The Experience Stack
[Z is for zooming user interface because I use the Wiimote to interactively zoom in and pan around the photo, using some software I wrote. It’s not terrible stable, and the demo didn’t work particularly well… lesson learned there.]
The best example I’ve seen for something that understands how people approach it, recently, is a poster in a shop window near my house.
This is it. it’s a kind of zooming user interface.
There are a series of self-similar levels of detail that progressively reveal as you move closer to the paper.
When you stand by the bus stop, half the paper is legible with a title and a huge pictures.
Moving closer, half of the rest (a quarter) becomes more big text and some titles, which gives you clues about where to look closer.
At the closest level of reading, the poster functions as the page of a listings magazine.
It’s a sequence of progressive revelations. And incredible that the object that best exemplifies my points about the approach/engage/commit breakdown, and understanding itself in context, is a simple poster.