Immersive Design
  • Introduction
  • Course Program
  • Showcase
  • References
  • Class 0-2 Bootcamp
    • The Last Great Battle of the Samurai
    • Class 0: Sensing
    • Class 1: Design Tools
    • Class 2: Evaluation Basics
  • Spatial
    • Spatial Rationales: Food for Thought
    • Spatial Intimacy: Public Space
    • Spatial Intimacy: Social Space
    • Spatial Intimacy: Personal Space
    • Spatial Intimacy: Intimate Space
    • Spatial Form: Proportion & Rhythm
    • Spatial Flow: Movement & Direction
    • Spatial Sensing: Sensory Expressions
    • Spatial Sound: Edible Flavor
  • Embodiment
    • Embodiment: Kinesthetic Space
    • Embodiment: Gestural Kinesphere
    • Embodiment: Bodily Kinesphere
    • Embodiment: Harmony & Balance
    • Embodiment: Affordances & Microinteractions
  • Evaluation
    • Evaluation Topics: Immersion & Presence
    • Evaluation Topics: Emotional Immersion
    • Evaluation Topics: Body-Ownership
    • Evaluation Topics: User Tasks
    • Evaluation Topics: Navigation
    • Evaluation Topics: Wayfinding
    • Evaluation Topics: Human-System Control
    • Evaluation Topics: Feedback, feedforward & force feedback
  • Methods
    • Evaluation Methods: Setting up an Experiment
    • Evaluation Methods: Quantitative & Qualitative
    • Evaluation Methods: Materials
Powered by GitBook
On this page
  • Manage Tension and Intensity
  • 1.Movement
  • Direction
  • Views and vistas - way finding
  • Focal points
  • Connectors
  • From lizarding to lingering: how we really behave in public spaces
  • Gameplay Builder - Floors

Was this helpful?

  1. Spatial

Spatial Flow: Movement & Direction

Manage Tension and Intensity

Getting the user's attention and guiding him/her forward into your experience in such as way that it is exactly performing what you had envisioned. Spatial Design can offer many solutions for managing intensity and adventure within an experience.

1.Movement

Movement in a design can be of one of two types:

  • Physical

  • Compositional

Physical movement occurs when some physical activity is present in the subject. People walking, for example, or objects such as cars that appear to be in motion. Aerodynamic forms like planes suggest not only motion, but also speed.

Compositional objects exist for movement and so they convey a sense of movement when we see them. They aren’t literally moving on the screen, but we know it’s their function and perceive the movement they imply.

Direction

Through the use of lines, colors, values, textures, forms, and space you can direct the eye from one part of a composition to another. This is considered movement or the illusion of movement in a design.

Direction leads to implied movement. Your eye follows the direction of a line or the gaze of a figure and your eye moves to see where the line leads or where the gaze is looking. Movement is the path the eye follows when looking at a composition. How the eye travels through a composition can help create unity and it helps tie the elements together through the relationship of various components. Fixate and move. Fixate and move.

There are three basic directions that can be present in a composition.

  • Horizontal—suggests calmness, stability and tranquility.

  • Vertical—suggests balance, formality and alertness.

  • Diagonal—suggests movement and action.

  • Through the orientation and shape of elements.

  • Where people in images look.

  • Where figures and objects in images appear to move.

  • Through scale that creates perspective.

  • Through arrows and other pointing devices.

Views and vistas - way finding

View: An arrangement of the camera and level geometry to create a well-constructed view of something important in a level.

Vista: A view, especially one through a long narrow avenue of trees or buildings.

Action spaces, viewpoints and look through options:

  • landmarks

  • checkpoints

  • pinch point

  • corridor

  • doorway

  • stairs

  • bridges

Focal points

Focal points integrate different functions. These three functions are most common, so explore what is good for your projects.

  • Are you showing off your art?

  • Are you trying to indicate the way forward?

  • Are you trying to tell a story or explore a theme?

Connectors

What unifies the space itself and the surrounding spaces? - doors - gates - highways - stairs - bridges - stepping stones

From lizarding to lingering: how we really behave in public spaces

Gameplay Builder - Floors

PreviousSpatial Form: Proportion & RhythmNextSpatial Sensing: Sensory Expressions

Last updated 5 years ago

Was this helpful?

This figure shows three line-like shapes one in each of the three directions, but lines and line-like elements are only one way to show direction. Direction exists:

source: Bradley, S. (2018). Design Fundamentals: elements, attributes and principles. [online] Vanseodesign.com. Available at: [Accessed 19 Sep. 2019].

In order to maintain a stable flow in the experience, the user's attention, focus and activity can be organised into levels, bubble areas, user moments or meaningful places. This perspective of offers a good starting point. Make sure to design a meaningful opening view that provides all necessary information to the user. Framing the camera, from the perspective of several heights (users differ in height), is a necessity!

The researchers behind decided to study the public behaviour of human beings in New York City, an update on William H Whyte’s pioneering work from 1980, The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces. From ‘roosting’ to ‘schooling’, here are the patterns they found:

https://vanseodesign.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/sample/design-fundamentals-direction-movement.pdf
Views and Vistas created by Mike Stout
The Field Guide to Urban Plazas
From lizarding to lingering: how we really behave in public spaces
http://www.simonoc.com/