Constraints as the Core of Creativity

Interaction

Design Metaphor

Constraints as the Core of Creativity

ƒ Douglas Hofstadter

• Friday 13 February 10:15, Siegbahnsalen, Ångströmlaboratoriet

• His research focuses on consciousness, thinking and creativity. “Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid”, for which he was awarded the

1980 Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction. Is the son of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Robert

Hofstadter.

Use of metaphors

ƒ User Interface, like the desktop

ƒ Interaction styles: direct manipulation

ƒ Concepts: computer virus

ƒ Functionality: cut, paste

ƒ Teaching: works like a book

Metabolist architecture

Kai Krause

Desktop – the original 1983

ƒ Naive users

ƒ Office work

ƒ Weak computational resources

ƒ Basic physical

interaction (b/w small display, one-button

mouse, keyboard)

ƒ No Internet

Any problems here?

Magic Cap

Critique

ƒ “Searching for that guiding metaphor is like searching for the correct steam engine to

power your airplane, or searching for a good dinosaur on which to ride to work”

(Alan Cooper)

ƒ http://a.parsons.edu/~chenj574/F05/ms/downloads/read/The_Myth_of_Metaphor.pdf

Question

ƒ Is it possible to design a digital product without using any kind of metaphor?

ƒ Can you give an example of something that

lacks a metaphor?

Example: Visuwork

ƒ Research project at

our department

Work tasks

Paper- based tasks

Computer

Overview.

Sorting.

Piles.

operationCo-

Phone and support

Observations

Visuwork – Design workshop

ƒ Workshop + Brainstorming = 4 metaphors

1. Inbox

Visuwork – Design workshop

3. Factory

2. Calendar

Visuwork metaphors

4. Piles

• Piles of tasks, sorted

• Size is an important signal

• Place on desktop

Lo-fi prototype (paper)

Hi-fi prototype

Combination of metaphors

Plus

ƒ We easily create new metaphors, in language and everyday life

ƒ May give the user a mental model of the system

ƒ Supports understanding and learning

ƒ Can function as a creative tool for finding

new solutions

Minus

ƒ May help the first time you use the system, but may hinder you the rest of your life

• What commands can we express?

ƒ Does not scale well (direct manipulation)

• Point and click on 100 GB of files?

ƒ Stuck in the old (machines and old technology)

• Travel across town to the post office to read your email?

ƒ The metaphor is not true, and may give the user the wrong mental model