Thoughtpile is a promotional site, designed to provide fun, a sense of
engagement and participation, and perhaps even social utility. Not
the worst
thought in the world, and a refreshing break from banner ad promos for
office furniture. Take what you find useful to your purpose, and
leave the
rest :-)
I don't have much to add, but I need to say I am completely with Alex
here.
So, going for a novel interaction concept sometimes leads to a result
that comes up short wrt execution of the details. I suppose that is
the case here.
But now that the Thoughtpile site is available, there is nothing to
stop a range of other designers from appropriating the key idea of
the interaction concept (zoomable quasi-3d with fixed-angle
orthogonal views, conceptually similar to early text visualization
work by David Small at MIT around 2000) and using it in other design
situations with much more attention to the details of the interaction.
Somebody may even create a totally "intuitive" interaction idiom
inspired by Thoughtpile, and we may learn that it has some inherent
benefits in terms of user experience when compared to more mainstream
approaches.
That hypothetical, and highly desirable, outcome is not likely to be
reached by a series of incremental improvements upon mainstream
approaches.
I guess my simplified conclusion is that the interaction design
community gains immediately in terms of knowledge when somebody
chooses to go for an innovative interaction concept, and the users
gain in the long run in terms of utility, pleasure and engagement if
the concept catches on and matures through appropriation and refinement.
Jonas Löwgren
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