![Greek mélas and moros, black, and in murus, brown-black; in the
Russian smola, wax and resin. “Colour was conceived originally as
the result of the act of covering or extending a fluid over a surface;
it was not till the art of painting, in its most primitive form, was
discovered and named, that there could have been a name for
colour.”[40]
The name of colour in Sanscrit is varna, from var, to
cover. The idea conveyed by the words, to smooth, to flatter, to
soften, to mollify, to melt a hard substance, to polish a rough surface
by constant rubbing, led to the same terms being used for
expressing the softening influence which man exercised on man, by
looks, gestures, words or prayers, and these expressions were
especially used by men in their relations to the gods, when they
strove to propitiate them by supplications and sacrifices: thus the
prayer which we now translate by “Be gracious unto us, O God,”
meant originally, “Melt to us; be softened, ye gods.”
Language grew and made offshoots, but without confusion; disorder
had no place in the progress of thought (still less chance), which
was simple and rational. This was not the development of the
conscious effort towards some goal. At this period there was no such
thing as reflection properly so called; for instance, man did not
ponder how best to express a feeling of fear, since fear, like so many
other impressions, received vague expression before the concept of
fear acquired shape; but our ancestors had a root to express shaking
(in Sanscrit kap, kamp, to shake): they used it to describe fear,
which manifested itself in the trembling of voice or limbs. Thus, “I
shake” might mean, “I shake a tree,” or “I am shaken,” “I am shaken
by him” (by my horse), but also “I am trembling”; from it we have in
Greek karnos, smoke, not what shakes, or is shaken, but what is in a
shaking state, that which moves; kup, which is probably a
modification of kamp, means to shake inwardly, to be angry.
Some learned writers have felt disconcerted when after tracing
words to their source, they have found nothing but roots with
general meanings, such as to go, to move, to run, to do; however, it
is by means of these vague, pale conceptions that language has
obtained the material for an entire language. The Aryan root ar](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/34680-250721175344-d1cc9532/85/Designing-User-Experience-4th-Edition-David-Benyon-27-320.jpg)
![Aryan ancestors had learnt to say Khan, and they wanted to
distinguish between those who were digging and the instruments
used in digging, between the object of the digging and the time and
place of the work, it is possible that these demonstrative suffixes,
combined with predicative roots, formed bases, such as Khan-ana,
Khan-i, Khan-a, Khan-itra, and still others, which were intended
probably for digging-here, digging-now, dig-we, dig-you. By means
of these combinations, which varied in their application according to
the customs of different villages and families, the speaker sought to
distinguish between the subject acting and the object acted upon;
and when this difficulty was surmounted, a great step had been
taken, the passage from perception to conception was accomplished,
and this passage no philosopher prior to Noiré had made clear. “We
must always bear in mind that we are speaking here of times, so far
beyond the reach of history, and of intellectual processes so widely
removed from our own, that none would venture to speak
dogmatically on what was actually passing in the minds of the early
framers of language when they first uttered these words.”[41]
All we
can do is to hazard an explanation, and accept it in as far as it
seems reasonable; and in the interest of science, we must carefully
guard ourselves from asserting that our theory is the only true one.
It is easy to conceive that after centuries of constant use certain
derivatives should have become unalterably attached to certain
meanings, and others should have also retained their special
meanings. But what we do not know, is how the sounds destined to
become demonstrative elements or personal pronouns were
restricted to the terms required for such words, as—here, there,
those, he, I, that, etc. There were cases in which a verb in the
infinitive would develop into a phrase without any additions being
made to it; it would suffice, for instance, if a man uttered the word
Khan in a commanding voice—as we should say “work”—for his
fellow-labourers to understand that they were to begin to dig. Thus
the imperative could be considered a complete sentence with as
much justice as Veni-Vedi-Vici would be termed independent and
complete sentences. “The shortest sentence of all is, no doubt, the](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/34680-250721175344-d1cc9532/85/Designing-User-Experience-4th-Edition-David-Benyon-31-320.jpg)
![imperative, and it is in the imperative that almost to the present day
roots retain their simplest form.”[42]
Our intellects in the present day are developed by the discourses we
hear, the books we read, the reflections suggested by our
experiences of life; our vocabularies become enriched as our
knowledge increases and embraces a greater number of subjects;
and if we retrace the path taking us to our ancestors who could not
count beyond four sometimes, we should find words and ideas
becoming fewer and conspicuous by their absence. It does not
therefore follow that because we use language that we made it. It is
not our invention; to us every language is traditional. “The words in
which we think are channels of thought which we have not dug
ourselves, but which we found ready made for us. The work of
making language belongs to a period in the history of mankind
beyond the reach of the ordinary historian, and of which we in our
advanced state of mental development can hardly form a clear
conception.” Yet that time must have been a fact not less possible of
verification than that geological period when “the earth was
absorbed in producing the carboniferous vegetation which still
supplies us with the means of warmth, light, and life, accumulating
during enormous periods of time small deposits of organic matter
forming the strata of the globe on which we live. In the same
manner the human mind formed that linguistic vegetation, the
produce of which still supplies the stores of our grammars and
dictionaries”; and after a close examination of these primordial roots
whence our language has sprung, we find that it does not consist in
a conglomeration of words, the result of an agreement amongst a
certain number of men, or the result of chance, but expresses
human activity by means of verbs, the living and vivifying portion of
speech by the side of which the remainder may almost be
considered as dead matter.
The question of the birth of the substantive, without being
deliberately posed as a problem, occupied the minds of the Grecian
philosophers, and was involved in their researches concerning the
relation of an object to the name it bears, of the unknown cause by](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/34680-250721175344-d1cc9532/85/Designing-User-Experience-4th-Edition-David-Benyon-32-320.jpg)
![words being conceptual can never stand for a single percept.”—Max
Müller.
Locke first insisted that names are not the signs of things
themselves, but always the signs of our concepts of them. This
remark received small attention at first, and remained little
appreciated until such time as the discoveries of our contemporaries,
with no preconcerted unanimity, confirmed its value. Max Müller
explains Locke’s words in the following manner: “Each time that we
use a general name, if we say dog, tree, chair, we have not these
objects before our eyes, only our concepts of them; there can be
nothing in the world of sense corresponding even to such simple
words as dog, tree, chair. We can never expect to see a dog, a tree,
a chair. Dog means every kind of dog from the greyhound to the
spaniel; tree, every kind of tree from the oak to the cherry; chair,
every kind of chair from the royal throne to the artisan’s stool. We
may see a spaniel or a Newfoundland dog; we may see a fir or an
apple tree; we may see such and such a chair. People often imagine
that they can form a general image of a dog by leaving out what is
peculiar to every individual dog.”[43]
This general idea we have in our mind of which we can talk, but our
eyes cannot see it as they could a real object. Nothing that we
name, nothing that we find in our dictionary can ever be heard, or
seen, or felt. “We can even have names for things which never
existed, such as gnomes; also for things which exist no more, or
which exist not yet, such as the grapes of the last harvest, and those
of the next. The mere fact that I call a thing past or future ought to
be sufficient to show that it is my concept of which I am speaking,
and not the thing as independent of me.”[44]
Berkeley showed that it is simply impossible for any human being to
make to himself a general image of a triangle, for such an image
would have to be at the same time right-angled, obtuse-angled,
acute-angled, and other kinds also; such an object does not exist;
whereas it is perfectly possible to have an image of any single
triangle; to name some characteristic features common to all](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/34680-250721175344-d1cc9532/85/Designing-User-Experience-4th-Edition-David-Benyon-34-320.jpg)
![triangles, and thus to form a name and at the same time a concept
of a triangle.[45]
This mental process which Berkeley described so
well as applied to modern concepts we can adopt with regard to all,
even the most primitive. Man, in entering a forest, discovered in the
trees something that was interesting to him. For practical purposes
trees were particularly interesting to the primitive framers of
language, because they could be split in two, three, or four pieces,
cut, shaped according to the size of the piece into blocks, planks,
boats, and shafts; any object for which the necessity had made itself
felt. Hence, from a root dar, to tear, our Aryan ancestors called trees
dru, or dâru, literally what can be torn, or split, or cut; from the
same root the Greeks called the skin of an animal dérma, because it
was torn off, and a sack dóros (in Sanscrit driti), because it was
made of leather, and a spear dóry, because it came from a tree, and
was cut and shaped and planed.
Such words being once given would produce many offshoots; the
Celts of Gaul and of Ireland called their priests Druids, literally the
men of oak-groves. The Greeks called the spirits of the forest trees
Dryades; and the Hindoos called a man of wood, or a man with a
wooden, or, as we say, flinty heart, dâruna, cruel.
The immense number of intelligible roots gave birth to many new
images, these roots crossed and recrossed, for the concepts of to
go, to give, to move, to make, would be the foundations of others,
in some ways differing; one idea or thought in its flight would meet
others perhaps of a conflicting nature, thoughts and words would
equally undergo incessant modifications, which fact explains why in
these earlier stages of language the members of a community soon
ceased to understand each other if separated but for a short period
of time.
