Making Space Content Specific Interactive Architectures for Information Presentation
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Making Space Content Specific Interactive Architectures for Information Presentation Gregory More RMIT University Abstract This paper examines the connections between digital architectures and interaction design with an emphasis on how the latter informs the former. Digital spatial interfaces have been in development for well over a decade. However there is still a distinct and problematic separation between the function of these spaces architecturally and the functional use of architectural concepts in the design of these spaces. The research presented here outlines an approach to interface design that promotes an architecture that is temporal, interactive and sonic, and is defined explicitly by a functional relationship to its informational content. In particular this research reports on the design of a software prototype that incorporates spatial concepts of interactivity, visualization and sound to assist in the navigation of presentation information, promoting space as a primary interface to an information collection. Introduction extant architectural knowledge with the additional dimensions of hypermedia, The discipline of architecture is interactivity, and streaming information. founded on the interpretation and The Virtual New York Stock Exchange by understanding of space, and in turn, Asymptote is a well known precedent of a spatial information. Architects have virtual environment that mimics a physical explored the connections between real world space (Couture and Rashid digital information spaces and physical 00). The project synthesizes the physical space. These relationships in general trading floor with a digital trading floor follow advancements in representational where users can view the information of technologies from the broader computing the NYSE environment in realtime via a domain, for example the use of VRML digital interface. in the mid nineties as an architectural The development of realtime modeling language. Realtime three- visualization software and graphic engines dimensional visualization techniques that represent spatial environments offer an innovative space for combining continue to furnace architectural 9 Figure 1. Asymptote, Virtual Stock Exchange. Operations Center (1999) (left), and Virtual Trading Floor (1998) (right). explorations. A collection of applications information spatially, and specifically within is available to the architect to explore this spaces that mimic real world conditions. domain, some of which are: Virtools™, For example, WinD (Clockwise) MaxMS/Jitter, Macromedia Director™, uses the analogy of rooms for various Adobe Atmosphere™, Blender, and computer applications, and Task Gallery various game engine technologies, Unreal, (Microsoft) software applications are ORGE, Torque, etc. For example Dutch located and accessed via the floor, walls architect Kas Oosterhuis is a designer and the ceiling of a generic office room. who creates digital spaces (utilizing Architecture in these examples is a Virtools) that interact and control physical backdrop, or stage, for the interaction. architectures (Oosterhuis 00). The This is a symbolic representation of space, argument of this paper is not surveying, rather than space designed as a result validating or judging the novel use of these of function; the architecture is static and technologies by architects. It is interested, has the appearance and arrangement however, in how architects can be assisted of a space designed for the real world. by the field of interaction design when What this paper is arguing is that in designing for the digital domain, and this the digital domain we should consider is examined through the development architecture not as a frame, but as the of an experimental software prototype spatial experience that reconfigures to described later in this paper. the actions of the user. Thus avoiding Shneiderman in his essay ‘Why the mimicking of a real-world space, and Not Make Interfaces Better than D focusing on the advantages of a space that Reality?” discusses the development is defined specifically by the nature and of D interfaces (Shneiderman 00). quantity of its information. The software Shneiderman, an important figure prototype presented in this paper in interface design and Human and embodies an attempt to move towards Computer Interaction (HCI), is interested a digital architecture that is temporal, in the advantages and disadvantages of D reconfigurable, and inherently functional. displays over traditional two dimensional computer interfaces. Shneiderman presents a survey of attempts to render Gregory More Making Space Content Specific: Interactive Architectures for Information Presentation 9 Figure 2. Eureka image space (left), in Eureka in library Mode (right). Eureka Prototype PowerPoint), where elements are placed into linear lists for presenting, Eureka allows the user to arrange information into Background sets (compositions) within space, which can be traversed in a linear or nonlinear The Eureka prototype is a spatially sequence. Given the computational and adaptive hypermedia. This is a combination multimedia ability of a consumer grade of adaptive hypermedia (Brusilovsky laptop, it is difficult to understand why 2001), where content is reconfigured by we traditionally resort to a linear style of user input, and spatial hypermedia, where presenting via D representations of our spatial relationships make new connections information assets. As illustrated in Figure between previously unrelated content , the main difference between Eureka (Marshall and Shipman 995). Eureka, as a and other presentation software is that digital environment, locates informational Eureka locates all presentation information assets within a digital space that can be spatially. This spatial arrangement creates interacted with and navigated by a user a D interface within which one can via an OpenGL graphics display, keyboard interact with presentation content. This and mouse. Eureka allows for the user allows for easier recognition of the lecture to compile presentation content from content by the user and the ability to use a database, alter elements, present, and perspective as a means to arrange and retain information about the presentation. collate information. The space of Eureka as an information In Eureka navigation is achieved by rich environment incorporates various the user ‘clicking on’ items, upon which modes of user interaction and content the user’s point of view is moved through arrangements, and the software prototype space to address the newly selected item. has been produced with the authoring The user is able to move freely around software Macromedia DirectorTM. the content with an interaction model In contrast to other presentation of clicking on objects to navigate. When software (for example Microsoft an item is ‘double clicked’, then the ACADIA 2006: Synthetic Landscapes Digital Exchange 9 Digital Research: Theoretical Research image is shown in full screen mode, like the information. These concepts embrace a traditional slide show. A presentation three key characteristics that advanced is a mixture of navigating the space, and D interface designs have: rapid situation showing content as full screen images, awareness through effective overviews; allowing for both linear transversal and the reduced numbers of actions to accomplish nonlinear jumping between content. tasks; and prompt, meaningful feedback for user actions (Shneiderman 00). The Architectures Defined by information modes allow for different Information types of interaction to occur with the collection set, the use of perspective and Eureka relies on content to generate camera controls allow for rapid situational space. For example a presentation with awareness, and the animated transitions a limited set of content (e.g. 0 items), and sound-scapes give feedback to the will have a less expansive sense of space users’ interactions. than one with a larger collection of items To facilitate the control of the (e.g. 00 items). This is a key difference informational assets Eureka offers the between Eureka and interfaces that try user a selection of information modes. to mimic real world space; here space These modes allow the user to switch is adaptive to the content, so there is a between different configurations of the direct relationship between the content information space, entitled presentation, and the spatial experience it creates. plans, library, agent response, and history. For To manage the interaction within space example the history mode reconfigures the design of Eureka engages two main every slide that has been shown in a principles: first, arranging elements in space presentation into a linear sequence, relative to varying modes of interaction; spatially moving them out of a relationship and second, that space is reconfigurable, with the images not shown. The library so change to the information set mode exposes all library assets for viewing transforms the spatial configuration of and selection. Each information mode can have a unique spatial configuration, user interactions, environmental conditions, and the arrangements can be designed to dynamically reflect the quantity and type of information being presented. Figure represents an abstraction of how the collections are spatially related. Eureka presents an animated realtime information environment. All user movements, interactions, and spatial Figure 3. Diagram of the spatial arrangement of transformations of the information are information sets in Eureka. Depth