Over the past months I've been observing everyday humans running around there tasks for the afternoon. I want to to observe what people did in the real world when moving around their surroundings.
Amongst the things I noticed was that humans struggled to find signs. Signs that were huge. Gigantic signs at eye level and with huge lettering. And using colour bright enough to catch attention but not flamboyant enough to make it hard to read. For whatever reason the humans didn't pay attention. They resorted to the interrogation of any human in sight most often the ones wearing the brightest clothing. This got me thinking of my play tests and what happened if people got stuck. I found that in the real and game world humans will look for help in another human rather than investigate their surrounds. Often in play-tests the humans would turn round and ask "am I doing something wrong?" Or "is this for this?".
Another observation I had was that the places with the most instruction and guidance failed to guide. I was observing customers in an Ikea restaurant queuing for their daily meals and caffeine. I noticed that the humans would get confused at the line for the picking of food which was one of the places in store that huge amount of guidance; signs, leading lines, arrows and even the movement of the human horde picking their food. In other places I observed the same thing but not in the same mass collection.
I came to the conclusion that areas with huge amounts of instruction and guidance confused. I have seen this in games also. When you play a game and there is huge amounts of text that's needed to be read it can negate from its intended purpose, pushing the viewing away. This often meant they wouldn't read it and wouldn't receive the guidance that was intended.
One of the things that helped in the observation areas for guidance was the subtle or instinctive clues that were in the environment. The one that seemed to be the best instruction was leading lines. You will see leading lines in around you everyday but not notice that they are there. Car parks, supermarkets, advertisements all use this method of guidance. Architects, designers and artists all use leading lines to direct the viewers eyes to places of interest or importance. You eyes will instinctively move along them. I have looked into leading line main times in my studies in Art and Design and they are a very good way of combining both aesthetics and guidance subtly guide without the viewer really noticing.
In conclusion, I thing I have witness similar traits in both real world and the virtual. In both, intense guidance can be too heavy for the viewer and can do the opposite function. On the other hand, subtle and instinctive clues like leading lines can guidance without the over concentration of tutorials. It has confirmed for me that traits in the real world could be used in the virtual, allowing the creation of much less intrusive guidance or tutorail type experience.
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