Ovid, in speaking of the chaos at the beginning of the world, makes
a picture which would equally well describe the birth of language.
“Matter was in an unformed mass ... the sky, the earth, the sea had
all one aspect; there where was the earth, was also the sea, and the
sky was there also.”](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/34680-250721175344-d1cc9532/85/Designing-User-Experience-4th-Edition-David-Benyon-35-320.jpg)
![their source in this inevitable dynamic stage, as Max Müller calls it,
of thought and language, in which the psychological necessity of
representing the external objects as resembling themselves operated
on our ancestors. This necessity might have been named
subjectivism had it not received more specific terms such as
animism, which consists in conceiving of inanimate objects as
animate; anthropomorphism, conceiving objects as men, and
personification, conceiving objects as persons. As soon as this new
mental act was performed, a new world was called into existence, a
world of names, or as we now call it, the world of myths.
“So long as the real identity of thought and language had not been
grasped, so long as people imagined that language is one thing and
thought another, it was but natural that they should fail to see the
real meaning of treating mythology, if not as a disease, at all events
as an inevitable affection of language. If the active verb was merely
a grammatical, and not at the same time a psychological, nay, an
historical fact, it might seem absurd to identify the active meaning of
our roots with the active meaning ascribed to the phenomena of
nature. But let it be once perceived that language and thought are
one and indivisible, and nothing will seem more natural than that
what, as the grammarian tells us, happened in language, should, as
the psychologist tells us, have likewise happened in thought.”[46]
The men who spoke in this manner of the external phenomena
understood perfectly that they themselves, who struck, who
measured, who ran, who rose up, who lay down, were not to be
confounded with the thunder, the moon, the river, and the sun;
those scholars who studied thought as apart from language, rather
allowed themselves selves to be misled by the phraseology of the
time, and considered it a proof that our Aryan ancestors looked upon
their physical surroundings as human beings, endowed with the
appropriate organs and acts. Not only had the early Aryans perfectly
understood that they were not identical with themselves, but they
were far more struck by the differences between them than by any
imaginary similarities. The confirmation of this theory is preserved
for us in the Veda. “The torrent is roaring—not a bull,” i.e. like a bull;](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/34680-250721175344-d1cc9532/85/Designing-User-Experience-4th-Edition-David-Benyon-39-320.jpg)
Designing User Experience 4th Edition David Benyon
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- 5. Designing User Experience 4th Edition David Benyon Digital Instant Download Author(s): David Benyon ISBN(s): 9781292155517, 1292155515 Edition: 4 File Details: PDF, 27.51 MB Year: 2017 Language: english
- 6. DAVID BENYON Fourth Edition A guide to HCI, UX and interaction design DESIGNING USER EXPERIENCE
- 7. Designing User Experience A guide to HCI, UX and Interaction Design
- 8. At Pearson, we have a simple mission: to help people make more of their lives through learning. We combine innovative learning technology with trusted content and educational expertise to provide engaging and effective learning experiences that serve people wherever and whenever they are learning. From classroom to boardroom, our curriculum materials, digital learning tools and testing programmes help to educate millions of people worldwide – more than any other private enterprise. Every day our work helps learning flourish, and wherever learning flourishes, so do people. To learn more, please visit us at www.pearson.com/uk
- 9. Designing User Experience A guide to HCI, UX and Interaction Design FOURTH Edition David Benyon Harlow, England • London • New York • Boston • San Francisco • Toronto • Sydney • Dubai • Singapore • Hong Kong Tokyo • Seoul • Taipei • New Delhi • Cape Town • São Paulo • Mexico City • Madrid • Amsterdam • Munich • Paris • Milan
- 10. Pearson Education Limited KAO Two KAO Park Harlow CM17 9NA United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0)1279 623623 Web: www.pearson.com/uk First published 2005 (print) Second edition published 2010 (print) Third edition published 2014 (print and electronic) Fourth edition published 2019 (print and electronic) © Pearson Education Limited 2005, 2010 (print) © Pearson Education Limited 2014, 2019 (print and electronic) The right of David Benyon to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. The print publication is protected by copyright. Prior to any prohibited reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, distribution or transmission in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, permission should be obtained from the publisher or, where applicable, a licence permitting restricted copying in the United Kingdom should be obtained from the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, Barnard’s Inn, 86 Fetter Lane, London EC4A 1EN. The ePublication is protected by copyright and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased, or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and the publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly. All trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners. The use of any trademark in this text does not vest in the author or publisher any trademark ownership rights in such trademarks, nor does the use of such trademarks imply any affiliation with or endorsement of this book by such owners. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence (OGL) v3.0. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/. The screenshots in this book are reprinted by permission of Microsoft Corporation. Pearson Education is not responsible for the content of third-party internet sites. ISBN: 978-1-292-15551-7 (print) 978-1-292-15552-4 (PDF) 978-1-292-15553-1 (ePub) British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for the print edition is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for the print edition is available from the Library of Congress Names: Benyon, David, author. Title: Designing user experience / David Benyon. Other titles: Designing interactive systems Description: Fourth edition. | Harlow, United Kingdom : Pearson Education Limited, 2019. | Earlier editions given title: Designing interactive systems. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017023134 | ISBN 9781292155517 (Print) | ISBN 9781292155524 (PDF) | ISBN 9781292155531 (ePub) Subjects: LCSH: Human–computer interaction. | Interactive computer systems—Design. | User interfaces (Computer systems) Classification: LCC QA76.9.H85 B45 2017 | DDC 004.01/9—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017023134 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 23 22 21 20 19 Print edition typeset in 9.25/12.5 CharterITC Std by iEnergizer Aptara®, Ltd. Printed in Slovakia by Neografia NOTE THAT ANY PAGE CROSS REFERENCES REFER TO THE PRINT EDITION
- 11. Dedication David Benyon, husband, father, grandfather, gardener, philosopher, adventurer, interdisciplinarian, free thinker, conceptual blender, champion of intellectual pursuit. Your guiding hand will be missed at home and around the world.
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- 13. Brief contents Preface xv Publisher’s acknowledgements xxv Part I The essentials of designing user experience 1 1 An introduction to user experience 5 2 PACT: a framework for designing UX 25 3 The process of human-centred UX design 47 4 Cross-channel UX 81 5 Usability 103 6 Experience design 126 Part II Techniques for designing UX 143 7 Understanding 146 8 Envisionment 182 9 Design 209 10 Evaluation 238 11 Task analysis 269 12 Visual interface design 287 13 Multimodal interface design 319 Part III Contexts for designing UX 339 14 Designing apps and websites 342 15 Social media 372 16 Collaborative environments 394 17 AI: artificial intelligence and interface agents 417 18 Ubiquitous computing 444 19 Mobile computing 472 20 Wearable computing 487 Part IV Foundations of UX design 501 21 Memory and attention 504 22 Affect 527 23 Cognition and action 546 24 Social interaction 567 25 Perception and navigation 589 References 610 Index 628
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- 15. Contents Preface xv Publisher’s acknowledgements xxv Part I The essentials of designing user experience 1 Introduction to Part I 2 1 An introduction to user experience 5 Aims 5 1.1 The variety of UX 6 1.2 The concerns of UX 9 1.3 Being digital 13 1.4 The skills of the UX designer 17 1.5 Why being human-centred is important 21 Summary and key points 22 Exercises 23 Further reading 23 Web links 23 Comments on challenges 24 2 PACT: a framework for designing UX 25 Aims 25 2.1 Introduction 26 2.2 People 27 2.3 Activities 33 2.4 Contexts 34 2.5 Technologies 36 2.6 Scoping a problem with PACT 43 Summary and key points 44 Exercises 45 Further reading 45 Web links 45 Comments on challenges 45 3 The process of human-centred UX design 47 Aims 47 3.1 Introduction 48 3.2 The process of UX design 49 3.3 Developing personas 55 3.4 Developing scenarios 59 3.5 Using scenarios throughout design 60 3.6 A scenario-based UX design method 67 3.7 Case study. Secret City: Edinburgh 70 Summary and key points 77 Exercises 78 Further reading 78 Web links 79 Comments on challenges 79 4 Cross-channel UX 81 Aims 81 4.1 Introduction 82 4.2 The elements of UX 83 4.3 User journeys 87 4.4 Cross-channel UX 92 4.5 Information architecture 94 4.6 Example: commuting to work 98 Summary and key points 100 Exercises 100 Further reading 101 Web links 101 Comments on challenges 101 5 Usability 103 Aims103 5.1 Introduction104 5.2 Accessibility104 5.3 Usability108 5.4 Acceptability112 5.5 Design principles 113 Summary and key points 123 Exercises 123
