THE NARRATIVE NATURE OF HCI PATTERNS

Another helping factor could be the use of stories inside patterns that ease the understanding by the end user. While solely technical patterns that focus on engineers are often very brief and short, end users could benefit from a more narrative form of patterns. Successful pattern collections (e.g. (1, 13, 14, 4)) are examples for a more narrative form of patterns compared to the more technical patterns like the collection of Gamma et al. (8).

One of the major challenges for HCI Patterns is that HCI Patterns deal with interactions that take place over time. While diagrams and screen shots are useful devices for reminding knowledgeable people about repeated solutions, static diagrams may be insufficient communicative devices for complex interactive HCI Patterns, particularly those where teams, groups, or communities are involved.

Patterns seem to “work� for software, architecture, and HCI because they are both concrete in their examples and motivations while being abstract in their analysis and solutions. Another form of communication that incorporates both abstract and concrete elements are stories which tend to be concrete in detail yet abstract in themes and implications. In stories, we see a specific set of circumstances and a specific character make specific choices but are invited to see in these specifics general truths about life. Narratives also have the property that they describe interaction that unfolds over time. Thus, it may well be that an exploration of narrative may hold some key insights into how to extend HCI Patterns to deal effectively with human interactions over time.

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