Interactive: The Concept

Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase “hot” and “cold” mediums. A hot medium had little or no interactivity, with the end user having nothing to figure out. Where as a cold medium has lots of interactivity. For this project I have decided to design an experimental portfolio website which will encompass various posters which I have created over the last year. The experimentation is housed in the navigation system of the interface. The level of experimentation which the navigation system will encompass must be intelligent in its design and not alienate users, a “warm” medium should be sufficient. “Interactivity is a way of providing a path through information that the user can internalise and navigate. If you make this navigation process too difficult, or the overall interactive model too complicated for the user to internalise, your interactive architecture falls flat”.

The intuitiveness of this concept will be paramount to its success, because if the interface is too difficult to comprehend then the end user will be leaving the site pretty quickly. “In fact, several psychological factors hang in a delicate balance: challenge, frustration, and curiosity” (Donald, Unknown, pg 208). An unbalance of any kind and the initial enjoyment felt from rotating the cube quickly gives way to frustration. A good balance and “Users will be able to learn to use it quickly and be able to use it faster than a system without good interaction design.”

The navigation is non-linear, as a “user who takes advantage of these links is rewarded by a deeper experience than would have been possible by following a simple linear thread.” It is also playful in its design, enticing the user to rotate. “The act of participatory in an interactive experience arouses some sort of feeling within us. It either involves us emotionally (as in religious rituals) or is enjoyable as a form of play (as in games).” It is the source of the user’s interactive experience, it “… assumes a meandering kind of activity by the end user and seeks to accommodate through the richness of discovery”.

The way the cube will rotate is designed to be completely intuitive. I have developed it in a way to mimic how you would rotate in reality, a cube with your hand. This mimicking of reality leads the user to work out how the navigation system works within a very short space of time. “The human mind is exquisitely tailored to make sense of the world. Give it the slightest clue and off it goes, providing explanation, rationalisation, understanding.”

This mimicking of reality along with the appropriate feedback will result in the user being quickly and appropriately informed about what is going on. They are also able to understand what is happening in their interaction within this system.

“The usability of an interface is a measure of the effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction with which the specified users can achieve specified goals in a particular environment with that interface.”
In creating the graphical look for the interface I used a concept of limitation. Limitation in that I decided to use only three colours. With the use of only three colours one would be forced to be more inventive in its creation. It was produced to be as much a part of the portfolio as each individual poster, therefore the interface became
“An expression of a sites attitude”,a “...fusion of interface and content. This will influence the way which the user will understand and process this information.
The golden section was also an essential theory by which the graphical design was created.