Expressing temporality in interfaces
When interacting with today’s graphic user interfaces (GUI), we experience a sense of realism. As of now, certain aspects of realism (for example animations) create the appearance that user interface graphics behave in accordance with the physical laws of the living world.
When experiencing such aspects of realism in GUI, we experience one thing in terms of another. This is what is known as a metaphor. Interaction design has long drawn on the familiar logic of the living world. Here, GUI often uses metaphors that allow for experiences to feel real and familiar.
However, these are only some aspects of realism in today’s GUI. We may consider it as a genre of realism. When one considers the existing metaphors to not convey realism in its entirety, an opportunity to probe a different genre emerges.
What other realistic features of the living world are there? And how can these realistic features be implemented in GUI to express other realisms?
Today, in light of designing GUI, interaction researchers and designers are concerned with the relationship between people and GUI. They usually describe this relationship as a series of ”momentary interactions”. Somewhere between when GUI came to be and today, aesthetically pleasing experiences rose to complement these ”momentary interactions” that are imbued with functionality.
Designers turned to the living world for inspiration. Whilst some realistic features counteracted the functional purpose of GUI, some proved beneficial. Animations, mirroring the motion of objects of the living world by physical laws, served as feedback and/or feed-forward. It was simply a way to leverage what we already understand and are familiar with.
Upon designing these ”momentary interactions” derived from a user-centred design approach, the potential richness of wholesome experiences seemed forgotten. The GUI simply appeared ’shiny and new’ upon interaction. Whilst you and I, and our interactions change over time, the GUI simply does not.
Not until recently have attention shifted towards prolonged experiences and how these may intertwine with our everyday lived experience. Whilst realistic features have successfully been implemented into these ”momentary interactions”, how to design for prolonged experiences is undoubtedly complex.
Various researchers and designers in the field of Interaction Design have raised the awareness of how other meanings may rise in prolonged experiences.
In the living world, changes are made under continual conditions, whereas our interaction with a medium influences it as it influences us. This probes the concept of continuity in Human-Computer Interaction and thinking of interaction over time rather than at momentary points. This transcends to cultural implications, of how several people may be involved in the usage of GUI at the same time.
What separates these ”momentary interactions” from prolonged experiences is time. There are many things that may express the passage of time in reality. But in my exploration, I turned to nature for answers. The withering of a tree, a sunset, the growth of an ivy plant-encroaching on a building. Just as how animations mirror the motion of objects in the living world, what if GUI was to mirror the passage of time of the living world?
In that sense, GUI would not simply be depicted as unaffected by time but adopted to our change — Just as how a physical object adapts to changes over time — conveying our traces over time.
In this design research, as part of a bachelor thesis, I examined other realistic features such as temporal processes of the living world and how they may be used metaphorically to shape experiences over time in GUI. I discovered that temporal processes such as frosting, blooming, and wearing and tearing expressed traces of time in reality.
By manifesting these temporal processes in the design of GUI, GUI expresses the time of and with the GUI as continuous. I argue that it paves way for a different relationship to be nurtured, another meaning beyond that of today’s functional GUI. Simply, how time may be expressed differently from that of today’s GUI. Continuous time in GUI conveys meaning in the sense of what was, what is, and what is about to.
How are traces of time manifested in the design of temporal metaphors in Graphical User Interface?
Reductionism
In the last decade, temporality has been given attention in Human-Computer Interaction research. Several researchers within the interaction design field have in various ways approached the design of time. Yet, it is strikingly overlooked, remaining somewhat unexplored.
Approaches made in HCI research are often of user-centric nature, starting from people’s needs and requirements. These approaches tend to focus on the functionality of interactive mediums at the expense of their aesthetic and sensuous expressions. Here, emphasis on how interaction aesthetics naturally change over time.
The underlying concern is interactions in a single or ‘ideal’ scenario. Whereas in the living world, interaction produce far more complex scenarios. As circumstances and/or contexts may change in the living world, so do our experience of interaction.
What temporality may yield that has been reasoned to be neglected in user- centred design approaches is how function does not necessarily have to change for a new relationship to be experienced with an artefact. Thus, temporality may nurture a different kind of relationship where one might feel differently towards a digital artefact.
What it would mean to have a digital artefact in which we partially have a history with?
With reductionism, interaction is reduced in value to merely its functions. This becomes problematic as such digital artefact with so reduced value inevitably end up cast away once used no more. An act like this consequently allows for neither memories nor history to be nurtured.
Temporality
To unpack what temporality means in GUI, we need to look at existing expressions of traces of time in said context.
Apple’s Screen Time conveys the time one spends on an Apple iOS device. As seen in the image above, time is expressed in numbers. In this sense, time is expressed implicitly. What the numbers unsuccessfully express is what this time means and is. Consequently, the numbers only serve as mere symbolisations for time. For simplification, we could compare this to how a timepiece tell time and how a pair of old jeans tell time.
This implicit nature of expressing time juxtaposed with these function-oriented environments opens up new design space for exploring other possibilities.
Temporality in GUI may serve to not only represent time but also explore different meanings. What would it mean to have a history with GUI? This is just one of a handful in the puzzling nature of temporality. In the living world, time is woven into every piece of an experience.
“Your own traces on the ground fade, the footmarks washed away or overlaid with others, the only remains the slight deepening of a rutted path or the gloss on well-trodden stones. Often the trace that persists is on paper in diaries and journals, or digitally on the web: lines of text and photographs.”
