UX and the Line of Beauty in Networking
In aesthetics and philosophy, there is a concept of the line of beauty — we see it in the universe, science, nature and human lives. Many philosophers discuss this idea, for example: Immanuel Kant, Plato, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten and Friedrich Nietzsche.
“Line of beauty is a term and a theory in art or aesthetics used to describe
an S-shaped curved line (a serpentine line) appearing within an object, as the boundary line of an object, or as a virtual boundary line formed by the composition of several objects. According to this theory, S-shaped curved lines signify liveliness and activity and excite the attention of the viewer as contrasted with straight lines, parallel lines, or right-angled intersecting lines, which signify stasis, death, or inanimate objects.”
William Hogarth. “Hogarth Between Native Empiricism And A Theory Of Beauty In Form”. The Analysis of Beauty,
https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/artdok/1217/1/Davis_Fontes52.pdf
The line of beauty principle can be applied to web application products: Good-looking products and user interfaces are perceived to be
high-quality — valuable for building customer trust.
Networking Visualization and Line
Do we consider the beauty of line in our network management application UIs? Do we think about a holistic UX approach in networking? Most of the time, we don’t think about beauty during product architecture, design and implementation. In the current design process, we focus too much on the technical details and over-engineer our products.
Using the line of beauty concept and aesthetics principles, we can simplify our application designs and build trust and value for the customer. We should innovate and use modern technologies, such as VR and AR, to create the line of beauty in networking. We need to simplify the process, lower operational costs, and shift the focus to easy accessible troubleshooting and a software-driven industry.
UX Design and Line
Using the beauty of lines, we can organize, connect, and add emotion to design elements. We can use lines to differentiate levels, add emphasis to an area, add texture and define shapes using shadow, light, and reflection. Lines can convey emotion and mood — two important elements in design that support and play with the beauty of line.
In web applications, designers use lines for alignment, organization and separation of different elements. We use lines to separate header and content areas, to highlight buttons, utility bar, footer areas. We use grid lines and columns to organize and structure information, such as forms, data tables, and dashboard widgets.
Lines can manage and define space inside the application. There are different techniques for working with lines: using design principals and visual grammar to design interfaces for communication. Lines are the Lego blocks of our visual vocabulary. They combine with shapes, colors, values, textures, spaces, and forms to create our visual language.
“Without aesthetic, design is either the humdrum repetition of familiar clichés or a wild scramble for novelty. Without aesthetic, the computer is but a mindless speed machine, producing effects without substance, form without relevant content, or content without meaningful form.”
–Paul Rand
UX and Networking
Computers circa 1991 were heavy slow machines whose computing resources were a fraction of the power that’s now packed into our smartphone. The desktop interfaces were rough and primitive compared to the elegant web applications we have now. Users had to type CLI commands to interact with complex and not user-friendly graphical interfaces.
Over the decades, hardware and interfaces hugely improved in speed and efficiency because of new platforms and code libraries (front-end and back-end). Consumer software advanced enormously — now we have simple touch-based accelerated UIs, AR and VR experiences. Because of the role that consumerization is playing in innovation of technology, there is a drive to provide an excellent user experience across all applications.
Despite all of this, engineering and network administrators are still using CLI and primitive GUI applications. People think that ‘beautiful interfaces’ are just eye-candy and not functional. This is not true: using aesthetics and correct visual grammar can help to organize, simplify, and create efficient workflows. Using the power of the line of beauty is a good way to fix this.
Summary
The power of the line of beauty may not visible at different levels, but this great universal design principle can simplify and guide people to achieve the best experience. The line of beauty doesn’t show complexity. In networking software, designers need to dig deeper and use this principle to simplify technical details and bring trust and value to our users.
Lyuba Nesteroff | UX/Visual Designer at Juniper Networks
