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Dancing About Architecture
An Inquiry into the Aesthetics of Web Design
Nick [email protected]
Enosis Groupwww.enosis.com
© 1999, Enosis Group
“Writing about music is like dancing about architecture”
Frank Zappa
& aCTive
audience, designers, producers, underwriters personal, professional, institutional
inquiry into aesthetics
Motivate
ocont
I
nu us
Why?
Help us each to create
a foundation
of our own
from which to decide
about work and experience
in creating and using the web
Why?
aware activethinkingquestioninginquiring
Design
Rules ... “Creativity Substitutes”
1967
Gene Case Rules in advertising copy writing
Codes ... Building Codes
Construction Laborers
& Building Inspectors
Tryanny of (Design) Systems
UsersDesignersBuyers
media, methods, tools …
… expression, experience, meaning
Plague of Interpretative Noise
• Structuralism
• Modernisim
• Post-, Neo-, and Grunge- everything
Existentialism
Meaningresponse to creation of subject from nothing
Long conversations that lead nowhere
Repudiation of meaning apart from existence
!
Expressionism…Constructivism
People as puppets of technology…
…neohumanism empowered by new materials & techniques
!!
Structuralism
Human activity arises from a system
Discovered & (de)Constructed; knowable
Analysis & Critique fundamental
Semiotics
Process
Modernism
Reality from signs; signs from Reality
Rise of the Natural, Visual, Objective: Meaning
Affirmation of difference within the Social
The “I”
Pop ModernismI ... can have more (than enough)
100% ... bohemian
Sex ... as art, as right, as being
Desire: sharp, yet tender
Self-Promotion; Self-Expression
Culture pop<-->high; pop--><--high
Consumption, Fortune
Taboo defanged ... commercialized
Advertising
Utopia
Post-Modernism
Meaning Questioned …Signs, Symbols, Meaning
Reality as: a personal construction…… intentional, evaluative
Being as critique
Loss (denial) of Utopia
Pattern Languages
• Qualities driving exploration, experimentation– architects, designers
• Principles from practice– engineers
• Structured practice through rules– construction site
• Patterns -- retrospective semiotics– incl semantics, syntax, pragmatics; lexicon
– infrastructure for systems
– supplant (‘wrong’) exploration and expermentation
• System-Theoretic Deconstruction
Antidote
Intelligent ExperienceComplex (The Rich Unknown)
Reflective (Deeply Personal)
Reflexive (Subject & Objective)
Informed by Aesthetic Inquiry
Firmness, Commodity, and Delight
1st Century BC (and earlier)
Vitruvius Ten Books of Architecture
Goals, Expectations, and Experience
Mutual
Harmonic
Cohesive
Understanding Experience
Precedes Separation of Object & Subject
Recorder and Foreteller—history and future
Elaboration of Self
Colors everything—lifts or taints
False hype, false hope
Compelling Interpretation and Action
Bakery Resolution Imperative
Buildings Columns, Arcades, Rooms
Architecture
people
places
spaces
People, Places, Spaces
web, desktop apps
film, theatre
pie, cake
Kindergartners and Designers
Interpretive Critique
Open Eyes
Search for New
Self-, Inner-Directed
Any Excuse
(role-play belonging to the critical class ... adults)
SOME IDEAS
Rich Space
Signifiers
Symbols
SOME IDEAS
Discourse
Placing the audience
Shift to the experience
Acting out of roles
Recapitulation
SOME IDEAS
Narration & Navigation
Creator
Audience
Content
Structural
Unseen
SOME IDEAS
Aesthetic Distancing...
Technology Affront
Figure from Ground
Tension, Balance, Centers
Forced Modes
...and Resolution
Whitespace
Work of artsketch, statuary, museum,
painting, photograph, advertisement
Space and Relationshipsorality to bound A4 linearity
Columns, Dynamics, Rhythm
Conventions, Fictions
Other Examples?
Content is King
Paragraph Lengths
Frames
Scrolling
Download times
Image maps
Search
Clicking Counts, Clicking Rates
Design at the Nexus
at the nexus arise
Designed Experiences
ArtPersonal-expression-emotional
ArchitectureGroup (p/p/s)-evocative-emotive
EngineeringPersonal Practice-inventive-techne
ConstructionGroup Practice-conventions-assy and practice-practical (production? industry ?)
Design at the Nexus
Engineeringsimple as can be, no simpler
Artexpression, exploration
User experience“Smarter HCI practitioners 9 out of 10 times”
Context and ContentBeyond consolidation, distillation
... place, process, systems, artifacts
Designer-driven
New Quality to Experience
Ancient Visual Society ...
… to Modern Verbal Society
New Media Society
… a Neo-Visual Society
In which we are allunprepared, unskilled, untrained
An Affinity-Free Discipline
Engineer the Interface
Design the Experience
Affinity-Free Design
Motivateaudience, designers, producers, underwriters, active, continuous, personal, professional, institutional, inquiry, aesthetics,
Design
Responsibility (and Mandate)
Robust exerciseVariety
Exploration
Experimentation
Knowing executionStronger results
Communication
Dancing About Architecture
Anyone?