- 16. x Further reading 124 Web links 124 Comments on challenges 124 6 Experience design 126 Aims126 6.1 Introduction127 6.2 Engagement128 6.3 Designing for pleasure 132 6.4 Aesthetics136 6.5 Lifestyle138 Summary and key points 139 Exercises140 Further reading 140 Web links 140 Comments on challenges 140 Part II Techniques for designing UX 143 Introduction to Part II 144 7 Understanding 146 Aims 146 7.1 Requirements 147 7.2 Participative design 149 7.3 Interviews 151 7.4 Questionnaires 159 7.5 Probes 165 7.6 Card sorting techniques 167 7.7 Working with groups 170 7.8 Fieldwork: observing activities in situ 171 7.9 Artefact collection and ‘desk work’ 175 7.10 Data analysis 177 Summary and key points 179 Exercises 179 Further reading 180 Web links 180 Comments on challenges 181 8 Envisionment 182 Aims 182 8.1 Finding suitable representations 183 8.2 Sketching for ideation 184 8.3 Visualizing look and feel 187 8.4 Mapping the interaction 191 8.5 Wireframes 194 8.6 Prototypes 195 8.7 Envisionment in practice 202 Summary and key points 205 Exercises 206 Further reading 206 Web links 207 Comments on challenges 207 9 Design 209 Aims 209 9.1 Introduction 210 9.2 UX design 211 9.3 Metaphors and blends in design 214 9.4 Conceptual design 220 9.5 Physical design 226 9.6 Designing interactions 230 Summary and key points 235 Exercises 236 Further reading 236 Web links 236 Comments on challenges 236 10 Evaluation 238 Aims 238 10.1 Introduction 239 10.2 Data analytics 242 10.3 Expert evaluation 246 10.4 Participant-based evaluation 250 10.5 Evaluation in practice 254 10.6 Evaluation: further issues 260 Summary and key points 265 Exercises 265 Further reading 266 Web links 267 Comments on challenges 267 11 Task analysis 269 Aims 269 11.1 Goals, tasks and actions 270 11.2 Task analysis and systems design 272 11.3 Hierarchical task analysis 274 11.4 GOMS: a cognitive model of procedural knowledge 276 Contents
- 17. xi 11.5 Structural knowledge 277 11.6 Cognitive work analysis 281 Summary and key points 283 Exercises 283 Further reading 285 Web links 285 Comments on challenges 285 12 Visual interface design 287 Aims 287 12.1 Introduction 288 12.2 Graphical user interfaces 289 12.3 Interface design guidelines 296 12.4 Psychological principles and interface design 302 12.5 Information design 310 12.6 Visualization 313 Summary and key points 317 Exercises 317 Further reading 318 Web links 318 Comments on challenges 318 13 Multimodal interface design 319 Aims 319 13.1 Introduction 320 13.2 Multimodal interaction 322 13.3 Using sound at the interface 326 13.4 Tangible interaction 329 13.5 Gestural interaction and surface computing 333 Summary and key points 336 Exercises 336 Further reading 337 Web links 337 Comments on challenges 337 Part III Contexts for designing UX 339 Introduction to Part III 340 14 Designing apps and websites 342 Aims 342 14.1 Introduction 343 14.2 Website and app development 345 14.3 The information architecture of apps and websites 348 14.4 Navigation design for apps and websites 356 14.5 Case study: designing the Robert Louis Stevenson website 360 Summary and key points 369 Exercises 370 Further reading 370 Web links 371 Comments on challenges 371 15 Social media 372 Aims 372 15.1 Introduction 373 15.2 Background ideas 376 15.3 Social networking 382 15.4 Sharing with others 387 15.5 The developing web 390 Summary and key points 392 Further reading 392 Web links 392 Comments on challenges 392 16 Collaborative environments 394 Aims 394 16.1 Introduction 395 16.2 Issues for cooperative working 396 16.3 Technologies to support cooperative working 401 16.4 Collaborative virtual environments 409 16.5 Case study: developing a collaborative tabletop application 412 Summary and key points 414 Exercises 415 Further reading 415 Web links 415 Comments on challenges 415 17 AI: artificial intelligence and interface agents 417 Aims 417 17.1 Artificial intelligence (AI) 418 17.2 Interface agents 419 17.3 Adaptive systems 421 17.4 An architecture for agents 423 17.5 Applications of agent-based interaction 431 Contents
- 18. xii 17.6 Avatars, robots and conversational agents 433 17.7 Case study: companions 436 Summary and key points 442 Exercises 442 Further reading 442 Web links 443 Comments on challenges 443 18 Ubiquitous computing 444 Aims 444 18.1 Ubiquitous computing 445 18.2 Information spaces 452 18.3 Blended spaces 457 18.4 Home environments 463 18.5 Case study: navigating WSNs 467 Summary and key points 469 Exercises 470 Further reading 470 Web links 470 Comments on challenges 471 19 Mobile computing 472 Aims 472 19.1 Introduction 473 19.2 Context awareness 474 19.3 Understanding in mobile computing 477 19.4 Designing for mobiles 479 19.5 Evaluation for mobile computing 481 19.6 Case study: evaluation of navigating a WSN 481 Summary and key points 485 Exercises 485 Further reading 486 Web links 486 Comments on challenges 486 20 Wearable computing 487 Aims 487 20.1 Introduction 488 20.2 Smart materials 492 20.3 Material design 495 20.4 From materials to implants 496 Summary and key points 498 Exercises 498 Further reading 498 Web links 498 Comments on challenges 499 Part IV Foundations of UX design 501 Introduction to Part IV 502 21 Memory and attention 504 Aims 504 21.1 Introduction 505 21.2 Memory 507 21.3 Attention 512 21.4 Human error 521 Summary and key points 524 Exercises 525 Further reading 525 Web links 525 Comments on challenges 525 22 Affect 527 Aims 527 22.1 Introduction 528 22.2 Psychological theories of emotion 530 22.3 Detecting and recognizing emotions 535 22.4 Expressing emotion 539 22.5 Potential applications and key issues for further research 542 Summary and key points 543 Exercises 544 Further reading 544 Web links 544 Comments on challenges 544 23 Cognition and action 546 Aims 546 23.1 Human information processing 547 23.2 Situated action 550 23.3 Distributed cognition 552 23.4 Embodied cognition 554 23.5 Activity theory 559 Summary and key points 564 Exercises 565 Further reading 565 Web links 566 Comments on challenges 566 Contents
- 19. xiii 24 Social interaction 567 Aims 567 24.1 Introduction 568 24.2 Human communication 568 24.3 People in groups 575 24.4 Presence 581 24.5 Culture and identity 585 Summary and key points 587 Exercises 587 Further reading 587 Web links 588 Comments on challenges 588 25 Perception and navigation 589 Aims 589 25.1 Introduction 590 25.2 Visual perception 590 25.3 Non-visual perception 598 25.4 Navigation 602 Summary and key points 608 Exercises 608 Further reading 609 Web links 609 Comments on challenges 609 References 610 Index 628 Contents Companion Website For open-access student resources specifically written to complement this textbook and support your learning, please visit www.pearsoned.co.uk/benyon Lecturer Resources For password-protected online resources tailored to support the use of this textbook in teaching, please visit www.pearsoned.co.uk/benyon ON THE WEBSITE
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- 21. Preface Designing User Experience is aimed squarely at the next generation of user experience (UX) and interactive system designers. This book presents a comprehensive introduc- tion to the practical issue of creating interactive systems, services and products from a human-centred perspective. It develops the principles and methods of human– computer interaction (HCI) and Interaction Design (ID) to deal with the demands of twenty-first-century computing and the demands for improved user experience (UX). UX and ID are concerned with the design of websites, desktop applications, smartphone apps, ubiquitous computing systems, mobile systems, wearable systems and systems to support cooperation between people. UX and ID are concerned with the development of novel apps, visualizations, auditory displays and responsive environments. HCI is about how to design for these experiences in a human-centred way that takes account of human abilities and preferences and ensures that systems are accessible, usable and acceptable. This book aims to be the core text for university courses in HCI, ID and UX design. It contains the core material for introductory courses and advanced material and links to other resources for final-year undergraduate and masters-level students and to meet the needs of usability and UX professionals working in industry. HCI established itself as an important area of study in the early 1980s and by the early 1990s there was a coherent syllabus and several textbooks. In the early 1990s the World Wide Web appeared, opening up website design as a new area. Information architecture and information design emerged as important areas of study and new issues of usability became important in the open and untamed world of the Web. By the late 1990s mobile phones had become a fashion statement for many people; style was as important as function. With colour displays and better screens, mobile phones became increasingly programmable. Interaction designers were needed along with software engineers to create exciting experiences for people. Smartphones, tablet computers and other information appliances made further new demands on software developers. User interfaces became tangible, graspable and immediate and software systems had to be engaging as well as functional. So, came the era of user experience (UX) design. Digital technologies, wireless communications and new sensing devices provided new media for a new generation of artist–designers involving whole installations, new modalities of interaction and wearable computing. All this has brought us to where we are today: a dynamic mix of ideas, approaches and technologies being used by lots of people doing very different things in different contexts. Designing UX aims to focus this emerging discipline by bringing together the best practice and experience from HCI, UX and ID. Designing User Experience pre- sents a human-centred approach to interaction and experience design. The strength and tradition of HCI has been in its human-centredness and usability concerns. HCI has evolved methods, guidelines, principles and standards to ensure that systems are easy to use and easy to learn. ID has come from design schools, applying traditional approaches to design that emphasize research, insight and critical reflection. UX has emerged during the internet era to emphasize the enjoyment and engagement of the whole interactive experience.
