Overgrowth case study: decals
Decal display mode comparison:
http://cdn.wolfire.com/blog/Libertarian%20paternalism%20and%20tool%20design/decaldisplaymodes.jpg
The two decal display modes. Left is ’surface mode’. Right is ‘projector box mode.’
How can we gently guide a user through our tool set? For the Overgrowth decals, I tried to do this by including two display modes: the simpler ’surface mode,’ and the trickier ‘projector box mode.’ By default, each decal is in the simpler mode. My hope is that this will guide users to generally interact with the decals in an intuitive way. Surface decals can be dragged, rotated, and scaled, but they sweep other details behind the scene: they automatically align to shoot straight at the ground, and there is no way to adjust their projection distance. However, for those special cases when a user needs full manual control, a simple keypress (’p’ at the moment) pops out the full 3D projector box:
http://cdn.wolfire.com/blog/Libertarian%20paternalism%20and%20tool%20design/MissedPillows.jpg
Since the pillows were placed after the moss decals, the moss does not project onto them.
How much routine functionality can we put on autopilot? As I’ve added more special case tools, I’ve realized that I usually don’t want to have to deal with them. Most of the time, I just want the objects to behave in the most obvious ways. These obvious ways we can automate.
For example, awhile back I added a way to tell each decal exactly which objects it should project onto and which objects it should miss. After a bit of use, it became clear that in almost all cases I followed just a few simple rules. If I place a new object on a mossy hill, I want the new object to sit on top; the moss decals should automatically miss the new object. Similarly, if I drag a rock up the hill, it should lie on top of any new decals it encounters, but remain underneath the old decals it was originally underneath. Now, the editor automatically takes care of this. Of course, there is still an override. The user still has the freedom to explicitly manipulate the object miss list just as easily as before, but hopefully this will not often be necessary.
Information graphic
http://cdn.wolfire.com/blog/tufte/Minard_Napoleon.jpg
In many ways, a good information graphics excels at libertarian paternalism. It gently guides the viewer to the most important theme (here it’s the dwindling troops in Napoleons army) yet generously displays a wealth of other information the viewer may freely explore (army size, location, and movement direction through time).
By learning from the philosophy of libertarian paternalism, I think we might be able to create tools that achieve a smoother transition from novice to expert use: Paternalistic guidance for the simple, common stuff, and libertarian freedom when you want to get under the hood.
Do you guys think this is a good design approach? What other ways might libertarian paternalism be applied to design, and what other disparate fields and ideologies could we look to for insight on game development.