Read on Twitter
My software design philosophy is rooted in stage design and the theatre: Simplify a complex world into simple metaphors (rooted in and real world physics), under unforgiving physical constraints, for three sets of users simultaneously: the actors, the crew, and the audience.
Wow my English sucks i cant believe i used to write plays lolol
Anyway, the state and view based interface design tools that dominate today—the whole idea of designing for “flows”....ugh. So rigid. So inhumane. Where’s the playfulness? The room for people to do the unexpected?
It’s like the difference between GTA (elaborate, scripted events that you watch once and go that’s neat moving on bye) and Minecraft (a living world with rules and the flexibility to tell your own story using the tools provided).
For an interface to be truly fluid, the metaphors that make up the world of the interface need to be solid ... the first thing you work on. Is this world heavy? Airy? Are its inhabitants busy and no-bs or laid back?
Say its inhabitants are busy—then you know information needs to be presented in a more condensed manner, and interactions need to feel snappier and people should have to jump through fewer hoops to get from A to B. Then you can MAYBE start worrying about the appropriate menu ...
Anyway this is just one specific way to interpret how the process of world building/interface/stage design looks like for me. I highly highly recommend looking at the work of Robert Wilson and Es Devlin for some masterclasses in world abstraction
here's a (processed) photograph of a model of the first set I designed, for a production of Shakespeare's "The Tempest" set in Japan. Initially it was a whole ass island with several "places" to mirror the literal events in the script, but my mentor encouraged me to abstract*999
The ENTIRE PLAY would take place on this set! we conveyed "areas of the island" and different "times" by simply using lighting creatively. amazing how backlighting can transform a space. also amazing how a simple snippet of a world can feel ...so immersive and...real.
