Model of Attraction - Outline v.1
This is the current state of the Model of Attraction, an outline. Over the past nine months there has been much research and questioning of the how and why. This outline is an initial structure that will most likely be modified over time and more research and experience. This framework allows for the varying elements that must be in place to help the MoA make sense. The MoA keeps stretching and growing and not really breaking. As a functional model it has been very helpful in developing information structures and explaining the how and why of Web, CMS, personalization, and even mobile development. More on these elements later, but so far I am pleased.
Please comment if you see holes or items that are out of order or do not seem to make sense. What ever you offer will help, I am sure. I am continuing the MoA in an open format to help hone it and let it breathe.
- Why Attraction?
- A literal description of what happens in a Web browser that interacts with the internet or a browser based information application
- Being a literal description of the interaction it is not really a metaphor
- The goal is to get information and people together
- This can be to increase knowledge, communicate, sell, share experiences,
- Attraction has many levels and types and describe many layers of interaction
- Helps to describe how to organize information, interaction elements, visual elements, personalization, knowledge management, content management, and mobile uses of information
- What are Metaphors?
- Metaphors are often non-literal explanations and frameworks used to explain processes and interactions
- A metaphor can ease the understanding of complex systems and ideas
- Metaphors can limit understanding and limit possibilities
- See George Lakoff's metaphor books
- What about navigation
- Navigation helps describe some of the interaction within a WWW environment
- Navigation is often used to define the click-through actions users take when using the Web
- On the Web we do not go places, information and digital elements are brought to us, which is counter to a literal interpretation of navigation. This is where the navigation metaphor starts to break.
- Navigation is a metaphor, which breaks rather quickly once one leaves the space of the Web as well as within the Web
- The navigation metaphor has worked well to explain some of the interaction with informtion that is done using the Web (but does not extend to the whole of the Internet)
- Invoking attraction leads to structure
- What is attraction
- Attraction brings common elements together
- Helps group and define by common elements
- Defining users
- Defining information
- Defining information usage
- Attraction needs a catalyst
- A flower's scent is a catalyst for bees to be drawn to it
- A flowers bright color is a catalyst for humming birds
- Words are common attractors for Web site users
- Attraction for digital information can be cognitive, visual, digital, and even somewhat physical
- Cognitive
- Users seek information and have some preconceived itea of how to get that information before themselves
- The user uses terms they believe will assist their finding the informaiton
- The terms have rough synonyms that the user uses as guides to draw their desired information closer to themselves.
- Classification systems are based on the cognitive attraction fo a user group to set terms and the user's definition of those terms
- Visual
- The user often has preconceived ideas of what a wrapper for the information will appear like
- The visual cues may have an effect on the user
- A graphic desiner looking for information regarding a graphic treatment may use search to draw the information closer.
- Clicking on a search result that brings Jakob Neilsen's site in front of the user will trigger visual attraction detector that quickly sets off a repulsion in the user and they can tell by the visual cues that the information they are seeking is to be found within this site
- The same user clicking on a link that brings a visually rich Scott Kelby site before them will most likely continue seeking the information within that collection of information.
- Understanding the users and what the visually attracts these users is important
- Jeffery Zeldman defended the graphical presentation of his site, which was off putting to some staid individuals that we seeking the informaiton on his personal site, by stating the visual presentation was important to attract the designers who he considered to be his main audience. The visual appeal gave him and his site credibility in the graphic community. In short they are attracted to the visual presentation of his site and were not repulsed.
- Digital
- The algorythms that drive search engines are digital attractors
- There are a multitude of aggregators that seek out information to bring a representation of the information closer to the user or only draw information that matches certain criteria
- RSS agregators pull news headlines closer to users that have set certain parameters of what information sources to track or information types to parse
- Personalization tools on news Websites, like the Wall Street Journal, aggregate news stories from the news feeds available and draw articles closer to the user based on keywords the user has chosen. These aggregation tools can be stored so the user can have relatively easy access to the information that they have an attraction to
- Physical
- Synching of devices permits a physical proximity to the users desired informaiton
- Clicking on a link is bringing the information to the user's screen, the information is being downloaded to that user's device
- The user is drawing information closer to themselves
- Search is the use of a term or terms, possibly with other discriminators to attract information which strong connections to the terms closest to the user and repel non-related information to limit the congestion to ease the users ability to find the information they seek
- The user sets parameters of attraction in their calendar and contact information stores that set which information should be kept within a close proximity to the user
- Ever watch a person who has misplaced their PDA or cellphone that contains their "needed" information, there is a panic when they believe the attaction of that information has been broken.
