Cyberspace cities: The Image of the City and software design
Modified
Last updated December 26, 2023
Summary
Title: Cyberspace Cities: The Image of the City and Software Design
Summary:
- "Cyberspace Cities" explores the connection between the physical environment of cities and the design of software applications.
- The book delves into how urban design principles can inform and enhance the user experience (UX) design process.
- It emphasizes the importance of creating digital experiences that are intuitive, engaging, and reflect the familiar elements of the urban landscape.
Key Learnings:
- The concept of "wayfinding" in physical cities is applicable to digital spaces. Effective navigation and information hierarchy are crucial for engaging users.
- Understanding and applying principles of architecture and urban planning can help designers in creating intuitive and visually appealing software interfaces.
- The book highlights the significance of incorporating elements of the physical world, such as landmarks or paths, into digital designs to enhance users' sense of orientation and familiarity.
Why read as a UX Designer:
- As a UX designer, "Cyberspace Cities" provides valuable insights into the
✏️ Highlights
option for mobility in Alfama is walking.
In 2017, my wife and I spent our honeymoon in Lisbon’s Alfama district. The small district was formed in 1200 BCE. Beautiful old churches are sprinkled between the narrow residential three and four flats throughout the neighborhood. Small residential groceries and bakeries are on every corner and in the evenings, some streets completely shut down to become open air restaurants for locally caught fish. All of the streets are cobblestone and narrow, often no wider than 15 feet across. Your only real option for mobility in Alfama is walking. In fact, I think owning a car in the Alfama district would be more of a hassle than a benefit,
similar characteristics with the first known cities in Mesopotamia, such as the earliest known city, Çatalhöyük (7400 BCE to 5200 BCE), and other ancient cities such as Babylon, Uruk, Ur, Nineveh, and Jericho
In my first article on the subject of Cyberspace Cities, I made a brief case for the remarkable parallels between cities and software in terms of how they are designed to facilitate human activities.
The city exists in a physical vector while cyberspace exists in a metaphysical vector, but they both seek to connect people to each other,
All design depends on repetition and motifs to create universal experiences and they all have their own, field-specific terms. Various fields of design focus on the “intended” user(s), seek to minimize friction between the user(s) and their goal(s), assisting in whatever the task(s) at hand is.
universal theory, such as Gestalt Principles.
spoons, cars, or user interfaces are, more or less, the same shapes, sizes, and mechanisms.
Can you imagine having to “make sense” of every door before using it?
Have you ever pushed on a “pull door” or pulled on a “push door”? These unclear doors are known as Norman Doors, and are uniquely frustrating because they often contradict expectations in a way that leaves the user confused, irritated, and even embarrassed.
Frank Lloyd Wright further expanded on the idea, saying: “Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union”. Regardless of the semantics, design as a collective body can be summarized for these purposes as oriented towards problem solving in a manner that is comfortable, intuitive,
Frank Lloyd Wright further expanded on the idea, saying: “Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union”. Regardless of the semantics, design as a collective body can be summarized for these purposes as oriented towards problem solving in a manner that is comfortable, intuitive, useful, and often beautiful.
planner and MIT professor, released one of the most influential urban design texts to date.
1960, Kevin Lynch, an American urban planner and MIT professor, released one of the most influential urban design texts to date.
Lynch is widely regarded as one of the patron saints of urban planning along with Jane Jacobs, Lewis Mumford, Ian McHarg, Daniel Burnham, and Frederick Law Olmsted
Lynch’s book lays a foundation for understanding the human experience of space as a conceptualization based on his understanding of a few cities as examples. This framework gives language and to the human experience of urban life, and it remarkably transcends space, time, culture, and technology.
Paths can share modality (roads allow bikes and cars) and paths are generally easy to follow and identify.
Edges define boundaries between “A” and “B” within space.
edges allow us to say “this starts here and ends there’’ and ultimately identifies differences between places. Edges can be hard or soft and it is generally
edges allow us to say “this starts here and ends there’’
Nodes are junctions between many elements that allow users to move about other parts of the city. The intersections of our roads are
Nodes are junctions between many elements that allow users to move about other parts of the city.
cities primarily focusing on human mobility in the physical world while digital services transcend the physical world to “travel” through the metaphysical world of cyberspace. Buttons, clicks, drop downs, and menus are the streets, highways, building, and open spaces of our metaphorical city.
There are clear “landmarks” within apps, usually in the form of controls, top ribbons, icons, logos or hamburger menus, and they all help us stay grounded in the experience and navigate about the application.
consider the mobility in an application just like a trip to the grocery, a bike ride to the park, or a walk to pick your kid up from school.
