Interface Design

Song and I spent most of the day discussing and going over tabletop interface designs and functionality. We came up with start and end schemas that fit into our idea of a puzzle that invites exploration and solution using intuitive cues. Initially, colored squares matching the colors of the Age Phicons will randomly flash on the tabletop surface encouraging the user to place a colored Age Phicon onto the tabletop. A single Age Phicon will change the whole table top surface giving an overview of the age along with an invitation to explore this age/culture's relationship to the Cosmos. This content would orient to any angle around the table based on the orientation of the Phicon so anyone could view the content right-side up from any direction that the table was approached.

In addition to the 4 Age Phicons, 4 tools (Earth, Sky, Sun, Planets/Sea?) will cue the user to use them by projecting jigsaw puzzle-like silhouette graphics around them on the table where they are placed. Intuitively, one would realize that the tool pieces should be "fit" next to the Age Phicons, which have the inverse jigsaw patter projected around them. Each tool would reveal an aspect of the culture's relationship within the tool context. A small content window displaying content in either Flash or video format would open on the tabletop near the tool phicon's position and would track with it so the user could move it around to a different position for viewing.

Two Age Phicon's upon the tabletop at the same time would initiate a final puzzle to be solved if desired. The tabletop would change to the same squares as the tabletop's beginning state except that these 4 colored squares would be next to each other in a particular sequence. Associating the cues from before, this would encourage the user to place the 4 colored Age Phicons on the tabletop at the same time in the given order. However, the puzzle would not unlock unless each Phicon's pattern appearing right-side up correctly matched the solution symbol given as a reward for solving each Age's puzzle.

We also as a tangent researched Mayan Calendar systems and learned about their cycles. We think the Haab calendar system might be easiest to adapt to a puzzle one could quickly understand versus the Tzolkin system which may be too different to be grasped in the short time one will have to experience the project.