― Alan Dix
To unfold the value residing in the expressions of a temporal process of the living world as an inquiry to this design research, I began by asking what temporal processes are there? By means of mind-mapping, I unpacked different temporal processes that arose from my everyday encounters in nature. Through thematization, these different temporal processes were grouped into themes/categories based on their similarities in nature.
Organic, Inorganic, and Human.
I unfolded each temporal process and analysed their expressions. As I interpreted them, I began to refer to them as temporal metaphors, ‘materials’ of this design research.
By drawing on the notion of experiencing one thing in terms of another, we concern ourselves with material qualities in their abstracted representations anchored in the living world. Thus, temporal processes become temporal metaphors in the process. In materializing the temporal processes, I sought to unveil the meaning of each of them. Hence, their aesthetic and sensuous qualities, and temporal evolvements. Thereby, attempting to accentuate their expressive potentials.
I grounded the exploration in how I approached the temporal processes and their relations to the world. In this sense, I used mood boards and time-lapse videos as inspirational sources for my articulations of uncovering the essence of each of these. Here, by analytically assessing such abstractions into concrete expressions.
Anatomical features
In an attempt to unpack each temporal process, they were approached from an artistic and a scientific point of view. The latter is elaborated in this section. A scientific point of view is to approach a temporal process by unveiling its anatomical features. Through such means, the temporal processes were to be dissected to get a sense of what they were made of.
From this, I found myself with measurable and quantifiable qualities. These qualities would allow the phenomenon of each temporal process to be reproduced digitally. However, I found this approach restricting to unpack the meaning, interpretation, and to metaphorically form the temporal process.
The attempt of dissecting a temporal process to its anatomical features was as accordingly, making mood boards and observing time-lapse videos. Here, the evolvement conveyed by the videos was divided into four phases, collectively forming the evolvement of a temporal process. Through observation, qualities were mapped, valuing differently for each phase. Once these qualities were charted, the change in each quality was observable.
As seen in the image above, a set of qualities structure the anatomy of rusting. As pointed out at the beginning of this section, this approach dissected a temporal process. Emphasis on dissecting, as I found it to diminish its living essence. Although this approach articulated a set of qualities, it did so from one perspective. To dissect a temporal process meant to examine it as lifeless.
For the purpose of this design research, it was meaningless as measuring them separately only served to detach the essence of a temporal process from itself. The other perspective, which had been absent in this approach, was to analyse a temporal process as living.
Living essence
The design research continued from the premise of the living essence of a temporal metaphor. Here, we are not concerned with measurable qualities such as ‘expansion’ nor ‘saturation’. The notion of living essence derives from the nature of illuminating each temporal metaphor as living and not lifeless, transcending the anatomical features.
I approached each temporal process from the same premise as earlier, by articulating the expressiveness into wordings or phrases. I refer to this as the material qualities. This was done so by considering the significance of each of the temporal metaphors in light of temporal lived experience. Each temporal metaphor was descriptively assessed and mapped out through analysis, expressing the aesthetic and sensuous qualities.
The material qualities signify the experience of a temporal metaphor. I had an understanding and acknowledged a temporal metaphor in such a way that I could articulate the experience of expressing it as a “verb”. This meant that a temporal metaphor was articulated as a phenomenon over time through its significance. Although the nature of the description may be debated, it is only meant as an inspiration than truth.
I turned to the question of how it might look and feel in the context of GUI, and made sketches using those material qualities. As I moved from sketching to prototyping experiences I needed to form an experience over time, and sketching was a necessary step as the textual description were not adequate to inspire the design of experiences over time.
The outcome of the sketches rather inspired me into three directions: contexts, evolvements, and meanings. From prototyping different experiences and problematizing each artefact to the next, I concluded with findings that I will share.
The design of temporal metaphors in GUI expressed continuity, this aligned with existing notions of living world phenomena or temporal processes exposing continual change. In the context of GUI, this meant that interactions influence GUI as it influences one. As GUI expresses time as continuous, it paves way for a relationship to be nurtured, another meaning beyond that of its mere functions.
The rich experience of, for example, wearing and tearing in GUI suggests that the GUI is finite and not eternal or unaffected by time. Instead, the felt experience of the relationship is unique and momentary. This again paves way for a different meaning in the experience of GUI. GUI may express a sense of history and memory, whereas one lives through GUI.
To my belief, this design research has the most significant value in its approach. I have proposed one possibility in how to articulate these temporal forms in the living world and implementing such temporal forms practically.
For interaction designers, the insights of this design research show how another meaning may be implemented in today’s functional GUI’s by thinking of interaction over time. Continuous time in GUI conveys meaning in the sense of what was, what is, and what is about to.
For researchers, my work is a step closer to understanding long-term interaction processes and contexts, and an invitation for further discussions on temporality in interaction and what it means for tomorrow’s GUI.
The design research with a full-detailed design process can be read via my portfolio as a PDF → here!
More reads
- Mass and Motion in User Experience
- Temporal Form in Interaction Design
- Time, Temporality, and Slowness: Future Directions for Design Research [PDF]
- Time, Temporality, and Interaction
- Toying with Time: Considering temporal themes in interactive artifacts [PDF]
- Temporality in interaction design [PDF]
