5 Reasons for Using Digital Artifacts
I have recently started looking into ways of how physical artifacts can be used, represented, and incorporated in the digital world. At some point I started wondering, why we actually would want to use digital representations at all if we have a physical equivalent, so I started making a list. Digital artifacts are:
- Modifiable: Writing a document on your computer allows you to edit and modify it. Have you ever tried this with a handwritten paper? Same holds for software. If you have the source code, you can modify and adapt it to your needs. I have written about that in the context of FOSS a while ago.
- Findable: A piece of digital information can be found with search and filter mechanisms.
- Reusable: You can reuse the content of a digital entity in a different context, for instance by using copy-paste.
- Shareable: You can share digital entities with as many people as you want at the cost of a click or a drag and drop (unless it’s proprietary and copyrighted of course). Sharing physical entities is usually harder and depends a lot on the nature of the entity. If it’s paper you can use a copier and send it to people by mail.
- Reproducible: It’s usually fairly easy to create a clone of a digital entity.
Above list is rather document-centred. And I am sure I could have listed many more reasons, but these were the ones that came to mind. I still will have to think about what implications physical artifacts have for the interaction with the digital.
