Interface Interactions, Monday 12.11.2007

first meeting - some difficulties to find a way of communication, move forward with the project, whole morning we didn't agree about anything
research metaphor - I did research about Metaphor and Metaphor in the interface design. I found three very interesting articles, very helpful for our project:
1. A Summary of Principles for User-Interface Design by Talin (http://www.sylvantech.com/~talin/projects/ui_design.html)
2. Metaphor Design in User Interfaces: How to Manage Expectation, Surprise, Comprehension, and Delight Effectively by Aaron Marcus (http://www.sigchi.org/chi97/proceedings/tutorial/am.htm)
3. Ergonomic Guidelines for User-Interface Design (http://ergo.human.cornell.edu/ahtutorials/interface.html)
difficulties -
target audience - the thing that we need to test it is quite restrictive. We were talking about fisherman who could be interesting audience but there is nearly no chance to get product tested.
desktop metaphor - we learned to see the desktop only as a desktop, it's very difficult to think about the screen and its possibilities in different way

my notes - audience:
professions - architect, photographer, shop assistant, artist like painter or sculpturer, doctor
age - preschool children, elderly
other - dogs, cats, drivers patients

architect - very interesting group. they work and think in 3D, moved from paper into the computer age where they can use this tool to communicate with client more efficient way

possible point of view - screen isn't desk-top but points (pixels) which change colours; it's digital, so it doesn't need to be flat (desk, board) = open space without 'rules', we can apply any characteristics we want
possible approach - place different target audience into this pixel space and see what they could do with it:
farmer - field, growing during the time
...
architect!
I came back again to architects. The idea seems to me much clearer and more logic, I'm pretty sure it could actually work very well.
language of computer - already using architects language (information architecture, build, storage...)
levels - floors - importance
hard drive - storage - space to store information, things - like physical building for storage
=
interface - building with rooms - spaces + levels
architects already use 3d software, it would be useful to use the same or similar language
the building structure would be well working for expressing the computer system
is it too easy, flat, plain???