- Attraction also involves repulsion
- Users not finding information
- Repulsion of unwanted information also helps users find what they are seeking in a smaller collection of information
- Repulsion helps define an element as much as attraction
- Repulsion is a discriminator
- Research Quantum sciences (chemistry, math, physics)
- Attraction used as a model to think about designing application and devices
- Attraction is interactive and requires two or more elements
- Attraction scales and offers the ability to be broadly used
- Can be used to think about how to create metadata
- Used to define information systems
- Used to help work through information overload problems
- Optimizing attraction
- Attaction needs to have the ability to have some attractinve draw between the two elements
- Clear site: A user can not be attracted to another element if the means to attraction is obscured
- Proximity: A magnet only has a certain range that will pull the elements toward it
- Cognitively attraction can be optimized to create crosswalks between two groups of information user that
- What Attraction means to Information Application developers (Web Developers, IAs, Application Developers, interaction designers, visual designers, accessability specialists, etc.)
- Understanding the information and the user
- User Centered Design is based on attraction
- Setting out to define users are their common traits
- A user type is built from traits that are generally attracted together
- The Pareto principle is the attraction of the 80% and 20% elements
- Persona are representations of personal traits that define an attraction to a user
- IA skills are central to understanding attraction
- Card sorting is the categorizing of terms that have common attractions to each other, as the user perceives these attractions
- Taxonomies are groupings of terms that the user groups have an understaning of and an attraction to the words
- Wireframes are visual representations of top-level information attractions
- Content inventories are used to assess what types of content exists and how the content may have some elements of attraction between the disparate content pieces, the grouping of these attractions are used to help build categories of items that can be drawn together in a user's mind with common terms that attract these elements
- Understanding the user and what terms, visual elements, technical abilities and limitations
- Grouping of information in card sorting and taxonomy building is based on the attraction of like element as the user see them
- Users are grouped into categories based on the common trait elements
- Attraction in the Interface
- Buttons and links need to be attractive to draw users who similar polarity to the subject area
- Searches set the polarization and strenth of the magnet to draw information to the user
- Goolge sets the strenth of draw by nearness of search term based on Google's algarthym
- Focus on building interface to draw attraction
- Users have come to the site because of some attraction
- Terms/vocabulary used on the site keep/strengthen/weaken the attraction
- Content is scanned and familiar or terms close to the interest of the user's desired attraction range will keep the user tethered or draw the user in farther
- The user expereince is based on increasing attraction to the site and providing links and a framework for drawing information to the user based on the user's interest
- The user experience should also help keep the attraction strong
- Building a taxonomy for the site helps frame language used by the users so to keep users attracted and to weaken attraction for those users who do not have an attraction to the information or site in general
- Attraction and Content Management
- Use attraction to define types of content
- Work preparing existing content for a content management system reliant on attracting existing items together and finding terms that users and administrations determine attract these elements together
- Building metadata revolves around attraction of information and terms used to describe these linguistic points of attraction
- Requirements gathering to determine needs before determining what type or which specific content management systems to purchase or use is based on attraction and repulsion of needs. Determining which tools you need is based on how strong the attraction is between features and the potential users of the tool.
- Attraction and personalization
- Setting permanent attractions within devices will keep the information flowing, as long as there are new elements being created and found
- Using attraction to reduce the information being presented
- Done through repulsion of items that do not have an attraction to the media
- Use terms to repulse information to narrow the field of information being returned
- Using aggregators to draw information closer
- Using attraction
- Attraction for portability
- Information following user
- Setting what you want to have follow you
- Easing the ability to have like information to be drawn to proximity
- Proximity to information sources can change preferences or strength of the magnet
- Stronger attraction with more narrow focus is needed for portability of information
- Other related concepts
- Information scent / Information foraging
- Familiar concept out of XeroxParc
- Scent works with attraction and the user following the path as long of there is a noticeable scent that is familiar
- A sub-set of information foraging, which is more difficult
to grasp and is still a metaphor that breaks not a literal expression
of the actions
- Attention Economy
- Thomas Davenport and ? book
- This concept has some ideas that are usable, but the goal of the attention is to bring people in and keep them there, not related to getting the user and the information together
- Quantum Sciences
