Comments on Ambient Signifiers

Steve Portigal — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:53:29 GMT

It’s great to see this issue come up again, with such a thoughtful approach (and great discussion). In grad school many moons ago I was part of that auditory interface scene (if there was ever a scene) Adam refers to. Some called it “earcons” while others felt that term wasn’t broad enough and on and on it went.

For my thesis I tried and semi-failed to create a tone language for navigating hypertext structure. This was pre-WWW, and was based on some naive assumptions about how people could or could not learn to move around virtual space. The research was really rudimentary but there were some intruiging things that people COULD learn to do. You can see a PDF of a paper I haven’t looked at for a long time at http://www.icad.org/websiteV2.0/Conferences/ICAD94/papers…

Constantinos Michael — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:53:23 GMT

After reading your article, I’ve tried very hard to find examples in non-web applications that employ these techniques. Off the top of my head, Firefox is a great example – not only the yellow address bar to signify security, but also the red search box in the bottom when your search item is not found on the page. MacOS X, when searching in the preference pane, desaturates and darkens the window, except for the icons relevant to your query; the icons that have partial matches appear colored with penumbral shadows, and the full matches appear with umbras. But perhaps the best example I’ve seen comes with certain Unix shell customizations that change the user prompt to a different colour if you’re logged in locally or remotely, and darken and lighten the prompt according to the laod of the machine.

I mention this because I think there’s great room for improvement in these areas. Perhaps the MacOS X dock should also change its hue slightly to reflect the machine load. Connectivity to the internet could be indicated by making the shadow of every window that has accessed a remote IP slightly red (Imagine what a great security feature this would be!) How about physical mediums? Library overdue notices should be printed on paper ranging from light pink to red (I receive multiple for the same book, but naturally, I ignore the first few) – similarly, package notices (from USPS, UPS, and Fedex) could use a similar system. Subway systems could use the improvements the Tokyo line has, and more: in New York, the signage leading to the north exit should be a different color than the south.

Much can be done with pigment altering chemistry: Thirty-day Metrocards should be printed on special paper than gets increasingly redder as its expiration aproaches. I’ve seen something similar done in some parking spaces, where either by accident or thoughtfulness, the machine dispensed ticket you stick to your window fades out completely in 24 hours, allowing an inspector to immediately spot a violation. Cups could show the temperature of their contents.

Daniel Schmidt — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:53:20 GMT

I think a cleverly designed subway system has a deep impact on society. In a sense, it teaches the public to think logically. If a subway system is confused or disorienting, it can make the whole world feel disorganized. It would be interesting to examine how people apply the patterns of their subway system throughout their lives.

tomek tomek — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:53:20 GMT

can’t remember which book, but in one (or several) of his books, he has some nice samples where he’s redesigned really aggressive pieces and communicated more effectively by removing entire design elements, muting colors, and lessening the presence of of other elements (like type, lines).

Jonathan Baker-Bates — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 14:53:19 GMT

Just to pick up on a minor point at the risk of coming across like a neo-Marxist nutjob…

The following comment in the article may seem at first innocuous: “An online publication could feature this month’s articles in high-contrast colors, while previous months are rendered more subtly.” However, I have a big problem with news sites, editorial control, and the idea that what goes for offline news should apply to the online variety. The problem I have can be summed up by the question “Why do I need to be told what is important news, by somebody I do not know, who knows nothing about me?”

This isn’t so much a UX issue I know, but I find it immoral that somebody should edit online news, let alone design a system that ingrains this editorial action. Offline news I have to accept is constrained by physical space, so I can tolerate that – but not on line. Sub-editing, yes, authoritative comment, fine, but deciding what I need to see, or what is important – no.

Nice article though, since this is an area that needs more attention in the overall design process. BTW the BBC’s “patina” idea was retired a couple of years back for being far too subtle, and in my opinion, pointless.