INLS 092- Emering Issues in Information Science

Group Name: The Fab Four
Group Members: Samira Akpan, Daniel Hendley, Melvin Lynch, Byron Sanders
New Media Artifcact: Wristwatch

For this assignment, we were tasked with deciding on a new media artifact in which to study and redesign. Upon deciding this, we wanted to make sure that our attempt at this project would be meaningful and not done just for the sake of having something to do. The idea of choosing the wristwatch seemed like a good idea to work with, but after seeing an article entitled "Is Time Up for the Watch?", we thought even more that it would be an appropriate choice. Essentially, this article states that with the popularity of cell phones, iPods, PDAs and other portable devices, people use its clock functionality to tell time the use the wristwatch is fading. Is this really the case? With this project, we hope to find out; and in doing so, devise some new uses for the watch that could potentially bring it back. It may even be possible to redesign it in such a way that some of the devices that are beginning to replace it actually turn back around and get snuffed out instead.
Throughout the semester we will be looking at how people currently view watches, whether or not they use one, why or why not, and how it can be redesigned to potentially re-ignite interest in it.