Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
play. The reactions are those of your audience. Sometimes you direct the audience, other
times they give you direction.
An actor might play the part with sadness, comedy, or with ever-shifting nuance. If the
playgoers get restless and shift in their seats, the actor turns the performance up a notch to
regain their attention. If they seem too sleepy and comfortable, the performer reaches into
his or her experience to create a sense of alarm. A designer might use option bars, filter
adjustments, opacity adjustments or any other method to control user experience in similar
ways.
Acting exercises are useful, but in the end, user experience design takes Stanislavski's
method deeper. In the end, we are all users. That fact is the best source for our empathy.
Our play is life, where we all perceive, learn, grow and find tools to fit our uses, and uses
to fit our tools. As users, we all have needs. A designer must look within his or her self and
find the inner user. That's where true connection with your audience begins, with all the
delight that goes with it.
1
* An Actor Prepares, by Konstantin Stanislavski, Translated by Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood, Introduction by Sir John
Gielgud, Theatre Arts Books, New York, 1936.
