First version of Route T and Route P

Route P

Route T

To help uses to distinguish between these two versions of circles, we add three elements in our design: color contrast, size contrast and shadow change. In the route P for shopping, we make icons for shops larger yellow circles, while the icons for museums are smaller and grey. When seeing the image, users’ attention will be attracted by the yellow ones, and choose the anti-clockwise direction. Besides, the upper left shadow indicates the light sources comes from bottom right direction and attracts users to choose the anti-clockwise direction. While in route T, elements are entirely opposed, hints for clockwise direction will be more obvious.

In our progress for designing the map, we make several versions and test the function of shadow and color. The color contrast works better than shadow change. Some users even feel nothing about the change of shadow.

Moive Style

For the movie style, we decided to use the mix of freehand style and time lapse style. Because we draw freehand drawing icons in the design of image, the freehand style movie could help to present our movie. In the user test part, we would use normal video, rather than the time lapse style. The background music would be fast piano.

The following videos will help to understand freehand style and time lapse style.

Freehand style

Time lapse style

The following picture is the drawing movie for our movie.

Icon and Circle Design

The following are icons for museums in Delft.

The following picture is the developed design of Delft circle. The background color block is taken from the previous version of Delft map. The circle takes the metaphor of Delft river, and the museums and shops stands both sides. To make the picture much richer, designer draw foot bridge across the river, which can be seen in Delft Center. Besides, the designer add standard icon of museums and shops beside freehand icons to help users to distinguish between two kinds of icons.

For further design, we also need to give two versions of circle and present rich elements to indicate direction for users.

Sketch for New Circle

From the former presentation, we knew that the requirement of assignment is misunderstood. We are not supposed to make one travel map, but one travel circle. The image should present one perfect circle, to indicate the general direction to travelers who search for shops or museums.

Thus, in the meeting we tried to reconsider our design. We made some sketches and selected one to develop further.

Pearl Necklace

Delft is famous for the portrait “Girl with a Pearl Earring” by Jan Vermeer. We took the metaphor of pearl and chose pearl Necklace to be the circle. Every pearl represented one shop or museum. The images of shop or museum were showed from the pearl, never covering the luster of pearl. The direction was indicated by size and spacing of pearls. While in this concept, images of icons were difficult to handle and time consuming.

Girl with a Pearl Earring

Sketch for pearl necklace

Pie Chart

The most important reason for this concept was that the outline of pie chart was born perfect circle. This pie chart was supposed to be divided into several parts, and each part represented one museum or shop. We planned to use occlusion of to indicate direction. Besides, we planned to draw the name of scenic spots outside the circle. And the shape of name could also indicate the direction.

Sketch for pie chart

Cartoon river circle

We noticed there were rivers in delft centre, and thus we used the image of river to be the circle in this concept. And we wanted to use cartoon style for the whole image. Each icon of shops and museums should be drew by ourselves and present a feeling of childish. Finally, we decided to develop this concept into our final design. Two group members planned to draw icons and river circle while one group member prepared for user test and movie.

Sketch for cartoon river circle

Concept presentations-Group P

Morning!

Design Specifications& Rough Ideas

-indicate directions

(clockwise, anticlockwise)

-make icons pop out

-make distinctions between “route K”& “route P”

-give enough efficient information

Concept Description

1.Theme

2.Distinction

2.1 map& icons

2.2 center area

2.3 Icons-K&P

-graphic & buildings, photos

-color-coding

3. Directivity

-gradient color

-circle

-starting point

-route signs’ orientations

Things should be improved.

1.Text of buildings& Roads

2.The result of icons does not fit our idea so well -“run up the stairs”

-Should we move the icons on the circle?

-Change the form of icons?

3. Elements should be added and adjusted. In order to correspond with the

theme. The theme is not well illustrated.

Thank you.