- 22. Preface xvi Practitioners of HCI, website designers, usability experts, user experience designers, software engineers – indeed all those concerned with the design of interactive systems in all their forms – will find much that they recognize in this book. It is concerned with how to design engaging interactions between people and technologies to support the activities that people want to do and the contexts in which they act. Organization of the book for the 4th edition The third edition of Designing User Experience: a comprehensive guide to HCI and inter- action design established itself as the key text for students and professionals of interac- tion design (ID), user experience (UX) and human–computer interaction (HCI). It has been translated into Chinese, Portuguese and Italian, ensuring it has real international coverage. This new edition aims to bring the material right up to date and to set the agenda for the future. The change of title to Designing User Experience: a guide to HCI, UX and interaction design is intended to reflect the change in emphasis that the discipline has experienced. New techniques have been introduced and there are new contexts for interactivity. Many interactive experiences take place over time and across different media channels. UX encompasses these changes in a way that interaction design or HCI cannot easily do. The previous edition established a clear structure for presenting the curriculum for HCI, ID and UX. The material was organized into four parts. ● Part I focused on the essentials of Designing User Experience. ● Part II covered the key techniques for human-centred interaction design that a good designer should master. ● Part III focused on the different contexts for interaction design. ● Part IV provided the psychological and sociological foundations of the subject. I reviewed this structure and overall reviewers and students liked it. Some argued that foundations should come first, but providing the essentials first makes the book more accessible. Some argued that the structure of the book should follow the structure of a design project, but interactive systems design projects are so various that there is no one structure that reflects this variety. Others felt that there were too many different techniques and that the book should be more prescriptive. Taking all these issues on board and looking at the changes that have happened in the subject since the third edition has resulted in this current edition. The four-part structure – essentials, techniques, contexts and foundations – remains. This allows pro- fessors and tutors to pick the combination that suits their classes best. Some suggestions are given below. Every chapter has been revised in the light of this rapidly changing subject and all the examples have been updated to reflect changing technologies. Thus Designing User Experience has the following structure. Part I provides an essential guide to the issues of designing user experience – the main components of the subject, key features of the design process and how these are applied to different types of system. The unifying idea is encapsulated by the acronym PACT: designers should strive to achieve a harmony between the needs of different peo- ple who undertake activities in contexts using technologies. It is the very large amount of variation in these components that makes designing user experience such a fascinat- ing challenge. A key concept throughout is the idea of ‘scenarios’. Scenarios are stories about interactions. They provide an effective representation for reflecting on a design throughout its development. All the material has been updated and new material has
- 23. Preface xvii been added to Chapter 4 on cross-channel UX. This chapter reflects a key change in the discipline. UX crosses communication and media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp and so on and people use different devices such as mobile smartphones, com- puters and public displays to engage with interactive content. HCI and ID focused on single interactions. UX concerns interactions spread over time, different devices and media channels. Chapter 4 also integrates material on service design into the idea of UX. This leaves Chapter 5 to concentrate on usability — traditionally the focus of HCI — and Chapter 6 to focus on the design of good experiences that are aesthetic, pleasurable and fit in with people’s values. Part II pulls together all the main techniques arising from HCI, ID and UX that are used for understanding, designing and evaluating interactive products, services and experiences. Part II presents techniques for understanding the requirements of interactive systems, probing people for ideas, getting people to participate in the design process, card sorting to develop information architectures and investigating similar systems for ideas. Part II includes a chapter on ways of envisioning ideas, prototyping and evaluating design ideas. A more formal approach to conceptual and physical design is included along with a chapter on the key HCI technique of task analysis and a detailed presentation of user interface design in two chapters. One chapter focuses on design of visual interfaces and the other on multimodal interfaces that include sound, touch, augmented and virtual reality and gesture. Part III considers interaction and experience design in the different contexts that are dominating the subject today. There is a chapter on website design and another on social media. But ID and UX go way beyond displays on a desktop computer. People are using mobile devices and interacting with interactive environments. Accordingly, Part III includes chapters on designing for mobile and ubiquitous computing. There is also a chapter on wearable computing. Collaborative environments and artificial intel- ligence (AI) are also important emerging contexts for UX, ID and HCI and each has a chapter in this part. Part IV provides a deep treatment of the psychological foundations of HCI, ID and UX. One chapter deals with memory, attention and human capacities that influence interaction. There is a chapter on understanding human emotion and how this affects interaction. A central chapter on theories of cognition and action brings together the latest ideas on embodied cognition, conceptual blending and how these impact UX. Social interaction is increasingly important to UX and ID and there is a chapter devoted to the key issues from this area. Hearing, haptics (touch) and other ways of perceiving the world are considered alongside the psychology of navigation in Chapter 25. This is fundamental knowledge that the professional should seek to acquire. This part provides material aimed at the specialist student or students studying HCI, UX and ID in psychol- ogy or design schools. Topics in HCI, UX and ID The organization of the book does have a clear logic to it; however, I do not expect many people will start at the beginning and read the book from cover to cover. Accordingly I have provided a number of routes through the text for different people with different needs (see below). The book also contains a comprehensive index so that people can find their own ways in to areas of interest. I have also provided a list of intermediate-level topics at the beginning of each part. These are shown below in alphabetical order. The topic number indi- cates which part it appears in. Numbered topic lists appear in the introduction to each part.
- 24. Preface xviii Accessibility Topic 1.8 Sections 5.1–5.2 Activities, contexts and technologies Topic 1.3 Sections 2.3–2.5 Activity theory Topic 4.10 Section 23.5 Aesthetics Topic 1.14 Section 6.4 Affective computing Topic 4.5 Sections 22.4–22.5 Agent-based interaction Topic 3.9 Sections 17.2, 17.3–17.4 Artificial intelligence (AI) Topic 3.8 Section 17.1 Attention Topic 4.2 Section 21.3 Auditory interfaces Topic 2.26 Section 13.3 Augmented reality (AR) Topic 2.25 Section 13.2 Blended spaces Topic 3.13 Section 18.3 Card sorting Topic 2.6 Section 7.6 Characteristics of people Topic 1.2 Section 2.2 Collaborative environments Topic 3.7 Section 16.4 Conceptual design Topic 2.12 Section 9.4 Context-aware computing Topic 3.16 Sections 19.2, 19.5 Cooperative working Topic 3.6 Sections 16.1–16.3 Culture and identity Topic 4.15 Section 24.5 Data analytics Topic 2.19 Section 10.2 Design languages Topic 2.14 Section 9.5 Designing for pleasure Topic 1.13 Section 6.3 Developing questionnaires Topic 2.4 Section 7.4 Distributed cognition Topic 4.8 Section 23.3 Doing a PACT analysis Topic 1.4 Sections 2.1, 2.6 Embodied cognition Topic 4.9 Section 23.4 Embodied conversational agents Topic 3.10 Sections 17.5 Emotion in people Topic 4.4 Sections 22.1–22.3 Engagement Topic 1.12 Section 6.2 Envisionment in practice Topic 2.11 Section 8.4 Evaluation in practice Topic 2.18 Section 10.5 Experience Topic 1.11 Section 6.1 Expert evaluation Topic 2.16 Section 10.3 Future internet Topic 3.5 Section 15.5 Gestural interaction Topic 2.28 Section 13.5 Graphical user interfaces (GUIs) Topic 2.20 Section 12.3 Home environments Topic 3.14 Section 18.4 Human communication Topic 4.12 Section 24.2 Human error Topic 4.3 Section 21.4 Human information processing Topic 4.6 Section 23.1 Human memory Topic 4.1 Sections 21.1–21.2 Ideation Topic 2.8 Sections 7.7, 8.1, 9.1–9.2 Information architecture Topic 3.2 Section 14.3 Information design Topic 2.22 Section 12.5 Information spaces Topic 3.12 Section 18.2 Interaction patterns Topic 2.15 Section 9.5 Interface design Topic 2.21 Section 12.4 Interviewing people Topic 2.3 Section 7.3 Introduction to social psychology Topic 4.11 Section 24.1 Metaphors and blends Topic 2.13 Section 9.3 Mobile computing Topic 3.17 Sections 19.1, 19.3–19.4 Multimodal interaction Topic 2.24 Sections 13.1–13.2
- 25. Preface xix Navigation Topic 4.17 Section 25.4 Navigation case study sections Topic 3.15 Sections 18.5, 19.5 Navigation design for websites Topic 3.3 Section 14.4 Observation and ethnographic studies Topic 2.7 Section 7.8 Other forms of perception Topic 4.16 Section 25.3 Overview of UX Topic 1.1 Chapter 1 Participative design Topic 2.1 Section 7.2 Participative evaluation Topic 2.17 Section 10.4 People in groups Topic 4.13 Section 24.3 Personas Topic 1.6 Section 3.2 Presence Topic 4.14 Section 24.4 Probes Topic 2.5 Section 7.5 Prototyping Topic 2.10 Section 8.3 Requirements Topic 2.2 Section 7.1 Scenario-based design Topic 1.7 Sections 3.3–3.4 Service design Topic 1.15 Chapter 4 Situated action Topic 4.7 Section 23.2 Sketching and wireframes Topic 2.9 Section 8.2 Social media Topic 3.4 Sections 15.1–15.4 Surface computing Topic 2.29 Section 13.5 Tangible user interfaces Topic 2.27 Section 13.4 Task analysis Topic 2.19 Chapter 11 The design process Topic 1.5 Section 3.1 Ubiquitous computing Topic 3.11 Sections 18.1, 18.5 Usability and acceptability Topic 1.9 Sections 4.3–4.4 User experience Topic 1.16 Chapter 6 UX design principles Topic 1.10 Section 5.5 Virtual reality Topic 2.30 Section 13.2 Visual perception Topic 4.15 Section 25.2 Visualization Topic 2.23 Section 12.6 Wearable computing Topic 3.18 Chapter 20 Website design Topic 3.1 Sections 14.1–14.2, 14.5 Readership There is a wide range of people involved in the design and development of user experi- ence in the twenty-first century. Software engineers are developing new applications for their organizations. They redesign systems to take advantage of developments in tech- nologies and add on extra features to legacy systems. Software engineers working for software companies develop new generic software products or new releases of existing systems. Systems analysts and designers work with clients, end-users and other stake holders to develop solutions to business problems. Web designers are increasingly in demand to organize and present content and new functionality for websites. People are developing applications for new media such as interactive television, smart phones, personal digital assistants and other information appliances. Product designers are increasingly finding themselves working with interactive features in their products. Many other people with job titles such as User Experience Designers, Information Architects and Interaction Designers are involved in this rapidly changing business. All these people need education and training, and require ready access to proven methods and techniques of design and evaluation and to the key theoretical concepts.
