Steps, Roads, Funnels, Galaxies: Metaphors for Designing Interactive Presentations (1994)

Prior to creating an interactive program about visual language, a relevant article appeared in T.H.E. Journal, Designing Instructional Multimedia Presentations: A Seven-step Process, by Les Howles and Connie Pettengill, June 1993. I clipped it out. It was helpful, practically and theoretically. Yet, with its strong emphasis on doing things sequentially, the process it described ultimately did not satisfy my needs. Perhaps an artist's needs are quirky. What follows builds on Howles and Pettengill's otherwise excellent work, but it aims at those of us with different, quirky needs. As a professional artist as well as art instructor, I've discovered that both work and do not work. Steps work by helping to keep me on track; steps do not work if they keep me too much on track. Howles and Pettengill state, If you don't know where you're going, you'll end up somewhere else. But in a sense, all people dealing in creative endeavors want to end up somewhere else. For that reason, following steps can be too limiting. On the other hand, at least general goals must be set. Steps must be taken to reach any goal. Can a balance between steps and no-steps be reached? This article is written to encourage two groups: those uncomfortable with following steps and those comfortable with steps but looking for ways to be more imaginative. Step-following and imagination complement each other. Together, they are the act of creativity. A Few Words About Creativity Creating can be ecstatic. Whether making music, a pie, a painting or interactive courseware - any creative act elevates and excites the mind and senses. However, getting to this point of ecstasy takes time and effort. Before baking with elan or painting with panache there are the agonies of failures, and perhaps more daunting, the drudgeries of practice. In fact, it is these agonies and drudgeries that separate imagination from creativity. Imagination is a process of the mind while creativity is imagination focused and fully realized, a process of the hands. Too many people, not finding it easy to come up with something different or artsy, think they are not creative. They may just not realize how much time and effort it takes to work up something new and beneficial. Just because someone does not find it easy to be creative does not mean they are not potentially so. There are many ways to create. To get to the point of this article: Some like to travel a straight, well-marked path, while others like to drift in towards their goal, as star stuff drifts together to form a galaxy. Visual Metaphors Contrast Two Styles Two analogous visual metaphors are presented here, showing ways to create an interactive, multimedia presentation. One metaphorical set (Figure 1) contrasts a step-by-step straight line with a funnel. The other graphic (Figure 2) contrasts a road with a galaxy. Both metaphors say the same thing: there are different processes available to the multimedia designer. The straight-line/road process certainly gets you there, and is wonderfully explained in the Howles/Pettengill article. The other process, funnel/galaxy, works better for some people and goes to the same place. The difference between them is not so distinct as it may seem; both use aspects of the other. The metaphors merely help to focus the different aspects. In the straight-line metaphor, one step precedes the next. (The step examples are taken from Howles and Pettengill.) This process is simple and clear, and one always knows where one is. In the funnel metaphor, however, the five early steps are neither sequential nor performed in a specific order; they happen concurrently. Final form comes only in the last two processes: develop storyboard and produce the presentation. The Road model is also linear, while the Galaxy model has processes evolving not sequentially, but simultaneously. …