Sketch for map

The first picture shows the sketch for our design. We simulate the image of contradictory stairs in our map. Stairs present feeling of guiding people, thus we can use stairs to imply direction. The whole map is drawn in 2.5 dimensions. We use two colors in the map: blue and orange. They are contrast color and user can distinguish between them easily. Thus the circle is drawn by two colors. Besides, all the icons are separated by these two colors two. Therefore users can find the group of icon: museums or shops. Two groups of icons face two directions, which help people to distinguish between them. The circle and icons might be added with shadow. The style for the whole map is Delft-Blue. Delft-Blue is the symbol for this city, and we can create some pattern of delft-blue in the corners of the map to make the map more unique.

Primary treatment for maps

These following maps show the procedure of creating frame for the whole map.

The source comes from Google Map. At the beginning, we regard that main roads should be paid attention. So we only mark main roads in the map with faint yellow. Then we mark the river with pale green and mark the railway with black. To help improtant area catch visitor's attention, we cover important areas semi-transparent blue and cover unimportant frontier area with semi-transparent white. Thus visitors won't be disturbed by the frontier area. Besides, the circle is marked with gray orange. Finally, all shops and museums are marked with icons from Google Map.

Then we use color block to present the map. The blank during blocks stands for main roads. The river, railway and important areas are marked with different colors, while other parts are hidden. Thus the map is clear than the former one.

The circle is marked in this map.

Then shops and museums are marked in the simplified map. The yellow spots represent museums while the blue spots represent shops. We can use these two maps for two versions in our next step design.

Clues for making map

Last Friday evening we discussed the clues for our design. We found some points that can be used in our map, which came from our reader and former study.

1 When we use our eyes, we only process details in the centre of the visual field. At the edge of visual field, images are blurry. (Chapter 1) We can make the starting point clear to suggest it is the place worth attention. Other part of the map shouldn’t be as on focus as the starting point so that it won’t catch the first attention.

2 Unique size of dot and oblique direction of dot help to pop out. (Chapter 2) In our map, if we want some museum or shop stand out, we can make the icons bigger than others or give them different direction.

3 The brain of human contains mechanisms that define regions having common texture and color, and we can use texture to make distinct. (Chapter 3) In our map, we can design unique texture for icons to imply direction.

4 Using different channels (forms, colors and motion) can make several things searchable at the same time. Differences in two or more channels can make huge distinction. (Chapter 3) If we want one icon really stands out, we can make difference on more than one channel, such as color and size together.

5 Color codes can help to indicate categories of information. And there are six basic colors that are special and used no matter what the language. (Chapter 4) In our map, we can choose color codes to show different land-use zones as other maps. And these color need to come from special ones to make sure they are accepted by all travelers.

6 Simultaneous contrast increases the difference between a color and its surroundings. And it is called chromatic contrast in red-green or yellow-blue channel. Besides, luminance also affects attention. (Chapter 4) In our design, we can use contrast color on different category of icons and emphasize the difference. Besides, to make the map in the circle catch more attention, we can do something on luminance.

7 Color contrast and luminance helps to objects distinction. (Chapter 4) When we want to hide some route or icons, we can decrease their color contrast and luminance contrast with the surrounding.

8 When we have a lot of icons in the same position, occlusion can provide both a method and a metaphor for rank ordering. (Chapter 5) When we work on our own map, we make the most important icon occlude the less important ones.

9 People have mirror neurons in their brain. And when they see some facial gestures, they will copy them in brain and feel the emotion and action from the image. (Chapter 7) Thus in our map we can use facial gestures to guide users of direction.

Assignment 1 - GARDEN IN MONTMARTRE WITH LOVERS

This painting, the summery garden – which Van Gogh later referred to as ‘the painting of the garden with the sweethearts’ – is one of the largest canvases he painted. It is also the first work he exhibited in Paris. He painted the park in the Pointillist style that kept him so occupied during the summer of 1887. This technique, in which small dots of unmixed color are placed close together, has been applied fairly consistently here. Carefully crafted in the studio, this painting lacks the spontaneity of much of his other work. The artist’s brushstrokes are nonetheless expressive. The sky, for instance, is rendered with vigorous dashes of paint.