- 26. Other documents randomly have different content
- 27. Greek mélas and moros, black, and in murus, brown-black; in the Russian smola, wax and resin. “Colour was conceived originally as the result of the act of covering or extending a fluid over a surface; it was not till the art of painting, in its most primitive form, was discovered and named, that there could have been a name for colour.”[40] The name of colour in Sanscrit is varna, from var, to cover. The idea conveyed by the words, to smooth, to flatter, to soften, to mollify, to melt a hard substance, to polish a rough surface by constant rubbing, led to the same terms being used for expressing the softening influence which man exercised on man, by looks, gestures, words or prayers, and these expressions were especially used by men in their relations to the gods, when they strove to propitiate them by supplications and sacrifices: thus the prayer which we now translate by “Be gracious unto us, O God,” meant originally, “Melt to us; be softened, ye gods.” Language grew and made offshoots, but without confusion; disorder had no place in the progress of thought (still less chance), which was simple and rational. This was not the development of the conscious effort towards some goal. At this period there was no such thing as reflection properly so called; for instance, man did not ponder how best to express a feeling of fear, since fear, like so many other impressions, received vague expression before the concept of fear acquired shape; but our ancestors had a root to express shaking (in Sanscrit kap, kamp, to shake): they used it to describe fear, which manifested itself in the trembling of voice or limbs. Thus, “I shake” might mean, “I shake a tree,” or “I am shaken,” “I am shaken by him” (by my horse), but also “I am trembling”; from it we have in Greek karnos, smoke, not what shakes, or is shaken, but what is in a shaking state, that which moves; kup, which is probably a modification of kamp, means to shake inwardly, to be angry. Some learned writers have felt disconcerted when after tracing words to their source, they have found nothing but roots with general meanings, such as to go, to move, to run, to do; however, it is by means of these vague, pale conceptions that language has obtained the material for an entire language. The Aryan root ar
- 28. signified originally to go, to send, to advance, to proceed, going regularly, to stir. Applied to the stirring of the soil, it took the meaning of ploughing; in Latin ar-are, in Greek ar-oun, in Irish ar, in Lithuanian ar-ti, in Russian ora-ti; this root, from its meaning of advancing regularly, was the name of the plough; one derivative was applied to the cattle fit for ploughing, and also to the labourer. Ar was also used for the ploughing of the sea, or rowing, and was found in the words rower and rudder. The Latin word ævum, originally from i, to go, became the name of time, age; and its derivative æviternus, æturnus was made to express eternity. It was by a poetical fiat that the Greek probata, which originally meant no more than things walking forward, became in time the name of cattle. In French, the word meuble means literally anything that is movable, but it became the name of chairs, tables, wardrobes, etc. In this way we see the power of language, which, out of a few simple elements, has created names sufficient to express the infinite aspects of nature. The ramifications of the Aryan root Dâ give a good idea of the process. Thus Dâ = to give, is in the Sanscrit dădāmi, I give; in Latin, do; in Old Slavonic, da-mi; in Lithuanian, du-mi; in French, donner and pardonner; in Latin, trado, to give over; in Italian, tradire; in French, trahir, trahison; in Latin again, reddo, to give back; in French, rendre and rente. Side by side with the root Dâ, there is another root also Dâ, exactly the same in all outward appearance; it consists of D + Â, but is totally distinct from the former. While from the former we have in Sanscrit, dâ-tram, a gift, we have from the latter dâ´-tram, a sickle. The meaning of the second root is to cut, to carve; the difference is shown by the accent remaining on the radical syllable in dâ´-tram, i.e., the cutting (active); whilst it leaves the radical syllable in dâ-trám, i.e., what is given (passive). The history of these roots dâ affords an opportunity of noticing a curious resemblance between natural history and philology, two sciences which otherwise are totally different, but alike in one idea which enters into the inwardness of both. Darwin admitted four or
- 29. five progenitors in the vegetable and animal kingdoms, so that the primary elements of all living organisms are the simple cells. In the same way philologists have discovered that there remain in the end certain simple elements of human speech—the primordial roots— which have sufficed to provide the innumerable multitude of words used by the human race. A principle neglected by a great number of evolutionists is that if two origins, whether the roots of language or living cells, have at their starting-point an absolutely similar appearance, and afterwards diverge, it is because at their origin they bore in themselves the germs destined to produce this divergence. Darwin says that two organic cells, which in the embryonic stage may perfectly resemble each other, in growing, gradually develop, the one into an inferior animal, the other into a superior animal, never varying the process; the reason of which fact is that the cells, although not distinguishable the one from the other, differ in the rudiments or principle of life: in the same way philologists say that when two roots have the same sound, but produce families of perfectly distinct words, it is because the germs in each differ. We learn from this that the sound of the words is a matter of indifference at the commencement of a language; no one has succeeded, or will succeed, in making the sound alone the vehicle of a conception. To Locke belongs the merit of having first clearly asserted that roots, the true irreducible elements of language, which furnish words for the most abstract and sublime conceptions, had at the beginning only a material or sensuous meaning, and this fact, on which idealists and materialists are agreed, is confirmed by comparative philologists. All primitive roots express directly only those acts and those conditions which come under the domain of the senses; all express the consciousness of repeated acts familiar to the members of a society in its infancy, such as pounding, striking, weaving, tying, burning, rubbing, moving, cutting, sharpening, softening. By means of generalisation and specialisation, the roots have acquired the most abstract terms of our advanced society; thus the root to burn developed into the thought of to love, and also to be ashamed; to
- 30. dig, came to mean to search for, to enquire; the root which means to gather, expressed in primitive logic what we now call observation of facts; the connection of major and minor, or even syllogism. This is without doubt, and it is as certain that the words rake and pinchers came from the verbs to rake and to pinch. To make the assertion of Locke the more striking, Noiré adds: “When the representative words springing from one root are found side by side, it is always the more ancient of the two which expresses the more material act. The verbs to tear and to cut are the offshoots of a single root; but the passage from the concept of tearing to that of cutting would be slowly effected; the act of tearing was immediate with man, cutting was a mediate act, and of later date, since it could not be done whilst the instrument was lacking.” I shall now bridge over the distance between the primordial roots, and the organised language as we possess it, in order to show how our ancestors succeeded in forming real phrases, that is to say, intelligible propositions; this will show us the continuous thread which connects our present language with primitive speech. We can show that both dictionary and grammar are made up of predicative roots and demonstrative elements. By the help of the first we make affirmations concerning things, derived from our knowledge of another object or of many, either in combination under one name, or taking each separately. With the demonstrative element we point to any object in space or time, by using such words as this, that, then, here, there; near, far, above, below, and others of the same kind, whose existence may be explained as a survival of the gesticulating phase in which objects were neither conceived nor described but pointed out; from this we are not to infer that gestures—even accompanied by sounds—gave birth to speech, since they rather excluded it. In their primitive form and intention, these demonstrative elements are addressed to the senses rather than to the intellect. They have in themselves no meaning, and to be of service they must be attached to words that have. The history of the root Khan, to dig, will explain my thought. When our
