PART I – Here are my three ideas

PART II – Two Options

PART III – Final

Part III – Final Map

The feedback from the critique session helped me immensely. I made a bunch of  changes to my maps and synthesized into forces that make students visit my observation area. Being a student town and a fairly expensive place to live in, I felt my map should center around how it can be made live-able and affordable for students.

High res image here

Part II – maps of the 5 forces

1. Offices

2. Restaurants

3. Stores

4. Housing Properties

5. Transportation

 

 

I decided to observe the marketplace/shopping hub near my house known as Camino Real Marketplace. This shopping center was built in 1998. It has everything from high end restaurants to a movie theatre to a whole sale retail store. The farmer’s market of Goleta is held here on Sundays. This place has people and movement at all times. Following are the forces, according to my observations, that define this place.

Forces :

1.  Nearby Offices

With the technology hub close by, I found a lot of professionals walking/driving down here for lunch/ coffee. The DMV is also situated here, which also attracts visitors.

2. Restaurants 

Since there are a lot of stores and offices nearby, a lot of people are taking their lunch breaks here. These are the only restaurants that are within .5 mile radius. For more options, one needs to drive 10 miles to Santa Barbara ( 20 mins) drive one way.

3. Stores

There are a 4 big grocery stores and about 8-9 stores related to hardware, sports equipment, clothing stores, beauty stores, stationery stores, phone carrier etc. This also attracts a lot of foot and vehicular traffic here. The farmer’s market is also held here.

4. Housing Properties – Pacific Oaks and Hollister Village

Having a shopping and eating complex so close by has encouraged properties to be built here. Hollister Village (image above) was built last year.

5. Transportation – Bus Stops

Buses to and from downtown and to and from the University pick up passengers, students from this complex too.

Feedback is defined as the information gained about a reaction to a product, which will allow the modification of the product. Source: https://www.albert.io/blog/positive-negative-feedback-loops-biology/

Feedback loop is the response received from a stimuli, which is then fed back to alter the stimuli which in turn tweaks  the consequent response or reaction. This process goes on till an equilibrium or desired response has been acquired.

There are two kinds of feedback loops : Positive and Negative. (Universal Principles of Design, pg. 92-93)

Positive Feedback Loop : amplifies system output, resulting in growth or decline. These are effective in creating change but generally result in negative consequence.
Negative Feedback Loop :  dampens output, stabilizing the system around an equilibrium point. These are effective for resisting change.

Fly-by-wire control systems use the Feedback loop strategy to perform tasks without pilot input.

Image from source

ONLINE IMAGE

Temperature regulation in humans occurs constantly. Normal human body temperature is approximately 98.6°F. When body temperature rises above this, two mechanisms kick in the body begins to sweat, and vasodilation occurs to allow more of the blood surface area to be exposed to the cooler external environment. As the sweat cools, it causes evaporative cooling, while the blood vessels cause convective cooling. Normal temperature is regained. Should these cooling mechanisms continue, the body will become cold. The mechanisms which then kick in are the formation of goose bumps, and vasoconstriction. Goosebumps in other mammals raise the hair or fur, allowing more heat to be retained. In humans, they tighten the surrounding skin, reducing (slightly) the surface area from which to lose heat. Vasoconstriction ensures that only a small surface area of the veins is exposed to the cooler outside temperature, retaining heat. Normal temperature is regained.

Images from real life

Let’s say you are driving just a little too fast and you pass a digital radar sign that says, “Your Speed Is…” and displays the current speed of your car as you pass. Our first instinct is to press the brake pedal and slow down till we are close to the desired speed.

These signs are one example of a feedback loop. The output of your current behavior (driving too fast) becomes the input for your new behavior (slowing down).

 

The Gutenberg diagram describes a general pattern the eyes move through when looking at evenly distributed content stimuli. The pattern applies to text-heavy content. Think pages in a novel or a newspaper.

The Gutenberg diagram divides the layout into 4 quadrants.

• Primary optical area located in the top-left
• Strong fallow area located in the top-right
• Weak fallow area located in the bottom-left
• Terminal area located in the bottom-right

The pattern suggests that the eye will sweep across and down the page in a series of horizontal movements called axes of orientation. Each sweep starts a little further from the left edge and moves a little closer to the right edge. The overall movement is for the eye to travel from the primary area to the terminal area and this path is referred to as reading gravity. (Universal Principles of Design, p.118)

However, as people have started reading on websites, a new eye movement pattern has been identified as the F- shaped pattern, where the lower left corner is actually an area of focus. (Nielsen, 2006)

Another pattern that has been identified is the Z- shaped pattern. (Babich, 2017) A Z-pattern design traces the route the human eye travels when they scan the page— left to right, top to bottom:

• First, people scan from the top left to the top right, forming a horizontal line
• Next, down and to the left side of the page, creating a diagonal line
• Last, back across to the right again, forming a second horizontal line

Resource Example

ONLINE EXAMPLE

REAL LIFE EXAMPLE

There are two types of memory retrieval : recognition and recall.

