[Sigia-l] lenses

[Byron]

On Monday, November 18, 2002, at 08:44  AM, christina wodtke wrote:

>
>> ... 'Would it be
>> worth using a completely different widget for separating the concepts
>> "these are different ways of seeing the same idea/item" and "these are
>> different things altogether"?'.  One way to hint about whether you are
>> seeing the same thing in different ways, or seeing a different thing
>> altogether is how  visually distinct the contents of  each tab is from
>> the other.  Both Amazon and Google change the main color in the
>> displayed page for each tab.
>
> Excellent point. Long ago I tested some comps with color indicators, 
> which
> were not noticed or even subconsciously parsed by users (similar to 
> Amazon's
> color changes). I wonder how strong a change must be to register, and 
> at
> what point is reads as a different view and at what point it reads as a
> different page altogether...
>
> ideas? Data?
No data, some thoughts/observations...
It seems to me that a complete page design and layout change (change of 
character, personality) would lead a user to feel that they had moved 
into a different information/work space, whereas thematic similarity in 
character and design of the content area of the page with  some 
"highlight" changes to the navigation mechanism - (tabs, for example) 
would tend to indicate different views of the same information space.

I often use the analogy of different rooms to explain this concept to 
clients & development teams to help them prioritize  and organize page 
contents so they "make sense". You can have multiple views (focus) of 
any given room and it's contents, but a kitchen or library are very 
different places from the carpentry workshop, and should ideally look 
and feel in a way that "makes sense" in that context (tool sets, 
furniture, personality)
Another analogy: when you go to a different country you expect it to be 
different.

Byron
bstevens at neptune.on.ca