Ambient Signifiers
Just read a nice article titled Ambient Signifiers byRoss Howard
The author's idea is to display status or state information in "ambient signifiers" such as background color, subtle texture etc. that will be recognized subconciously and make user "feel" where they are.
One scenario we used a similar concept for was different areas of the site marked with different background color and pallette for visual elements. This worked well, but we could achieve much more.
Interesting results can be achieved when we have stateful user interface, when the same controls perform different actions dependent on state. If we cannot avoid "modes" in UI, we should make user "feel" what mode they are in (much like finger feeling Shift key pressed, as opposite to Caps Lock, which is just an unnoticeable light somewhere on the keyboard).
Imagine an interface for viewing and editing a document which look the same (WYSIWYG editor). In viewing mode mouse click on an element (like a web link) causes execution, in editor mode it causes selection of an element. Making them visually different is a must, and doing it a "regular" way (like an exclamation mark in the corner or differrent menu bar or so) may be too explicit and draws too much attention from the main job you are doing. So a good idea would be changing background to lighter hue in editor?
The author's idea is to display status or state information in "ambient signifiers" such as background color, subtle texture etc. that will be recognized subconciously and make user "feel" where they are.
One scenario we used a similar concept for was different areas of the site marked with different background color and pallette for visual elements. This worked well, but we could achieve much more.
Interesting results can be achieved when we have stateful user interface, when the same controls perform different actions dependent on state. If we cannot avoid "modes" in UI, we should make user "feel" what mode they are in (much like finger feeling Shift key pressed, as opposite to Caps Lock, which is just an unnoticeable light somewhere on the keyboard).
Imagine an interface for viewing and editing a document which look the same (WYSIWYG editor). In viewing mode mouse click on an element (like a web link) causes execution, in editor mode it causes selection of an element. Making them visually different is a must, and doing it a "regular" way (like an exclamation mark in the corner or differrent menu bar or so) may be too explicit and draws too much attention from the main job you are doing. So a good idea would be changing background to lighter hue in editor?
posted by Egor Shokurov at 9/21/2006 12:58:00 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home