INTERFACES AS LANGUAGE, INTERFACES AS MAPS,
METAPHORS, LEARNING STYLES

Interfaces as Language

Every interface defines a unique language of interaction.
In general, such languages are made of verbs and nouns. Verbs are the activities you do, nouns are the things you do them to or with!

Objective
Learn to evaluate the quality of an interface as a language.

[see sample links]

Interfaces as Maps

Maps, like languages, use systems of symbols. Interfaces are also maps.

An interface is a map that represents a language of interaction.

Objective
Learn to evaluate the quality of an interface- its quality as a map.

[see sample links]

Use of Metaphors

Metaphors are a flowering achievement of human thinking. Our ability to think and communicate with metaphors enriches our art and design as well as our everyday speech.

Objective
Learn to evaluate a piece's use of metaphor.

[see sample links]

Learning Styles

Each of us has unique perceptual and cognitive aptitudes for learning and dealing with the world. Some of us are verbal, some logical, some visual, physical, etc.

Objective
Learn to evaluate if and how a piece presents multiple learning styles.

[see sample links]

DEFINITIONS

Interfaces as Maps

What you SEE is what you do?

An interface is a map that represents a language for user activities. All the piece's interaction should be converted in t visible elements. No guessing should be necessary. A road map which is missing some of its streets can cause confusion. An interface can have similar problems.

What can an designer do to make an interface be a CLEAR MAP?

As an example, picture your telephone answering machine. Recall the positioning of the buttons and the display. These are the physically apparent part of the interface. They are a map that says "Here is the erase; here's playback; here's volume," and so on. The map gives each function a spatially logical place to exist.

As a designer, you should think of the graphics of an interface -- its symbols as well as its layout -- as a map that has clearly identifiable geographic regions for each main activity; and groups the component sub-activities in a logical way.

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Metaphors

What is a metaphor?

A metaphor is a symbolic equation. It has the form:

"Symbol A is Symbol B"
or, more simply,
A is a B

as in, "Grandma And Me is a book".

Metaphors transfer meaning from one side of the equation to the other.

A is a B
(Happiness is a warm gun)
Happiness = warm gun, dying victim, smoke curling out of the gun barrel...

Yes, it is sick. The metaphor calls attention to the sickness.

For example, cars were first called "horseless carriages".

Car = horseless carriage

Around 1900, there were few automobiles. But anyone could be told "A car is a horseless carriage". They would understand from this, that the car was a kind of carriage that didn't need horses.

Not surprisingly, metaphors are valuable tools in designing interfaces. Used appropriately, metaphors can be an excellent way to help users connect a user's existing conceptual model of the world to aspects of a new hardware and software system.

The Mac Desktop
The Macintosh desktop is a metaphor that gives users a familiar starting point in learning the Mac. When a user is first told that what they see on the screen is the desktop, they can immediately recognize the trashcan, file folders, and documents. These symbols are all believable components of the desktop metaphor. All of them behave in familiar ways: documents contain information, folders contain things, the trash can is for throwing things away.

In interfaces, metaphors can be global or local.

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What is a GLOBAL METAPHOR?

Global metaphors express the main intent or function of a piece. They permeate the entire interface and are highly influential in helping users construct their mental model of the piece.

The Macintosh OS
The Macintosh desktop is a good example of a global metaphor. It is used as an all-encompassing way for orienting the user to the entire Macintosh operating system.

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What is a LOCAL METAPHOR?

Local metaphors create and reinforce a global metaphor. They are the reinforcing building blocks of a global metaphor.

They should be consistent with the global metaphor and with each other.

A Desktop Made Of Symbols
The Mac desktop has no image or symbol of its own; the user's perception that it is a desktop is built entirely by combining many other local metaphors, including the trashcan, file folders, and document icons.

A new user, being familiar with the function of these things, readily learns that putting a document or folder in the trash is a precursor to emptying the trash, which means deleting anything found in the trashcan.

For example, the trashcan looks like one, and is labeled 'trash'. The rectangular file folders are in the right proportion, and have a tab in the right place. Documents have a corner turned down.

These visual metaphors are easily recognizable, and appropriate for the things they represent. For new users, these things make it easy to use recognition to remember what the symbols represent.