Source: Van Gogh Museum

1 Chapter 2 What We Can Easily See

1. 1 what stands out = what we can bias for

The painting is painted by small dots. Basically, the painting is divided into three main areas, the sky, the plants and the road. The dots’ color in the same area are very similar with each other, they are in the same hue. Also, the dots’ shapes are alike in the same area. (Figure 1) Thereby the elements of features make an area blend into a whole. (Figure 2) These are the things that easy to find out, because the features can be easily seen.

Figure 1  Colors and shapes

Figure 2:  areas

“The strongest pop-out effects occur when a single target object differs in some feature from all other objects and where all the other objects are identical, or at least very similar to one another.” (P. 29) Thus, the people in the painting pop-out. The clothing and accessories are composed by different colors, which are not in the same hue. And the high saturation parts are bigger and closer than other areas. The shape of dots and orientations are also not in tune compare to the surroundings. (Figure 3) In conclusion, the degree of feature-level is more complex than the surroundings. They are in different multiple channels. (P. 29) Secondly, the second fixation will be the trees in the middle, because of the contrast color of flowers and leaves- red and green.

Figure 3 next fixation

1.2    The visual search

Bigger pattern has bigger detective field, so we first detective the sky, the grass and the ground. Then our fixation comes to the people on the ground. They pop out. “At every instant in time part of the brain is planning the next eye movement based on the information available from the current fixation of the eye as well as some small amount that is retained from the previous few fixations.” (P. 37) When the people in pink dress and blue suits become the fixation, the two people next to them may be the target of next fixation. (Figure 3) Apparently, the two people are hard to be detected at first stage. They cannot be distinct due to the colors are very similar with the background. And they do not have clear rims for the body shapes. The contrast is not big enough for us to detect at the start. However, the shapes of brushstroke are still diverse compare to the background, so we could discover the people when we have a fixation on the people in front of them.

1.3 Using multiscale structure to design for search

To become a rhythmic painting, to become a painting that can be easily understood and remembered, high level structure make them happen. (P. 41) These area structures are at different scale. For instance, the patterns and colors of people are more complex compare to the surrounding. The color of trees and grass are more complex than sky. These feature lead efficient and fluent eye movement sequences.

2 Chapter 3 Structuring Two-Dimensional Space

2.1 The binding problem: features to Contours

“Our brain constructs contours and areas from the millions of fragmented pieces of information in V1.”  Patterns of light, shade, color and motion, help the binding process put disconnected pieces into connected pieces. So we identify the differences of each area in V1, and understand the painting by analyzing the objects in it. By this process, the edge-finding machinery helps we identify the trees, the sky, the bushes, the road and people. (Figure 4) 

Figure 4 Edge-finding

2.2 The generalized contour

When people look at a picture, they need to understand the objects in the picture. People instantly search for the objects, and make plans for eye search movement. “An object may be separated from its background in many different ways including luminance changes at its silhouette, color differences, texture boundaries, and even motion boundaries.” (P. 49) People could distinguish the sky area, tree area, road area and people area by their color and shapes distinctions. (P. 49)

Let us have a closer look at the people that in the picture. The three groups of people are at different distance. In order to show the spatial distance, the painter used diverse methods to reach the goal.  Refer to the book Visual Thinking for Design; line drawings are so effective in conveying different kinds of information. The couple on the left side pops out, the painter draws some black lines along the bodies. (Figure 5.1) Therefore the couple draws people’s attention in the first place. After this, the other couple on the right side will be detected; the color of their wear is very distinct from the surrounding. Even though the edges are vague compare to the couple on the left side. (Figure 5.2) Following this, people could eventually find out the two people that ‘hide’ in the background. They do not have clear contours, they are in the similar colors with surroundings, and then they are involved into surrounding. Those reasons create out the feeling, they are the farthest ones. (Figure 5.3)

