Thursday, October 07, 2010

Human pattern

Image from : http://www.echostudiochicago.com/sustainability/window-on-the-world

Remember as a child we always wanted to take up that window seat be it travelling in bus, train, car or even at home. We used to love to sit at window. But we never noticed this behavior pattern. Today while going through a presentation on Search and Discovery pattern I came across following,

Window Place: Everybody loves window seats, bay windows, and big windows with low sills and comfortable chairs drawn upto them. - Christopher Alexander in Pattern Language

So here is my take on the design aspect of this pattern.
Psychologically human feel comfortable in peeking outside their small world. They don't want to get confined in that small space. However they don't want to plunge too in that big world. Small world is cozy and comfortable for them. A window provides them a way to be in their comforts and still take a look at the big world around.
You Interface should be something similar to this. User don't want to get into the large world. They need comfort and coziness. However they want to browse through the information. As a designer we should be presenting the complex information to user the way they see world from their window.

3 comments:

1301111y ~ YAGNESH said...

nice..very inspiring javan. Will try to apply this :) thanks

Aatish Patel said...

does this just apply ti User Interface ...:-)

Unknown said...

well it does apply. i am not able to relate anything as such right now but I do see lot of value of taking this cue and designing interface that suit this pattern