- 31. Aryan ancestors had learnt to say Khan, and they wanted to distinguish between those who were digging and the instruments used in digging, between the object of the digging and the time and place of the work, it is possible that these demonstrative suffixes, combined with predicative roots, formed bases, such as Khan-ana, Khan-i, Khan-a, Khan-itra, and still others, which were intended probably for digging-here, digging-now, dig-we, dig-you. By means of these combinations, which varied in their application according to the customs of different villages and families, the speaker sought to distinguish between the subject acting and the object acted upon; and when this difficulty was surmounted, a great step had been taken, the passage from perception to conception was accomplished, and this passage no philosopher prior to Noiré had made clear. “We must always bear in mind that we are speaking here of times, so far beyond the reach of history, and of intellectual processes so widely removed from our own, that none would venture to speak dogmatically on what was actually passing in the minds of the early framers of language when they first uttered these words.”[41] All we can do is to hazard an explanation, and accept it in as far as it seems reasonable; and in the interest of science, we must carefully guard ourselves from asserting that our theory is the only true one. It is easy to conceive that after centuries of constant use certain derivatives should have become unalterably attached to certain meanings, and others should have also retained their special meanings. But what we do not know, is how the sounds destined to become demonstrative elements or personal pronouns were restricted to the terms required for such words, as—here, there, those, he, I, that, etc. There were cases in which a verb in the infinitive would develop into a phrase without any additions being made to it; it would suffice, for instance, if a man uttered the word Khan in a commanding voice—as we should say “work”—for his fellow-labourers to understand that they were to begin to dig. Thus the imperative could be considered a complete sentence with as much justice as Veni-Vedi-Vici would be termed independent and complete sentences. “The shortest sentence of all is, no doubt, the
- 32. imperative, and it is in the imperative that almost to the present day roots retain their simplest form.”[42] Our intellects in the present day are developed by the discourses we hear, the books we read, the reflections suggested by our experiences of life; our vocabularies become enriched as our knowledge increases and embraces a greater number of subjects; and if we retrace the path taking us to our ancestors who could not count beyond four sometimes, we should find words and ideas becoming fewer and conspicuous by their absence. It does not therefore follow that because we use language that we made it. It is not our invention; to us every language is traditional. “The words in which we think are channels of thought which we have not dug ourselves, but which we found ready made for us. The work of making language belongs to a period in the history of mankind beyond the reach of the ordinary historian, and of which we in our advanced state of mental development can hardly form a clear conception.” Yet that time must have been a fact not less possible of verification than that geological period when “the earth was absorbed in producing the carboniferous vegetation which still supplies us with the means of warmth, light, and life, accumulating during enormous periods of time small deposits of organic matter forming the strata of the globe on which we live. In the same manner the human mind formed that linguistic vegetation, the produce of which still supplies the stores of our grammars and dictionaries”; and after a close examination of these primordial roots whence our language has sprung, we find that it does not consist in a conglomeration of words, the result of an agreement amongst a certain number of men, or the result of chance, but expresses human activity by means of verbs, the living and vivifying portion of speech by the side of which the remainder may almost be considered as dead matter. The question of the birth of the substantive, without being deliberately posed as a problem, occupied the minds of the Grecian philosophers, and was involved in their researches concerning the relation of an object to the name it bears, of the unknown cause by
- 33. which a certain name designates a certain object and no other. Whilst the Greeks speculated on the subject after a tentative manner, building up theories which later observations were not long in upsetting, the Hindoos were also engaged in efforts to solve the problem by the help of a more reliable process—the historical. The early grammarians, having found that words came from roots expressing general concepts, and that these concepts represented some sort of activity, made this fact the basis of their studies; profound thinkers as they were they discovered that man at first could not give a name to a tree, an animal, a star, a river, nor to any other object without discovering first some special quality that seemed at the time most characteristic of the object to be named. Sanscrit has a root As, having amongst other meanings sharpness, quickness; from the same root came words for needle, point, sharpness of sight, quickness of thought; this root is found in the Sanscrit name for a horse, which is asva, runner or racer, one who leaves space quickly behind him. Many other names might have been given to the horse besides the one here mentioned, but all must recall some characteristic trait of this animal; that name, the quick, could also have been given to other animals, but having been repeatedly applied to one, it became unfit for other purposes, and the horse retains undisputed possession. The Sanscrit aksha, eye, comes from the same root as, which also meant to point, to pierce. Another name for eye in Sanscrit is netram, leader, from nî, to lead. Noiré has just put forth an ingenious theory, that the first substantives would not be miller, digger, weaver, carpenter; but flour, cave, pit, mat, hedge, club, arrow, boat, because these were what had been thought and willed, whilst the agents, of no account from that point of view, remained in the shade, forgotten, and it is possible that for some time no names were given to them. “When we have once seen that thought in its true sense is always conceptual, taking a verbal form, and that every word is derived from a conceptual root, we shall be ready for the assertion that
- 34. words being conceptual can never stand for a single percept.”—Max Müller. Locke first insisted that names are not the signs of things themselves, but always the signs of our concepts of them. This remark received small attention at first, and remained little appreciated until such time as the discoveries of our contemporaries, with no preconcerted unanimity, confirmed its value. Max Müller explains Locke’s words in the following manner: “Each time that we use a general name, if we say dog, tree, chair, we have not these objects before our eyes, only our concepts of them; there can be nothing in the world of sense corresponding even to such simple words as dog, tree, chair. We can never expect to see a dog, a tree, a chair. Dog means every kind of dog from the greyhound to the spaniel; tree, every kind of tree from the oak to the cherry; chair, every kind of chair from the royal throne to the artisan’s stool. We may see a spaniel or a Newfoundland dog; we may see a fir or an apple tree; we may see such and such a chair. People often imagine that they can form a general image of a dog by leaving out what is peculiar to every individual dog.”[43] This general idea we have in our mind of which we can talk, but our eyes cannot see it as they could a real object. Nothing that we name, nothing that we find in our dictionary can ever be heard, or seen, or felt. “We can even have names for things which never existed, such as gnomes; also for things which exist no more, or which exist not yet, such as the grapes of the last harvest, and those of the next. The mere fact that I call a thing past or future ought to be sufficient to show that it is my concept of which I am speaking, and not the thing as independent of me.”[44] Berkeley showed that it is simply impossible for any human being to make to himself a general image of a triangle, for such an image would have to be at the same time right-angled, obtuse-angled, acute-angled, and other kinds also; such an object does not exist; whereas it is perfectly possible to have an image of any single triangle; to name some characteristic features common to all
- 35. triangles, and thus to form a name and at the same time a concept of a triangle.[45] This mental process which Berkeley described so well as applied to modern concepts we can adopt with regard to all, even the most primitive. Man, in entering a forest, discovered in the trees something that was interesting to him. For practical purposes trees were particularly interesting to the primitive framers of language, because they could be split in two, three, or four pieces, cut, shaped according to the size of the piece into blocks, planks, boats, and shafts; any object for which the necessity had made itself felt. Hence, from a root dar, to tear, our Aryan ancestors called trees dru, or dâru, literally what can be torn, or split, or cut; from the same root the Greeks called the skin of an animal dérma, because it was torn off, and a sack dóros (in Sanscrit driti), because it was made of leather, and a spear dóry, because it came from a tree, and was cut and shaped and planed. Such words being once given would produce many offshoots; the Celts of Gaul and of Ireland called their priests Druids, literally the men of oak-groves. The Greeks called the spirits of the forest trees Dryades; and the Hindoos called a man of wood, or a man with a wooden, or, as we say, flinty heart, dâruna, cruel. The immense number of intelligible roots gave birth to many new images, these roots crossed and recrossed, for the concepts of to go, to give, to move, to make, would be the foundations of others, in some ways differing; one idea or thought in its flight would meet others perhaps of a conflicting nature, thoughts and words would equally undergo incessant modifications, which fact explains why in these earlier stages of language the members of a community soon ceased to understand each other if separated but for a short period of time. Ovid, in speaking of the chaos at the beginning of the world, makes a picture which would equally well describe the birth of language. “Matter was in an unformed mass ... the sky, the earth, the sea had all one aspect; there where was the earth, was also the sea, and the sky was there also.”
