Beausage
Wednesday, May 20, 2009 at 10:20AM Michael Honey kindly pointed me to a new term: Beausage.
…a synthetic combination of the words beauty andusage, and describes the beauty that comes with using something. Metacool
This term describes what I've tried to imagine in the look of a loved folder. That there is useful information in the wear on objects by thousands of human hands doing the same thing. And that this information can actually be beautiful, and even aesthetically attractive in it's own right. For example, these 'desire lions' with hand-wear-polished noses, named from the existing term of 'desire paths' created by thousands of interactions. Image from Portigal.com
What's interesting to me is the value that 'goat tracks' and 'worn edges' have in the real world. They show us that there are popular paths, and show us the way to the the most popular objects and destinations. It's actually very 'web 2.0', leveraging the social web of human decisions. Of course, you don't *have* to follow the path, but knowing that many other already have is a strong cognitive influence. Also, the paths that people take are not always the ones laid out for them by designers, and can indicate better designs to the people in charge. You could imagine paths being worn into your desktop, showing where you've travelled a lot before, or paths worn into websites, showing the most popular sections, and paths to other sites. There is even more richness possible than in the real world, because in a computer simulation of wear'n'tear we can capture more data: the age of the decision, the time it took to make the decision, the time of day, how that person relates to us socially… the list goes on.
This image of a map of Florence, borrowed from Design with Intent, shows a real-world abstraction of travel to 2D. This map has a worn away 'You Are Here' section, with paths leading outwards. Why not on the web and desktop? You might argue against the idea, saying the web/desktop is too dynamic, that destinations move too often, or that interfaces evolve faster than desire paths could form. Either way, I'd love to find examples proving or disproving this idea.
aesthetics, age, aging, beauty, wayfinding in cognitive science
Reader Comments (9)
I definitely respond positively to an ancient staircase or an animal pad in an otherwise trackless wilderness: similarly to a wallet or wooden spoon that's seen long use. In each case, though, the quality of the material is an essential part of that experience. Badly-made things don't wear well. Cheap becomes shabby: well-made becomes well-worn. The challenge for the interface designer is to make the "material" of sufficient quality that the "wear" is both demonstrative and aesthetic.
Nice meaning, but for some reason I'm thinking "sausage" when I read it, but that's probably just me :-/
Christoper Alexander talks a bit about goat paths in The Oregon Experiment where they took aerial photos of the grounds in winter where paths taken in the snow showed popular routes. In the summer they used the photos to make the actual pathways. I think the pattern he calls is is 'desire lines'.
I became somewhat obsessed with desire lines after reading a great train of thought essay in Dot Dot Dot (which is a great magazine by the way!)
@Michael — I agree. This quality of 'wearing beautifully' seems to be rarely talked about, since our culture (it seems) to make either something 'indestructible' or 'disposable'.
@Matthew. I think of the word sausage as well :-) trying to think of a better word, beautibility or somesuch. I'll look into dot dot dot magazine., thanks!
The Japanese concept of wabi-sabi is a good place to start. Permanence is over-rated and unachievable. We live in the world, which degrades more or less gracefully, not some Platonic noumenal heaven.
Also: Bruce Sterling/Viridian movement.
@Michael That's a beautiful concept - I worked with a college for a while who talked a lot about 'ma' which I think is connected.
The Japanese have such a thoughtful and intriguing culture.
@Keith I'm glad it's not just me, I was thinking I might have a sausage obsession or something haha!
@Michael
I will look into Wabi-sabi, thank you. I'd not heard that term before. And same for Sterling.
One could argue that the perfect antithesis to 'failing gracefully' is 'Computer-anything'.
This is really interesting, but like Matthew said, I just see 'sausage' there before a second glance! I like 'beautibility'
I could see this being applied subtly to the web, maybe different coloured links depending on the number of people who click on them from the page? I'm not sure if any spacial representation would work as, like you say, the layout of a page varies too much.
Really interesting topic though, I'll be looking into 'wabi-sabi', and keeping it in mind.
Sausage for me too. Though I initially though it was some perfect combo of bacon and sausage. Or maybe 'Beausage' could be what someone who's eating sausage tells you their eating if they tell you while they've still got their mouth full.
What strikes me from the Florence map is that in an active map - the same thing, but computer generated one could flip the wear indication so that the favoured routes are bolder and the less favoured routes are lighter. Really neglected parts of the map could get cobwebs overlaid ;).
I could see that being good for city guide on an iPhone app,say. People will trace routes with fingers, and/or record routes with GPS, and that data could feed back into the maps of others.
I think all you sausage obsessivists need to find a local greezy a.m. diner and get overstuffed on some pork and then re-think Grant's amazingly creative word play.