Figure 5.1                       Figure 5.2             Figure 5.3

2.3 Texture regions

Except for the couple on the left side and some trunks, they have some black lines as clear contours. Most of the objects do not have explicit contours. The contour extraction mechanism generates the contour by assemble the features together. The texture element orientation, shape and color which could be analyze in V1. (P. 50) As what we could see in figure 1, the whole painting was painted by small dots. People start thinking the dots as a texture when the dots have similar orientations, shapes and colors. Figure 6 illustrates the organized dots of each area. The properties of texture make these areas distinct. The dots of sky are straight blue lines which are at 45 degree. The dots of trees are straight lines that point to a center, form the crowns of a tree. Short and crosswise dots are used to show the texture of grasses and road. Bushes and short grasses are cut apart by vertical grasses, which are in straight and vertical lines of long length.

Figure 6 texture differences

2.4 Spatial layout

“Group of objects can form patterns based on the proximity of the elements.” (P.56) Take trees for examples, the crowns are made of dots that point to a center and the crowns of trees can be seen as elements of a tree as well. They provoke a response from a large-shape detecting neuron, and form the shape of a tree. (Figure 7) The law is also used in forming the other areas, such as the bushes.

Figure 7 spatial grouping

3 Chapter 4 Color

3.1 Channel properties

This painting is an impressionism painting. This type of painting emphasize on the accurate depiction of light in its changing  qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage of time), ordinary subject matter, the inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience, and unusual visual angles. (Wiki: impressionism) The painter use massive soft colors in chromatic channel, but chromatic channels have less capability to convey detail information. “Chromatic contrast occurs in the red-green and yellow-blue channels. Its effects are much more complex and harder to predict than grey-scale contrast.” (P. 70) In addition, “Shape perception is based mainly on luminance channel information, color sequences that vary mainly in luminance will be the most effective in revealing patterns in the data.” (P.81) So we only could detect the vague shape of each area, and the distance between each objects. This subtle vision gives us the impression of a summery garden to show painter’s experience and perception.

Furthermore, “The brain’s processing of stereoscopic depth information is done via the luminance channel.” (P. 71) So the painting seems a little bit flat. The stereoscopic depth only can be perceived by the low saturation color in the background. “The luminance channel can process shape-from-shading, whereas the chromatic channels cannot.” The painting is lacking of the colors from luminance channel, so that the objects do not have obvious shading which could show the shape in three-dimensional surfaces. We can see the threes blend into a whole in figure 8 as powerful evidence.

Figure 8 threes blend into a whole

3.2 Color-coding information

The unique hues first are red, green yellow and blue, these colors are widely use in this painting. “A strong pop-out effect depends both on the other colored objects in the scene and on the background color.” (P. 77)  For this reason, red umbrella, pink dress and red flowers pop out. Because red is the contrast color of green. Red and green are at the ends of middle- and long-wavelength-sensitive cones. The surroundings are trees and grasses, basically are green, although the green are in different hues. In addition, the background colors are low saturation colors, the small area like people and flowers are higher saturation colors. (Figure 9) Higher saturation colors get more attractions. The short-wave-length colors have fewer chances to be dug out than long-wave-length colors, such as blue and purple. (P. 67)

Figure 9 color-coding

3.3 Semantics of color

Blue is usually stands for quiet and soft feelings. Green is usually stands for vitality, hope, friendly, peace and fresh feeling. These two colors describe the mood of garden in the summer. The environment is pleasant enough for people to visit in summer time. Red and white indicates it is the middle of summer; it is the best time in this season. The vivid flowers even provide people a feeling that they are in a sweet smell atmosphere, because of the flowers are booming.  What’s more, red is a high saturation color; it attracts people by their first sight. In that case, it emphasizes that the flowers are booming, and people are involved in the smell of flowers. This kind of feeling meets painter’s purpose, which creates a sweet atmosphere for sweet couples. 

Besides, the umbrella is red, the dress is pink, and they also hint the couples are in heated love.

