ICONIC REPRESENTATION:

The view-pointless view. We assume that a viewpoint is necessary, and indeed a view without a viewpoint seems nonsense. However, children's drawings and other art forms provide just this; the objects they display carry their canonical views with them as properties of the objects themselves, so that human beings are always displayed full-face, animals are viewed in profile, rainbows are always visible throughout their length.

In a sense, this is what users are familiar with in an ICONIC interface. Flat symbolic representations.

Consider LIGHT: Interactive multimedia is fundamentally a visual medium, being perceived through the agency of light. In spite of this, many multimedia applications are created with little regard for the dramatic potential of light.

Lighting should be incorporated into the fabric of the script, allowing the programmers to fully utilize their resources. If the script doesn’t call for shifts in mood, time of day, weather or locale, the programmer is obliged to simply illustrate the facts rather than bathe them in atmosphere.

Consider the MEANING OF COLOUR: Some colours have specific meanings, due to customary use or for cultural reasons. Sensitive use of colour is very important, due to the wide diversity of interactive users. In western cultures, COLOURS commonly have these different meanings:

• Red – stop, danger, blood, passionate, stirring, cherry flavour
• Green – go, environmental, sickly, restful, apple, mint or lime flavour
• Blue – cold, peaceful, male, challenging, spearmint flavour
• Pink – cuddly, peaceful, female, gentle, strawberry flavour
• Yellow – warm, cheerful, zany, sunshine, banana or lemon flavour
• Orange – tropical, zany, anxious, hot, exciting, orange flavour
• Purple – imperial, high quality, snobby, alluring, wildberry flavour
• White – pure, clean, good, bright, trustworthy, vanilla flavour
• Black – evil, rebellious, death, mysterious, licorice flavour

Our expanded understanding about the biological aspects of communication allows us to invent new metaphors for things other than objects. Different types of form and movement, specific body language, colour psychology and aural stimulation can have a predictable effect on the patrons of a hamburger restaurant; they can also trigger a predictable response within a user.