- 36. The extraordinary destinies of the roots I have named constitutes a short chapter only, in the birth and development of tongues; but short as it is, it suffices to give us an idea of the elastic nature of these roots, their faculty of extension, and the part they play in the economy of language, and in the administration of the affairs of the human mind. Every mental phenomenon has its history, which can only be discovered by tracing it to its source; and as speech has undergone many phases, of which the earlier must have been very different from those now in existence, it is pardonable in the greatest philosophers of antiquity not to have known the intricacies of the human mind, which this changeable speech could alone interpret. The ancients knew their own times, but were ignorant of the preceding ones, in the same way they knew their own language only, and of this language only its contemporary form; and in the case of a word whose meaning was lost or of a foreign word, they sought its origin in an idiom with which they were familiar; in other words, not where it could be found. For a long time man only knew one kind of being, his own; and possessed one language only, that which expressed his own acts and his own states; the primitive men were sufficiently advanced to say: “let us dig,” “grind,” “they weave”; but if, at the beginning, concepts and speech arose from the consciousness of their own activity, how was the advance made when men desired to speak of the external objects of the world which they saw around them, and were conscious of not having made, and which consequently remained outside the sphere of their wills and of their experience? It is clear that these outward objects to be grasped and named, must have their part in the human activities for which names had already been found. When he saw the lightning tearing a hole in the field, or splitting the trunk of a tree, man could no longer say, “We have dug this hole, you have split the tree.” It was no longer someone, but something that had dug and struck. Nothing seems more simple to us than after saying “I dig” to say also “it digs,” and yet it was a passing to a new world of thought, from the conscious feeling of our
- 37. own activity to the intuition of the activity of an outward object; this mental act, though inevitable, was by no means an easy one; men realised that the world around was a reflex of themselves, the only light was the light from within. If men could measure, so could the moon; hence he was called the measurer of the sky, from the root Mâ, to measure; the moon was called Mâs, that which measures, its actual name in Sanscrit; in Latin, mensis; in Greek, mêné; English, moon; German, Monat; in Russian, miésets. Men who ran called themselves runners; also the rivers they named sar, running; and to designate the position of the river they added the suffix it, sar-it; literally, running here. Thus sarit is river in Sanscrit; Mâs and sarit thus become complete, intelligible sentences. What we call lightning was originally, tearing, digging, bursting, sparkling; what we call storm and tempest were, grinding, smashing, bursting, blowing; if man could smash, so could the thunderbolt, hence it was called the smasher; and tempest and storm and thunderbolt may have been, smashing, grinding, hurling; and with the addition of the suffix, smashing here, now, there, then. We have seen that the attribute which was the peculiar characteristic of an object supplied its name, but as most objects possessed more than one attribute, more than one designation were given to it; thus several names were used for river besides sarit, each representing one of its aspects; when flowing in a straight line it was called sîrâ, arrow, plough, plougher; if it seemed to nourish the fields it was mâtar, mother; if it separated or protected one country from another, it became sindhu, the defender, from sidh or sedhati, to keep off; if it became a torrent it received the name of nadi, noisy. In all these forms the river is considered as acting, and is named by roots expressing action; it nourishes, it traces a furrow, it guards, it roars as a wild beast roars. The sun has many attributes; he is brilliant, the warmer, the generator, the scorcher, he is vivifying, overpowering, his many qualities giving him fifty different names, all synonyms of the sun. The earth also had many, it was known by twenty-one names, amongst others it was urvî, wide; jurithvî, broad; mahî, great; but each characteristic trait of the earth could also be
- 38. found in other objects, thus urivî also meant a river; sky and dawn were called prithvî; and mahî (great, strong) is used for cow and speech. Hence earth, river, sky, dawn, cow, and speech would become homonyms. These names are of clearly defined objects, all recognisable by the senses; this fact entitles us to apply the following definition to this primitive stage of language; the conscious expression of impressions perceived by the senses. But there is another class of words differing somewhat from those we have named, such words, as day, night, spring, winter, dawn and twilight; these lack the individuality and tangibleness of the others; and when we say “day approaches, night comes,” we attribute acts to things which are not agents, we affirm propositions, which, logically analysed, have no properly defined subjects. Semi-tangible names, such as sky, earth, belong to the same category. When we say “the earth nourishes man,” we do not allude to any well defined portion of the soil, we take the earth as a whole; and the sky is not only the small portion of the horizon grasped by our eyes, our imagination conceives objects not within the ken of our senses, but inasmuch as we look upon the earth or sky as a whole, see in it a power or an ideal, we make of it, involuntarily, an individuality. Now these words had certain terminations affixed to them indicating what we call gender, and became masculine or feminine, the neuter gender at that time did not enter into the language, until thought becoming more lucid perceived it in nature. What was the result? That it was impossible to speak of morning or night, of spring or winter, of dawn or twilight, of sky and earth, without clothing them not only with active and individual characteristics, but with personal and sexual attributes; hence all the objects of discourse as used by the founders of language became necessarily so many actors, as men and women act; and thought, when once launched in this direction, being irresistibly attracted by the tendency towards analogy and metaphor, overspread the whole world of human experience with this method of representation. What is called animism, anthropomorphism, and personification, have therefore
- 39. their source in this inevitable dynamic stage, as Max Müller calls it, of thought and language, in which the psychological necessity of representing the external objects as resembling themselves operated on our ancestors. This necessity might have been named subjectivism had it not received more specific terms such as animism, which consists in conceiving of inanimate objects as animate; anthropomorphism, conceiving objects as men, and personification, conceiving objects as persons. As soon as this new mental act was performed, a new world was called into existence, a world of names, or as we now call it, the world of myths. “So long as the real identity of thought and language had not been grasped, so long as people imagined that language is one thing and thought another, it was but natural that they should fail to see the real meaning of treating mythology, if not as a disease, at all events as an inevitable affection of language. If the active verb was merely a grammatical, and not at the same time a psychological, nay, an historical fact, it might seem absurd to identify the active meaning of our roots with the active meaning ascribed to the phenomena of nature. But let it be once perceived that language and thought are one and indivisible, and nothing will seem more natural than that what, as the grammarian tells us, happened in language, should, as the psychologist tells us, have likewise happened in thought.”[46] The men who spoke in this manner of the external phenomena understood perfectly that they themselves, who struck, who measured, who ran, who rose up, who lay down, were not to be confounded with the thunder, the moon, the river, and the sun; those scholars who studied thought as apart from language, rather allowed themselves selves to be misled by the phraseology of the time, and considered it a proof that our Aryan ancestors looked upon their physical surroundings as human beings, endowed with the appropriate organs and acts. Not only had the early Aryans perfectly understood that they were not identical with themselves, but they were far more struck by the differences between them than by any imaginary similarities. The confirmation of this theory is preserved for us in the Veda. “The torrent is roaring—not a bull,” i.e. like a bull;
- 40. instead of saying as we do, “firm as a rock,” the poets of the Veda would say “firm—not a rock.” “The mountains were not to be thrown down, but they were not warriors,” “The fire was eating up the forest, yet it was not a lion.” The men of that time used few words; all thoughts that went beyond the narrow horizon of their daily and practical lives had to be expressed by the transference of a name from the object to which it properly belongs to other well known objects. It was the birth of metaphor; it was metaphor that enabled the inner consciousness to project itself into the outer chaos of the world of objects; which it recreated with personal images; and the fact that each natural phenomenon bore many names, and that these same names were used for many other different objects furnished germs of metaphor. Metaphor was to language what rain and sunshine are to the harvest, it multiplies each grain a hundred and a thousand fold; and metaphor in multiplying language disperses it in every direction; without it no language would have progressed beyond the simplest rudiments. We must be careful not to confuse the radical metaphor with the poetical which we use daily, and which is very different from the former. If we open any book of poetry at whatever page, we shall find inanimate and mute objects described as speaking, rejoicing, praising their Creator; there is no portion of nature however insentient, however incapable of thought, in which we do not infuse our own sentiments, our own ideas. This mode of expression is especially a poet’s prerogative, and that it does not strike us as incongruous is owing to the fact that poetry appeals to the generality of men, and is more natural to them than prose, and that this outpouring of our heart towards nature costs us less effort than to speak of it in the abstract. It requires cold reflection to describe lightning as an electrical discharge, and rain as condensed vapour; in this case it is no longer the transference of the characteristic of a known object to one still unknown, but that of a known object to another equally well known; the poet who transfers the word tear to the dew has already clear names and concepts both for tear and
- 41. dew; the poetical metaphor is thus a voluntary creative act of our mind, and as such takes no part in the formation of the human mind. The world was astonished some few years ago by a declaration made by students of the science of language that the 250,000 words comprehended in the English Dictionary now being published at Oxford all proceeded from about 800 roots; and it has now been found possible to reduce this number. In any case 500 to 800 Sanscrit roots, on account of their great fertility, sufficed our Aryan ancestors for all the many words occurring in Sanscrit literature, and suffice also for us who have 245,000 living animals and 95,000 fossil specimens to name; also 100,000 living and 2500 fossil plants, without speaking of crystals, metals and minerals. Another surprising discovery is that every thought that has ever passed through a human brain can be expressed in 121 radical concepts, of which I give a list. It is taken from Max Müller’s Science of Thought, p. 404. Each single word of every phrase that we use has its origin in one of the 800 roots, and not a thought but proceeds from the 121 fundamental concepts. This is as accepted a fact as that all that is visible on the earth and in the vault of heaven is composed of about 60 elementary substances.
- 42. The 121 Original Concepts. 1. Dig. 2. Plait, weave, sew, bind. 3. Crush, pound, destroy, waste, rub, smoothe. 4. Sharpen. 5. Smear, colour, knead, harden. 6. Scratch. 7. Bite, eat. 8. Divide, share, eat. 9. Cut. 10. Gather, observe. 11. Stretch, spread. 12. Mix. 13. Scatter, strew. 14. Sprinkle, drip, wet. 15a. Shake, tremble, quiver, flicker. 15b. Shake mentally, be angry, abashed, fearful, etc. 16. Throw down, fall. 17. Fall to pieces. 18. Shoot, throw at. 19. Pierce, split. 20. Join, fight, check. 21. Tear. 22. Break, smash. 23. Measure. 24. Blow. 25. Kindle. 26. Milk, yield. 27. Pour, flow, rush. 28. Separate, free, leave, lack. 29. Glean. 30. Choose.