In particular, because these symbols are appropriate for the way their digital counterparts behave, users can connect the new concepts (of digital documents, for example) with the old (paper documents of letters, etc.) In other words, it's important to match the behavior of the thing represented with the symbol.

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What constitutes good use of METAPHORS?

If a metaphor doesn't work for a specific audience, it is usually because the symbol used:

• is unfamiliar to them
• is familiar, but it's rendition is not recognizable
• is familiar and recognizable, but doesn't make sense within the context. This is what is wrong with the trashcan being used to eject floppies and zip disks.

A good metaphor needs:

FAMILIARITY is cultural. Symbols that are familiar are ones the user has already memorized. If the user has no memory of a symbol, she'll be unable to understand the meaning of its use in an interface. The only fix for an unfamiliar metaphor is education.

RECONIZABILITY asks whether the symbol is expressed clearly. For instance, say I draw a picture of you and show it to your mother. She may or may not be able to recognize it. The fix for unrecognizability is to improve the artwork.

SENSIBILITY asks if the symbols are sensible within the context of their use. Two aspects of sensibility are semantics and appropriateness.

Semantics asks if the symbol actually means what you want it to mean to the audience. Does it make the connection that you, as the author, are trying to get the audience to make? Will the audience learn what you want them to learn as a result of the metaphor?

If you use the following icon to label a bathroom in the US, users assume it's for women. What would happen if you used this icon to label a bathroom in Scotland? In either case, the symbol is familiar and recognizable but different audiences connect it to different semantic meanings.

If you use the following icon to label a bathroom in the US, users assume it's for women. What would happen if you used this icon to label a bathroom in Scotland? In either case, the symbol is familiar and recognizable but different audiences connect it to different semantic meanings. Appropriateness A second aspect of sensibility is appropriateness, which asks if the symbol is, for example, offensive, boring, out-of-character, or out-of-place.

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What is a VIRTUAL OBJECT and what makes them successful?

Metaphor usage in interfaces spans a spectrum of interactivity. This gamut begins at one end with icons, a static use of metaphors. By adding more and more behavior to an icon, the spectrum continues to a point where the representation is perhaps best characterized as a virtuality.

Icons
An icon is a symbol. For example, the symbol for the magnifying function in many graphics applications is the image of a magnifying glass. This icon works because it's an image of a device that really does the function. This is simple, sensible, and recognizable.

Icons in interfaces are metaphors because the familiar image used as the symbol represents a new tool. The two are equated in the interface (i.e. this tool is the magnifying glass; once again "A is a B").

If the icon exhibits behavior (like the Mac's bulging trashcan) then it starts to move towards the virtual end of the spectrum.

Virtuality
Virtuality is a style of interface design that implements a program's functionality in a way that uses direct manipulation. A virtual interface is transparent to the user; she can see the methods and tools for accomplishing her tasks clearly.

Virtual Objects
Our minds perceive a virtual object as similar to and behaving like the real thing, whereas an icon simply reminds us of the original. As a virtual object's set of behaviors are expanded and more fully implemented, it becomes more real to us.

Virtually real objects satisfy the user's expectations, place the user in control, make for an immersive experience, and require the designer to focus on the design of user activity.

Myst
Myst is full of virtual objects that the user can interact with. They behave realistically, within the context of the story - drawers open, book pages turn.

Mac OS
The trashcan, of course, is a successful virtual object.

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Why should we appeal to more than one LEARNING STYLE?

Each of us possess a unique blend of relative strengths and weaknesses in the way we learn. Such preferences, called learning styles, reflect our individual blend of intelligences; each of us best communicate with, perceive, and learn about the world in ways that depend on our profile.

Different people acquire information, learn, think, and solve problems best in different ways. Some are better with text, some with audio, some with video. Some prefer logic, some stories; some prefer hands-on activities, others prefer discussions. You might prefer to learn by reading text, while I prefer learning-by-doing.

In the classroom, good teachers design their lesson plans to appeal to a variety of learning styles. This allows each student to find something in a lesson that he or she will be good at. Interactive pieces should allow users to choose among different modalities of experience.

Interactive media are well suited to cater to individual learning styles. Pieces do this by using multiple media, offering varieties of activities as well as pictures, text, video, and audio.

Our growing cultural diversity and the fact of our diverse styles of learning and communicating, cry out for media that communicate in many dimensions.

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