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Archive Piece |
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May 21, 1998
Using Transitions in Experience Design
So I just spent the last few days in Las Vegas. Next to the folks at Disney, no one knows how to better design
an environment than the architects of The Strip. And we as Web designers (or, as some high-falutin' types like
to be called, Experience Architects) could learn from their practices.
Because of the widely differing environments offered in Las Vegas, its designers have this problem: How do you
ease people and orient them to your environment when there is so much competing stimuli?
The method is by providing an intermediary transitional space. At none of the new hotel/casinos can you simply
walk into the bulding right off the sidewalk. More typical is the experience at Caesar's Palace, where a long moving
walkway guides you from the street into the building, along the way informing you (either by PA system or poster)
of the wonders awaiting you inside.
Let's break this notion down to a simpler experience we can all relate to. Imagine yourself in a movie theater.
While chatting with your friends, the lights go out, and you all quiet down, face forward, sink a little into your
seats, and ready yourself for the show.
Now, in that previous sentence, when reading "the lights go out" your mind's eye likely saw them slowly
dim. Theater lights don't wink out--such an abrupt change is obviously disconcerting.
So why is it that most every Web site, each it's own experience and environment, offer up the equivalent of lights
winking out, forcing these abrupt cognitive shifts instead of easing people into the new space?
There are those sites that do offer "splash screens," but they are often censured as being wastes of
time and bandwidth. But that's probably because they are poorly done. A couple of good splash screens which immediately
come to mind exist IBM's Deep Blue site and John Halcyon Styn's Prehensile
Tales. Both offer up a single screen (that doesn't take too long to download)
which quickly orient the user for what is up ahead. It's simple, easy, and effective. Try it!
(My lame attempt at transition is the "it's not peter you, it's..." bit at the top, which is rendered
immediately while the rest of page, living in a table, is being worked out by your browser). |
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