All in the mind?

As I'm not a psychologist I am well out of my comfort zone with this next attempt to understand interactivity but is interactivity dependent upon perception? I am an avid listener of Melvyn Bragg's Radio 4 programme In Our Time. One programme deals with perception and Bragg introduces the programme by saying "Perception is a tangled web of processes and so much of what we see, hear and touch is determined by our own expectations that it raises the question of whether we ever truly perceive what others do." Certainly within interactive design perception is crucial but is there an inherent problem when we attempt to make an interface intuitive that we cannot solve?

If we attempt to put into place enough visual cues and spend time perfecting the interactive loop (see image, adapted from a diagram by Bill Verplank of Stanford University) in order to make the interface usable for as many people as possible, are we still being kneecapped by a philosophical bullet. That is do we assume the user (insert your preferred nomenclature here) perceives the interface in the way we expect? Not exactly an earth-shatteringly original concern but when we consider that interactivity is more than just hand and eye, but also factors such as asynchronous and real-time communication, interchangeability of roles, modification of content within real-time etc. and tangibility affect the way that the perceived interactivity works.



It is therefore a little disconcerting for me to think that even taking into account semiology, typography and the psychology behind colour theory I may still need to consider deeper philosophical issues such as suggested by Spiro Kiousis in his 2002 paper "Interactivity: a concept explication". Kiousis proposes that interactivity, on an operational basis "is established by three factors: technological structure of the media used (e.g. speed, range, timing flexibility, and sensory complexity), characteristics of communication settings (e.g. third-order dependency and social presence), and individuals’ perceptions (e.g. proximity, perceived speed, sensory activation, and telepresence)." We already are aware that each individual has different ability in reading on screen and hand-eye coordination with input devices, but is there deeper issues we need to be aware of.

I am re-reading Kiousis' paper and will post again my own observations.

References

Kiousis, Spiro (2002) Interactivity: a concept explication New Media & Society, SAGE Publications, Vol4(3):355–383, Pp 379

Monopoly and designing interactive digital artefacts

What would happen if the design principles of Monopoly where applied to an interactive digital artefact?

In the words of Durrell Bishop the real-world is full of self-evident objects where their shape displays their mechanical properties. What if digital tools could actually be clearer in their display as to what they performed? I am not talking about icons here. I have lost too many man hours trying to decipher the icons on Microsoft Outlook Web Access when I need to send an email due to some egoist insisting on using icons they thought were >cool< that no-one else does… but I digress.

Bishop uses Monopoly to explain his premise on self-evident design. The game itself has a complex system that is as complex as using a video recorder (slightly old school but hang in there) and he argues that it's functions are self-evident. The board graphics demonstrate clearly the possibilities and route around the board; the pieces show the players' proximity and the dice demonstrates the position of both the current and previous spatial position of the latest player. Houses show both ownership and risk. At each stage there is a physical signal as to where the game currently is.

If a player has to go the toilet or make a cuppa during play, when they return it doesn't take a full debrief to resume the game. Bishop's main point is that at one glance you know where you are. Using the comparison to a video recorder he suggests that videos would have been more user-friendly if at a glance the user would know what is on the tape, where the programme they want lies on the tape, how much is left on the tape and who else needs to watch the programmes remaining on the tape before it can be recorded over.

So my point of interest in Bishop's research is whether digital interface design can transcend the icon-centric bull and harness more self-evident design principles to make the usability of interactive digital artefacts more intuitive for the user. Does anyone have anything to add to this idea?