Minimalist Affordances: Making the Right Tradeoffs

Re:Minimalist Affordances: Making the Right Tradeoffs by alanbernstein on Wednesday November 08, 2023 @12:00PM (#38193295)

Well yes, that's exactly what the article says. The point is that these musical notation symbols have an objective, mathematical relationship, which could be mirrored in their graphical design ... But isn't. That's a missed opportunity.

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Re:Minimalist Affordances: Making the Right Tradeoffs by flappyeagle on Wednesday November 08, 2023 @02:39PM (#38195823)

They are very much mirrored in the design. The premise is incorrect.

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Re:Minimalist Affordances: Making the Right Tradeoffs by alanbernstein on Wednesday November 08, 2023 @04:13PM (#38197135)

Would you mind explaining, then, how the half rest, quarter rest, and eighth rest symbols indicate the temporal relationship they have with each other?

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Re:Minimalist Affordances: Making the Right Tradeoffs by flappyeagle on Wednesday November 08, 2023 @06:32PM (#38198793)

It’s pretty telling which symbols you chose. The relationship between half notes, quarter notes and eighth notes is obvious.

The rests are shaped similarly to their note counterparts. Eggs are bars; stems are sticks; flags are the same just facing different directions.

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Re:Minimalist Affordances: Making the Right Tradeoffs by alanbernstein on Wednesday November 08, 2023 @07:04PM (#38199082)

I confess I did choose the non-obvious symbols to illustrate the article's point that those symbols are non-obvious.

We agree that some of the symbols have clear visual relationships. The article suggests it would be nice if all of them had such relationships. Instead, we have what looks like a random agglomeration of symbols, of which a few happen to make sense.

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