Assignment 1 - HERCULES AND THE HYDRA

This picture described the Greek mythology that Hercules fight with the Hydra. It is made by Antonio Pollaiuolo. As can be seen in this picture there are two layers, first one is a man fighting with a monster. The other layer is a vague background that displays blue sky and a huge area of ground with rivers and farms. From this background, we can naturally know the figure and monster in the picture are much bigger than the normal one if we take the background as a reference, we will think it probably could be a mythology story about gods. In this assignment, this picture will be investigated by chapter 1 “Visual Queries”, chapter 5 “Getting the Information: Visual Space and Time” and chapter 7 “Visual and Verbal Narrative”.

1 Chapter 1   Visual Queries

1.1    The apparatus and process of seeing

According to the reader, “visual thinking is a process that has the allocation of attention as its very essence, it consists of a series of acts of attention, driving eye movements and tuning our pattern-finding circuits” (P. 3). There are a great many tiny ones processing information from central regions where we direct our gaze and only a few very large ones processing information at the edge of the visual field, which means we always focus on the center of an image as well as our visual fields and neglect the information at the edge of field. That is why we need rapid and frequent eye movement to find other information to build a complete image.

In this picture, our eyes and brains naturally focus on the figure not only because it is in the center of the picture but also because it is the most bright and clear part of the picture. We begin to scan the body of the figure from the center point such as from the stomach to limbs. Therefore, we neglect the monster beside him as well as the backgrounds. The monster seems to be merged into the background and become a part of the background which is vague in our visual fields (Figure 1). In this way, the character in the center is highlighted both in our visual fields and brains that helps us to enhance his great image in our minds.

Figure 1. The figure is in the center of the picture and also our visual field 

After that, the attentions go on to the other parts around the figure which are also edges of the picture. Because when we interact with an information display, we are usually trying to solve some kind of cognitive problem (P. 4). In this picture, we want to know what the painter wants to tell us through his painting. In other words, we need to build a story by ourselves according to the detailed information we gained from the whole picture through the eye movement. The more information we get, the easier the story we can make. As we first saw the man in the center, then we saw the stick on his hand, and a monster’s neck in the other hand. At last, we saw the backgrounds such as sky and ground. Finally we know it is a story about a huge man fighting with a monster. If we look carefully, we can see two cut-off heads of the monster on the ground which shows the fight has lasted for a while.

1.2 The act of perception

According to the reader, “the act of perception is determined by two kinds of processes: bottom-up, driven by the visual information in the pattern of light falling on the retina, and top-down, driven by the demands of attention, which in turn are determined by the needs of the tasks “(P. 8).

From the bottom-up aspect, when the readers look at the picture, they first saw a man waving a stick, and then they noticed a monster is underling attack, finally they know it described a mythology because the figures are much bigger than the trees and rivers on the backgrounds. The background here is very important for readers to realise that the man in the picture is a god rather than a normal person.

From the top-down aspect, if the readers know this picture is about the mythology of Hercules and the hydra, they will mainly search Hercules and hydra and focus on them when they find them. The background here is not important or necessary for them to get a right understanding, they may even not notice the details of the background.

2 Chapter 5   Getting the Information: Visual Space and Time  

2.1 Depth perception and cue theory

- Occlusion and cast shadow

According to the reader, “Most depth cues consist of environmental information that we use to judge distances from our particular viewpoint.” (P.89). There are many depth cues such as size gradients, texture gradients, depth of focus and size relative to known objects. Each of them has unique properties that can support different kinds of visual queries.

In this picture, we can see the man’s arm occludes the monster’s wing, and the monster’s body occludes the ground which is the background of the picture (Figure 2). Although objects occludes another appear closer, we can not simply say that the man in the picture is in the front of the monster, because the cast shadow of the monster is closer than the man’s cast shadow. But this can not deny the fact that the man’s arm is more important than the monster’s wing that occlusion provides both a method and a metaphor for rank-ordering information with the most important partially occluding the less important even the wing of the monster is much bigger than the man’s arm, because occlusion is the strongest depth cue compared to the others such as size constancy.

