Experience Design

Perception is the process of attaining awareness and understanding of sensory information the action of taking possession, apprehension with the mind and senses.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perception

” You perceive the world through an automatic filter of affordances. Your perception of a scene is not just the sum of its geometry, spatial relations, light, shadow, and color. Perception streams not just through your eyes, ears, nose, and skin, but is automatically processed through your body mandala to render your perceptions in terms of their affordances.” (p 106 – The Mind has a body of it’s Own – Sandra & Mathew Blakeslee)

http://www.amazon.com/Body-Has-Mind-Its-Own/dp/0812975278/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260158813&sr=8-1

Affordances is an idea posed by Psychologist James J. Gibson in his 1977 article “The Theory of Affordances” and explored it more fully in his book The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception in 1979. He defined affordances as all “action possibilities” latent in the environment, objectively measurable and independent of the individual’s ability to recognize them, but always in relation to the actor and therefore dependent on their capabilities.

http://www.amazon.com/ECOLOGICAL-APPROACH-VISUAL-PERCEPTION/dp/0898599598/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260159276&sr=1-1

Affordance is a concept that is widely used to talk about functionality, intent and action with in HCI (Human Computer Interaction), product design, and systems design.When users speak of an object being intuitive, easy to operate, clear and understandable, usually actions have been designed through a clear understanding of the affordance of the actions that are being accomplished.

Take the book for instance, the affordance of pages is sequential  ( the english language is read top to bottom, left to right).  The language process is a learned, as is the flipping of pages but the affordance of that action is one that is unique to the delivery of the media of language. The variety of this language delivery system is vast and deeply explored through both writing and the design of sequential artifacts.  The perception of sequential media is filtered through the affordance of the page and meaning is associated with that artifact through cultural affordance. That is to say that the design of a bible has a particular cultural and meaning space in comparison to a Nancy Drew book while each posses a particular design functionality that is unique to it own content.

Unique to the page is its ability to contain extended meaning through design. The margins of sequential mediums can be signifier to the quality, and value the author has attributed to the ideas on the page. When design is considerate of the content to which it is attempting to communicate, said design can imply particular use scenarios and meaning that can extend and engage the experience of reading.

As technology becomes more and more involved within the delivery of media, the question of the format of delivery and the consideration of the delivery with in the design of the content

Through out the history of language, book, and narrative, the cultural importance of these artifacts has produced

check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook

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“What writing is all about is what happens on the page between the reader and the page…What I want is a collaboration, really, with the reader on the page where the reader is also making an effort, is putting something of himself into it in the way of understanding, in the way of helping to construct the fiction that I am giving him.” -William Gaddis

Similarly I believe the design and technological advances might increase a reader’s access and process in the collaboration with fiction. When the interaction of a reader is considered in not just the generation of fiction but also in the access of delivery, an alternative arises for a new form of meaning making. The design of the artifact that is the book can be given an alternative meaning besides just delivering the words and ideas on the page.

The attempt to give the book interactive and responsive conditions allows an author and designer an interesting outcome that would be a collaboration from the start rather than the out come of an author writing words and a designer making those words explode on the page through typography, page layout and conceptualization of ideas. The hybrid of design outcomes being considered in the formulation of literature might produce engaging and experience based out comes that would push a readers knowledge and understanding. The possibilities of designed literature might lead to a 3rd outcome that is neither a book or an e-book screen replacement, but rather a combination of both. An outcome that might result in the best of what the traditional print artifact possesses in its tangibility and distribution through institutional data banks of libraries and commercial entities of book stores and the contemporary screen book technological conveniences of size, space, and access.

The attempt to give narrative sequential fiction and non fiction a set of new or previously unused tools might produce new forms of writing outcomes and productions that might engage tech savy clientel who are interested in no only reading but being engaged with physical artifacts.  Book whose pages are self aware, switches that are embedded into content, and spaces that are effected by those interactions will engage readers in experiences the literature on the page for a different more media influenced atmosphere that will engage the reader / user in interesting exchanges that are controlled or left open by the narrative and author/designer team.

check out thesis website : Marginalia: The Hybrid Textbook