http://img534.imageshack.us/img534/4079/1280200426544.jpg

http://xkcd.com/503/

“My boss came to me last week and said “here’s a book you have to read”: Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. I’m thinking oh sure sure, I’ll give it a look later. Well, this weekend I finally got around to cracking it open and at first I thought it was a manual on how to draw contrasting motion lines. Rather, the book goes into Scott’s analysis of symbols, shapes, time representation, and storytelling. It is actually quite an interesting read for anyone who is in my position of structuring user interfaces.

Yes, user interfaces.

When you get right down to it, what is a computer display? It is a 2-D medium for conveying information. A proper user interface, IMO, is one that organizes information into digestible chunks, some which change from state to state and others which remain fixed as to provide some sort of visual anchor or a toolkit. While this part of building UIs is really not covered by the book, McCloud goes into what is the nature of symbols vs. words. Letters are, after all, symbols themselves and when you combine letters into words you give meaning. And properly chosen words convey intent and emotion. At the opposite end you have icons and symbols. The more photorealistic the icon the more specific it is, the more cartoony the icon the more the icon can suggest. For instance, an exact picture of a horse means “horse” whereas an abstract picture might represent “animal”, even though both are still in the shape of a horse. Taken a step further, an icon paired with words now becomes a powerful vehicle for communication.

There’s a whole section on time and motion representation. Simple blurring, motion lines, or the proper choice of words can deeply affect perception. Comparing this to computer UIs it is possible to represent future activity in a single icon, so the user knows what to expect. There is also a natural flow of the eye through the page and placement of page elements can suggest time as well.

It’s hard to encapsulate the 215-page narrative in a blog post so you’ll just have to go read it yourself.