Class 02 / Jan.12th

Mapping & Metaphor

• Form & function - a fusion of these concepts.

Mapping & metaphor design need:

• Project - style
• functions
• target --> users

• Mapping is taking these aspects and shaping them.

• Spreading functions on a layout. Ex) map, phone keyboard, final design (object itself).

• Layout has dimensions: 3D (space), 4D (time)

• The relationship shared between (space + time) regarding the use of the object

• Layout ----> interface:

• ex) car dashboard -->

• guages (information)
• steering wheel, gear shift (interface elements)

• Mapping --> design --> interface --> information

• Exist in the same flow: interface elements (physical) + information
• ex) while driving:
• vibration - feel the speed (acceleration)
• guages - tells the speed (km/h)

• Feedback = Response
• The answer of the system that is being used.
• Loop - ready, on, awaiting input to produce feedback.
• Cybernetics - WWII, everything in nature/the world is a system
  
• From a system, you get a response (in real-time)
• Continuous, where there is input (moveing the mouse), there is feedback (movement/response)

• Numerous processes are occuring while driving:
• looking outside
• seeing guages (speed)
• feeling vibration
• appointment to get too
• you might be turning...

• Numerous processes running at the same time but they don't have the same nature (abstract, physical)
• Driving is a flow: an even distribution of all of these different processes.

• Analyze --> Breaking it down --> Processes

• Mapping --> spreading processes evenly on a scale.
• from abstract <-----to-----> physical

• Interface - a system to send instructions.
• System - an IN and OUT.
• Affordances - inverse casts (where and how to interact)
• Behaviour of a system, to give feedback.
• Form Follows Function

Metaphor: comparing a digital clock, to a physical clock (w/moving hands)

• Physical:
• more physicality
• time and space
• 24 hours (overall picture)
• tells where you lie in the overall layout of the day, somewhere in those 24 hours. (time + space)
• approximation
  

• Digital:
• data
• pure precision
• a.m. & p.m. needed to compensate

• There are affordances in physical and graphical space.
• Bit - 1 unit of information.