Gestalt, patterns and models: pressing buttons

The three recent events have all in different ways emphasized the role of patterns.

Patterns were there at the Drupal Education Camp, then the Visual Methodologies Workshop and the Scottish Ruby Conference.

There is a lot of very informative content in .net magazine. In the two most recent issues a single page has proved a great help (Buttons gestalt, .net August 2012, p.74) and in the current issue (.net Summer 2012) page 72.

Gene Crawford notes that gestalt in graphic design refers to how a person will recognise and react to an element of something we've designed. Buttons are discussed as an essential part of any design. Crawford points out how a button is the end point in submitting a form, completing an action, or transaction of some form.

A button has to fit in with an overall design - so that as an individual element it shouts out its function, its potential; whether or not that potential is realised.

In case of a medical emergency there is only one button to press: that which activates emergency procedures.

When we are concerned to deliver health and social care the button we should press is: Hodges' model. This is a compound operation. One press activates four (five) buttons: four care domains. This is the umbilicus, not just the nexus, the physical 'belly' button, but the mind, the social, political and spiritual.

For holistic, reflective and integrated care viewing h2cm as a button begs we contemplate the potential that lies beneath. Beneath in the sense of what follows after the button is activated. This is precisely Gene's focus in the summer 2012 issue of .net Mental Models on page 72.

He points to a book: Mental Models Aligning Design Strategy With Human Behaviour, which I also learned of from a lady staying in Lund at the same B&B. Here the thought processes of a visitor to a web site are central. I have some old content - archive material, but vital and still central to understanding and the history of h2cm. How are visitors to navigate their way to find original content, what mental model do they bring even before they seek out menus and buttons. What expectations will they associate with the words and vocabulary of the website: Hodges' model, conceptual framework, structure, content, and conceptual spaces?

I often think of h2cm as a care (information) architecture and Crawford notes the need for empathy with users as a website is designed. So, closer than ever these worlds: nursing and websites. ...