Keywords
User interfaces, graphical user interfaces, visual interaction design, graphic design, design methodology,
visual representation, tools
OVERVIEW
This one-day workshop provides an opportunity for experienced practitioners in visual design to share
ideas, techniques, and methods for developing visual designs for interfaces. The range of techniques is
expected to include ways to generate images, represent sequences, and iterate designs with respect to
media, cultural context, and technology. Toward this end, each participant is expected to share a single
useful technique with the group. This technique can be shared through example, demonstration, or case
history. The only requirement is that the technique be presented as concretely as possible, in a manner that
allows all participants to apply the technique. Possible examples might include:
- o The use of a specific tool or technology for generating drawings of interface elements with a focus
on the
attributes that make it preferred
- o Non-digital techniques for visualizing and representing linear and branching sequences.
- o The analysis of media images in advertising as a basis for developing brand identity in a
multimedia
interface.
MOTIVATION
The workshop emerged from discussions at last year's Visual Interaction Design SIA meeting at CHI �94
in which it was acknowledged that CHI's visual design tutorials were geared toward novices rather than
experts [1]. The workshop is intended to provide a focused, peer-oriented setting within which experienced
practitioners can share knowledge. CHI provides an especially appropriate context for such a workshop
since the conference brings together diverse visual design practitioners from academia and industry, and
because there already exists an active visual design community within CHI, evidenced by the Visual
Interaction Design Special Interest Area and its distribution list, VISUAL-L, along with the visual SIG
meetings of the past five conferences.
GOALS
It is believed that the workshop will surface techniques that may have been heretofore undocumented for
two primary reasons: 1) visual designers do not tend to publish since incentives for doing so are minimal,
and 2) visual design techniques for interface design are often improvised in the absence of specialized tools
and are seen both as informal and ephemeral.
While this workshop seeks to provide its participants with working knowledge that can be applied to future
work, its larger purpose is to capture these techniques for larger distribution via publication in the SIGCHI
Bulletin.
WORKSHOP ORGANIZATION & ACTIVITIES
During this one-day workshop, each participant will briefly share their tool or technique with the group,
followed by discussion and an opportunity to try out the tool or technique. The final hour of the workshop
will be devoted to a comparison of the day's samplings and discussion about their applicability to future
work.
References
[1] Comment by Dan Boyarski at the Visual Interaction Design Special Interest Area Annual Meeting, CHI
'94, Boston, April 27, 1994.