- 43. 31. Cook, roast, boil. 32. Clean. 33. Wash. 34. Bend, bow. 35. Turn, roll. 36. Press, fix. 37. Squeeze. 38. Drive, thrust. 39. Push, stir, live. 40. Burst, gush, laugh, beam. 41. Dress. 42. Adorn. 43. Strip, remove. 44. Steal. 45. Check. 46. Fill, thrive, swell, grow strong. 47. Cross. 48. Sweeten. 49. Shorten. 50. Thin, suffer. 51. Fat, stick, love. 52. Lick. 53. Suck, nourish. 54. Drink, swell. 55. Swallow, sip. 56. Vomit. 57. Chew, eat. 58. Open, extend. 59. Reach, strive, rule, have. 60. Conquer, take by violence, struggle. 61. Perform, succeed. 62. Attack, hurt. 63. Hide, dive. 64. Cover, embrace. 65. Bear, carry. 66. Can, be strong.
- 44. 67. Show. 68. Touch. 69. Strike. 70. Ask. 71. Watch, observe. 72. Lead. 73. Set. 74. Hold, wield. 75. Give, yield. 76. Couch. 77. Thirst, dry. 78. Hunger. 79. Yawn. 80. Spue. 81. Fly. 82. Sleep. 83. Bristle, dare. 84. Be angry, harsh. 85. Breathe. 86. Speak. 87. See. 88. Hear. 89. Smell, sniff. 90. Sweat. 91. Seethe, boil. 92. Dance. 93. Leap. 94. Creep. 95. Stumble. 96. Stick. 97. Burn. 98. Dwell. 99. Stand. 100. Sink, lie, fail. 101. Swing. 102. Hang down, lean.
- 45. 103. Rise up, grow. 104. Sit. 105. Toil. 106. Weary, waste, slacken. 107. Rejoice, please. 108. Desire, love. 109. Wake. 110. Fear. 111. Cool, refresh. 112. Stink. 113. Hate. 114. Know. 115. Think. 116. Shine. 117. Run. 118. Move, go. 119a. Noise, inarticulate. 119b. Noise, musical. 120. Do. 121. Be. This classification of the roots is purely tentative. It has been difficult to ascertain what is most likely to have been the original meaning of some; there are certain words of which it is almost impossible to find the etymology. The order in which the concepts succeed each other is not very systematic. Max Müller tried to classify them more correctly by keeping the special acts, such as to dig, the general acts, such as to find, the special states, such as to cough, and the general states, such as to stand—together. But it was impossible to adhere strictly to such a plan, because there are roots which express both acts and states; while in many cases it is difficult to determine whether the special or general meaning predominates; thus there are the words to boil, to make boil, or to be boiling. Some of the roots have closely allied meanings, so that there are as many as
- 46. fifteen connected with the concepts to burn, and to speak; and many more which can be traced to shine. We experience feelings at once humbling and elevating when we consider that all we admire, all on which we pride ourselves, our thoughts, whether poetical, philosophical, religious, our whole literature, all our dictionaries, whether scientific or industrial; in fact, our whole intellectual life is built upon this small number of mother- ideas, of 121 concepts. We should feel neither humbled nor elevated; we are making use of the wisdom of our ancestors. It is our duty to transmit the legacy to our descendants which they gave us, but purged from alloy. Three chief points are to be noted, when we are concerned with the progress of the intellect:— 1. The creative activity of humanity is the basis of all the roots of words. 2. The source of all abstract ideas lies in acts which are entirely material. 3. It has been satisfactorily proved that we speak the language derived from that spoken by our primitive ancestors. It was the custom of Nebuchadnezzar to have his name stamped on every brick that was used during his reign in erecting his colossal palaces. Those palaces fell to ruins, but from the ruins the ancient materials were carried away for building new cities; and on examining the bricks in the walls of the modern city of Bagdad, travellers have discovered on every one the clear traces of that royal signature. Our modern languages were built up with the materials taken from the ruins of the ancient languages, and every word that we pronounce displays the royal stamp impressed upon it by the founders. The formation of those derived languages, by means of the roots with their successive change of meaning, the construction of their grammatical forms, the continued changes amongst the different dialects, all indicate the presence of a germ in man tending from the first to make him a reasoning being.
- 47. CHAPTER VI ANCIENT LANGUAGE Language may be divided into three distinct periods, when taken as a whole. The first is, when language, finding itself released from those restraints which enveloped it in its cradle, supplies those words which are most indispensable to man in connecting the one word with others, such as pronouns, prepositions, names of numbers, and of objects of daily use. This must have been the first stage of a language hardly yet agglutinate, free from trammels, with no sign of nationality, or individuality, but containing in itself all the chief features of the many forms belonging to the Turanian, Aryan and Semitic families; the explorer of philosophic antiquity does not penetrate beyond this first period. The second phase is that in which two linguistic families passing out of the agglutinate stage, unattached as yet to grammatical forms, received once for all the stamp of the formation which we find amongst the popular and modern dialects belonging both to the Semitic and Aryan divisions, and to which they owe this family resemblance, which justifies their inclusion in one or other of these branches of language; on the one side the Teutonic, Celtic, Slav, Italic, Hellenic, Iranian and Indian; on the other Arabic, Armenian and Hebrew; the yet unformed elements of grammar were eventually introduced into these languages at the substitution of the amalgamate for the agglutinate. The Turanian or Ural-Altaic languages have an entirely different character; they preserved for some time—and one or two still retain—the agglutinate form which retards the development of the grammar, and hides the evidence of relationship to the languages between China and the Pyrenees, and between Cape Comorin and Lapland.
- 48. These two periods are followed by a third, generally known as the mythological; it is obscure, and is calculated to shake one’s faith in the regular and orderly progress of human reason. We find it to be a phase through which all peoples have passed; yet in using the word mythology our thoughts naturally turn to the mythology of Greece, the only one with which we were made acquainted in our school days, and also the only one with which those were familiar who had not given themselves over specially to the study of the beliefs of antiquity. In the schools this study ran side by side with history; from our earliest days we had been taught the complete polytheism of heathen divinities; our work as pupils was to know our lessons, the work of the masters was to see that we learnt them. Mythology, therefore, was to us only one chapter in that great work, entitled the compulsory course of studies—a chapter which apparently required no more elucidation than the gymnastic lesson. Our masters represented the Greeks as a people endowed with a vivid imagination, who recounted in exalted pure language most fantastic stories; we read in these authors: “Eos has fled—Eos will return—Eos has returned—Eos wakens the sleepers—Eos lengthens the life of mortals—Eos rises from the sea—Eos is the daughter of the sky—Eos is followed by the sun—Eos is loved by the sun—Eos is killed by the sun,” and so on ad infinitum; and we were told, “These are myths.” As no explanation was given of the word myth, we were none the wiser. If the movements of Eos are inexplicable, they are not without a certain picturesqueness. But what shall we say of the myth concerning Saturn, who, on account of a prediction that he would be killed by his children, swallowed them as soon as they were born, with the exception of Jupiter, who was saved by the substitution of a stone, which Saturn afterwards brought up with the children he had swallowed. Or again, what can be said of the feast offered to the gods by Tantalus to test their omniscience; he caused the members of the body of his son Pelops to be mixed with other meats; a shoulder was eaten before Jupiter discovered the deception; he ordered the remainder to be thrown into a copper from which Pelops
- 49. emerged alive with one shoulder lacking, and one made of ivory was given to him. Can anything more grotesque be imagined? And our children are subjected to this regimen, and their memories charged with these fables, under the pretext that they will the better appreciate the chefs-d’œuvre of classical literature. The enigmatical part of this period of language will be more evident if we examine the early traditional history which began at its close, and at which time a light appeared in Greece destined to flood the world with a splendour hitherto unknown; it was the epoch which produced Thales, Pythagoras and Heraclitus, who, in the midst of much ignorance, had thoughts of wonderful lucidity. A national literature was beginning, where we find indications of the germs of political societies; the creation of laws, and the development of morals. And we ask ourselves: Whence come these sages? Who were their masters? How could these glorious days of Greek civilisation have been preceded by several generations whose principal occupation seemed to consist in inventing and repeating to satiety absurd fables concerning gods, heroes, and other beings whom no human being had ever seen; which fables contravene the simplest principles of logic, morality and religion? The ancient sages themselves were harsh in their judgment of these revolting stories contained in Grecian mythology; Xenophanes, a contemporary of Pythagoras, considered Hesiod and Homer responsible for these superstitions, and blamed them for attributing to the gods all that was most reprehensible in man. Heraclitus was of opinion that Homer deserved to be banished from the public assemblies, and Plato wrote, “Mothers and nurses tell their children stories full of misstatements and immoralities which are gathered from the poets.” Thus spoke philosophers 500 years before our era, because they knew that if the “gods commit anything that is evil they are no gods.” “Taken by themselves and in their literal meaning, most of these ancient myths are absurd and irrational, and frequently opposed to the principles of thought, religion, and morality which guided the
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