Recognition refers to our ability to “recognize” an event or piece of information as being familiar, while recall designates the retrieval of related details from memory. (Nielson, 2014).

It is easier to recognize things that we have experienced earlier than having to recall those from memory. For example, when you go to an Italian restaurant, an image or a description of the ingredients of a dish (that you have tasted before) will instantly provide you with cues of how it tasted than when the menu has only the name. Just the name of the dish will make you search your memory for when you had it and how it felt. You may or may not be successful in recalling this.

This concept can be employed to digital interfaces as well. I have experienced this especially when instructing my mother on how to use her smartphone. I have often observed that my mother fails to understand when I ask her to use the “search” function on the phone. I believe, this makes her recall what “search” looks like. But when I tell her to look for the magnifying glass on her screen, she is instantly able to associate and locate the search function. Here, recognition is being used.

Resource Image

Online Image

Real life example

The human eye likes to find simplicity and order in complex shapes – it prevents us from being overwhelmed by information overload. When we see convoluted shapes in a design, the eye simplifies these by transforming them into a single, unified shape (by removing extraneous detail from these shapes).

We humans like to make quick sense of things that would otherwise be upsettingly disordered. We dislike flux and need to find meaning quickly. Luckily, we don’t even have to think about doing this – our eyes have already got there!

The Law of Prägnanz can be described by a number of separate laws of grouping covering proximity, similarity, closure, symmetry, common fate and continuity. Source : http://www.psywww.com/

Images from original source:

Images from online source:

Source: http://www.iconsdb.com/

Source: http://www.mexicolore.co.uk

Images from the real world:

 

If you draw a line of a certain length a, and divide it into two parts b and c where b is bigger than c, so that a / b = b / c, then that ratio is the golden ratio. If you draw a rectangle with sides in proportion to the golden ration, then this is called the golden rectangle.

In the golden ratio, a + b is to a as a is to b.

It is often symbolized using phi, after the 21st letter of the Greek alphabet. In an equation form, it looks like this:

a/b = (a+b)/a = 1.6180339887498948420 …

Source : https://www.livescience.com/

Images from Original Source

Images from online Source

Source: https://www.widewalls.ch

Images froM real Life

Fitt’s law states that it’s faster to hit larger targets closer to you than it is to hit smaller targets further away from you.  As the distance increases, movement takes longer and as the size decreases selection again takes longer, more errors will occur reaching the target due to speed-accuracy trade off.

Source https://www.interaction-design.org

Original Source Example

Drop down menus – Selecting options within linear menus, whether vertical (e.g. dropdown menus) or horizontal (e.g. top-level navigation), takes longer than clicking options in pie menus – where choices are arranged in a circle. Traveling distance is the same for all options in pie menus, unlike linear menus where distance increases the further along or down the list of options the user goes. In addition, the size of target areas is large in the pie menu, with the wedge-shaped buttons affording a larger margin for error when moving the cursor.

Online Example

This page has a wonderful interactive exercise to understand what Fitts is talking about. Just take the test, don’t worry about the results.

REAL life example

The brake pedal in cars is bigger than the accelerator pedal. It is also closer to you, which makes it faster and easier to hit in emergencies. Also note, the parking brake (extreme left) is the farthest and the smallest. The distance and the size of the pedal makes it difficult to reach out – hence if you do need to use it, you must make a conscious effort to do so. This is not what Fitts’ law proposes, but the converse of his law is helpful as well.

Figure Ground Relationship is one of the many principles of Gestalt principles of perception.  According to Gestalt, the humans perceptually separate stimuli into figure or ground. In simple words, elements are perceived as either figures (distinct elements of focus) or ground (the background or landscape on which the figures rest).

The objects in focus are figure , also known as positive shape. These are easily discernible as a shape. The background or the areas and shapes created between figures are known as ground or negative shape. The ground is shapeless. (Landa, Robin 2011)

When the figure-ground of the composition is clear, relationship is balanced, the figure receives more attention from the viewer. When the relationship is unbalanced, the stimuli appears ambiguous and can be interpreted differently. The interpretation then alternates between figure and ground.

Images from the original resource (Universal Principles of design):

Hope For Peace by Ronald J. Cala II : The designer creates a figure/ground reversal, where the negative shapes are also identifiable as positive images – a dove between the two girls.

Images found online:

Romeo and Juliet: Lanny Somese : A heart and dagger are created in the negative spaces of the girl and the boy.

Source : https://www.instagram.com/

Images From real life