Figure 2. The occlusion between the man and the monster   and the positions of their cast shadow on the ground

- Size gradients and depth of focus

There are two part of river on the ground in this picture, and one is much bigger than another (Figure 3). More distant objects are smaller on the picture plane than similarly sized nearby objects (P. 92). Since the rivers are almost the same psychical size or even they are the same river, we can feel that the smaller one is more distant than the bigger one. In another word, we can say that there is a long distance between the two rivers, which also means the ground showed in the picture, is a huge area if we consider the width of the river and the size of the farms as reference. Additionally, Objects that are farther away or nearer are blurred because the human eye, like a camera lens, focuses objects at a specific distance. From the figure 3, we also saw that the area of the smaller river is blurred while the bigger river area is clear, this also proved that the smaller river is far away.

Figure 3. The different size of the rivers shows the distance between them

- Reference to nearby known objects

Objects of known size provide a reference against which other objects are judged. Perspective cues only give cues to relative size, but we can also judge the absolute size if we have a reference object. Although this effect is knowledge-based and not pure geometry like the rest, it is one of the most important cues to distance. As we have seen in the figure 2, the man is standing on the ground according to his cast shadow is close to the ground. Also we know from the figure 3 that the ground is a huge area of land which has rivers and farms. If we make the man’s body as a known reference object, the rivers and the farm are too much tiny which looks like a normal man stands on a tiny world. But if we make the rivers as a reference, it become a giant man stands on the normal world. Of course, the latter one is more convinced.

3 Chapter 7     Visual and Verbal Narrative

3.1 Linking deictic gestures

Pointing is an important part of communication, especially when it is necessary to link visual and verbal information. When the communication is moved to 2D environment, images that contain deictic gestures can draw people’s attention easily and naturally.

In this picture, we first and most pay our attention to the man in the middle and pay less attention to the monster beside. While since we move our eyes through the man’s body to get more information, our eyes will naturally move on to the monster’s neck because the man’s left hand is grasping it. On the other hand, the man is waving a wood stick which points directly to the monster’s head. This also helps to draw our attention to the monster after we saw the man first, because the man is the most important role in the picture while the monster is the second important one. What’s more, the direction of the man’s gaze also points to the head of the monster that move all our attentions to the monster and help us to make connections between these two roles in the picture. The direction of someone’s gaze, or how he orients his body, can also serve to denote the subject of an utterance. For instance, the gesture of the man’s legs shows that he has the trend to lean to the monster for close combat. There is one interesting thing that the monster’s neck movement can also be seen as a kind of gesture. The neck twisted like the character “s” which guide people’s eye back to the man’s face (Figure 4).

Figure 4. The gesture of the man

3.2 Mirror neurons and empathic communication

The mirror neurons are called empathy neurons because they may allow us to read the emotions of others through the same pathways that generate our own facial expressions when we are expressing emotions (P. 137). For example, when we saw other’s face in a picture, we may feel the emotions of others via our own facial muscles through the mediation of mirror neurons. In this way, pictures can not only express the visual information people could see but also can express the emotional information people could feel, and this feeling will also help people to enhance the experience of the picture.

In this picture, there is a man starring at a monster. From his facial muscles, we can form a feeling in our minds that when we have the same face muscle movement. We can feel the man is angry because we will have our blows closely knitted just like the man showed in the picture when we ourselves are angry. He gritted his teeth together that shows he used up all his strength to swung the wood stick and grasp the monster’s neck tightly. Even from such emotions on the man’s face, we could feel how fierce and cruel the monster is. Such feeling helps us to experience the power of the giant man and the drastic battle between the man and the monster.

Figure 5. How the man orients his body

On the other hand, the monster also has its facial expression. It opens its mouth, looking rather ferocious or it may be suffering the drastic pain caused by the giant man’s grasp. The man and the monster staring at each other that reminds us the moment when we stared at each other. It must going to have a battle between the two even we only see their faces instead of seeing the arm movements.

Figure 6. The facial expression of the man and the monster