[Sigia-l] lenses

[Adam Korman]

On Thursday, November 14, 2002, at 04:44  PM, Christina Wodtke wrote:

> a logn time ago I wrote about lenses
> http://www.eleganthack.com/archives/002711.html
>
> I was wondering what you folks thought is the best GUI tool for 
> toggling
> between different views and/or different filters on the same 
> collection of
> stuff?

I've found that using the analogy of a lens is useful for 
internal/client communication of the effect of controls in a design, 
but I think it's too broad a metaphor to create design guidelines for. 
There are a number of behaviors that you could classify as lens-like:

+ Zooming (on maps, documents)
+ Revealing detail
+ Highlighting information
+ Arranging or sorting information
+ Filtering/refining results

Off the top of my head I can think of examples of how all sorts of 
widgets, layout elements, and interaction paradigms have been employed 
for these lens-type behaviors:

+ Slider in iPhoto for zooming
+ Combo box in any number of document apps (PowerPoint, Word, 
Fireworks) for zooming
+ Drop-downs, radio buttons and checkboxes in various search tools 
(usually in an advanced search) to arrange, sort, filter or refine 
results
+ Radio buttons on Dice.com and Monster.com to set the level of detail 
(short/long descriptions in results)
+ Two-state on/off button in Word to reveal details (paragraph markers, 
spaces)
+ Two-state on/off buttons to highlight search terms in Google's toolbar
+ Checked menu entries in various Adobe apps to switch views 
(FrameMaker's text symbols, Illustrator's Pixel Preview mode)
+ Menu commands in Illustrator to switch views (View > Outline, View > 
Preview)
+ Split panes in Acrobat to show thumbnails of pages, in PPT to show 
the presentation outline, in WordPerfect to reveal codes
+ Tabs to show different views in Homesite (code, preview, design)
+ Buttons to switch between views in PowerPoint (Normal, Outline, 
Slide, Slide Sorter, Slide Show)
+ Click on headers to sort tables by a column in just about any app
+ Click on an icon that represents a playlist to filter a collection of 
audio files in just about any media player
+ Hover over a file/folder in the Mac Finder or Windows Explorer to 
show details
+ Change a preference hidden in a dialog to show/hide details in the 
Mac Finder or Windows Explorer
+ Enter text differently (word order, use of quotes, special commands) 
in a search box to change the arrangement or filter results
+ Drag and drop terms from a faceted classification to filter/expand 
search results
+ Click checkboxes to turn layers on/off in Illustrator, Photoshop, 
Fireworks

While not comprehensive (and forgive me if not 100% accurate), these 
are all examples of changing views on the same collection of stuff. 
Sure some of these methods are more successful than others, but the 
success of each is very dependent on the context. I don't think you can 
generalize that one method/GUI tool is more appropriate than another 
for the broad concept of "lensing." But even though I think this topic 
is too broad to come up with practical guidelines for, there are 
definitely patterns to explore and examine within its sub-categories.

Regards,
Adam
....
Adam Korman
adamk at flexID.com
www.felxID.com