The physical pleasures and frustrations of the urban form all have metaphorical equivalents in apps. The detours, turns, and short cuts along these trips perfectly mirror how we navigate cyberspace.
Cities move our physical bodies from place to place, service to service, and task to task. Applications move our virtual “bodies” from various digital places, services and tasks in the exact same manner. Through the use of paths, edges, nodes, districts, and landmarks applications move us through the digital world in a perfect reflection of our built world.
option for mobility in Alfama is walking.
In 2017, my wife and I spent our honeymoon in Lisbon’s Alfama district. The small district was formed in 1200 BCE. Beautiful old churches are sprinkled between the narrow residential three and four flats throughout the neighborhood. Small residential groceries and bakeries are on every corner and in the evenings, some streets completely shut down to become open air restaurants for locally caught fish. All of the streets are cobblestone and narrow, often no wider than 15 feet across. Your only real option for mobility in Alfama is walking. In fact, I think owning a car in the Alfama district would be more of a hassle than a benefit,
similar characteristics with the first known cities in Mesopotamia, such as the earliest known city, Çatalhöyük (7400 BCE to 5200 BCE), and other ancient cities such as Babylon, Uruk, Ur, Nineveh, and Jericho
In my first article on the subject of Cyberspace Cities, I made a brief case for the remarkable parallels between cities and software in terms of how they are designed to facilitate human activities.
The city exists in a physical vector while cyberspace exists in a metaphysical vector, but they both seek to connect people to each other,
All design depends on repetition and motifs to create universal experiences and they all have their own, field-specific terms. Various fields of design focus on the “intended” user(s), seek to minimize friction between the user(s) and their goal(s), assisting in whatever the task(s) at hand is.
universal theory, such as Gestalt Principles.
spoons, cars, or user interfaces are, more or less, the same shapes, sizes, and mechanisms.
Can you imagine having to “make sense” of every door before using it?
Have you ever pushed on a “pull door” or pulled on a “push door”? These unclear doors are known as Norman Doors, and are uniquely frustrating because they often contradict expectations in a way that leaves the user confused, irritated, and even embarrassed.
Frank Lloyd Wright further expanded on the idea, saying: “Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union”. Regardless of the semantics, design as a collective body can be summarized for these purposes as oriented towards problem solving in a manner that is comfortable, intuitive,
Frank Lloyd Wright further expanded on the idea, saying: “Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union”. Regardless of the semantics, design as a collective body can be summarized for these purposes as oriented towards problem solving in a manner that is comfortable, intuitive, useful, and often beautiful.
planner and MIT professor, released one of the most influential urban design texts to date.
1960, Kevin Lynch, an American urban planner and MIT professor, released one of the most influential urban design texts to date.
Lynch is widely regarded as one of the patron saints of urban planning along with Jane Jacobs, Lewis Mumford, Ian McHarg, Daniel Burnham, and Frederick Law Olmsted
Lynch’s book lays a foundation for understanding the human experience of space as a conceptualization based on his understanding of a few cities as examples. This framework gives language and to the human experience of urban life, and it remarkably transcends space, time, culture, and technology.
Paths can share modality (roads allow bikes and cars) and paths are generally easy to follow and identify.
Edges define boundaries between “A” and “B” within space.
edges allow us to say “this starts here and ends there’’ and ultimately identifies differences between places. Edges can be hard or soft and it is generally
edges allow us to say “this starts here and ends there’’
Nodes are junctions between many elements that allow users to move about other parts of the city. The intersections of our roads are
Nodes are junctions between many elements that allow users to move about other parts of the city.
cities primarily focusing on human mobility in the physical world while digital services transcend the physical world to “travel” through the metaphysical world of cyberspace. Buttons, clicks, drop downs, and menus are the streets, highways, building, and open spaces of our metaphorical city.
There are clear “landmarks” within apps, usually in the form of controls, top ribbons, icons, logos or hamburger menus, and they all help us stay grounded in the experience and navigate about the application.
consider the mobility in an application just like a trip to the grocery, a bike ride to the park, or a walk to pick your kid up from school.
The physical pleasures and frustrations of the urban form all have metaphorical equivalents in apps. The detours, turns, and short cuts along these trips perfectly mirror how we navigate cyberspace.
Cities move our physical bodies from place to place, service to service, and task to task. Applications move our virtual “bodies” from various digital places, services and tasks in the exact same manner. Through the use of paths, edges, nodes, districts, and landmarks applications move us through the digital world in a perfect reflection of our built world.
