design and society (primary keyword) cross- disciplinary; trans-disciplinary; inter-disciplinary; multi-disciplinary; bottom-up knowledge; creativit