Poet's Tree
Design considerations of a novel software program intended to aid in the compostion and
presentation of poetry.
By: Aaron Gehan
Writing poetry is an art. It can be a very paradoxical art form in that it is subjective to
humanistic interpretation, but still retains basic guidelines as to how it should be composed. The
balance of these two worlds, following rules but still being creative, is part of the art form and
what makes a talented poet truly remarkable. Writing poetry can be a daunting task. For every
daunting task, tools should be designed to aid in the completion of it. Therefore, tools should be
designed to ease the process of writing poetry.
Word processing programs are the tools of choice for many writers because of many reasons.
They provide for easy editing and sharing of information. Many writers can type faster than they
can write by hand, so a word processor provides them with a faster way to get their ideas into
words. Not to mention all the useful tools that word processors provide, like the spell-check and
grammar-check tools. If used correctly, a good word processor can improve the quality of
writing of an individual. Word processors are used for writing all kinds of materials; but, are they
the best way to approach any type of writing task? Could they be modified into separate versions
that are specialized to handle the work flow of certain writing tasks? Can a writing task be
streamlined by designing a word processor that caters specifically to that task? Could the task of
writing, let’s say, poetry be made easier and more enjoyable for the artist?
The answer is yes. Many programs have been developed to aid in the writing of poetry.
Each program takes a different approach to the task. Some programs provide methods of
attaining inspiration, others use the input from a human user as inspiration for computer created
poetry, while others aim to facilitate social interaction by providing for the cooperative
composition of poetry or the sharing of newly written poetry on various social networks. The
existence of these programs indicates an interest in addressing poetry through technology. Many
of these programs are interesting and explore unique territory when dealing with such a
humanistic art form in the context of human-computer interactions.
Some programs are designed to provide poetry to the user with minimal effort on the part of the
user. Drafting Poemsis a program written to turn physical interactions with a computer into
poetry. As users draw on a glass drafting-table, the program gathers statistics on how they are
drawing. It uses these statistics to run through textual algorithms and create original poetry based
on the drawing style of the user. While it doesn’t allow the user to create poetry directly, it works
in tandem with the user to write original poetry. This program employs a haptic interface in its
approach to poetry and provides a way to turn motion directly into words. This program shows
that haptic interface technology can contribute a verse into the world of poetry.
Other programs focus on inducing social interaction between users. Super Atari Poetryis a
console game designed to let multiple users interact and compose poetry together. Verses are
presented on two peripheral screens, one for each player. Each player selects verses from their
screen and the verses from both users are combined onto the middle screen into a cooperatively
composed poem. This program turns away from state-of-the-art haptics technology and resorts to
more primitive, perhaps more nostalgic, forms of interaction. The possible nostalgic dimensions
of this program may give it high degrees of reflective emotional value. The use of an old style
Atari joystick may be viscerally pleasing as well. Super Atari Poetryfound a way to inspire social
interaction as well as provide an emotionally satisfying haptic interface.
Some poetry programs encourage larger scales of social interaction. A program called Poetry
Mix-Upis designed to turn short text messages into poetry by combining previously existing
poetry lines. The program analyzes the short message and finds existing poetry lines that have
salience with the content of the short message sent to the system. It puts these lines together in a
way that creates a flowing, salient poem that is a “re-mix” of existing poems. This program goes
a little further to make poetry a social media by providing a quick way for users to create a “remixed” poem to share as a post or status message on their favorite social network. The program
also incorporates the ever-present cell-phone interface into its design. Cell-phones have become
one of the most popular portals of social interaction, so incorporating them into the process
makes for a rather seamless conformity to a well established social norm.
One of the most influential cell-phones as-of-late is the iPhone. The iPhone has inspired
hundreds of new programs with its “apps” which provide an opportunity for designers to make
creative programs that may never have found a niche otherwise. Poetry has found its way onto
the iPhone as well. A 2008 program called PoetrySinger for the iPhone provides users with
virtual fridge magnets that can be arranged to create poetry. Each magnet has a word on it and
can be put anywhere on the virtual magnetic surface. Users can compose original poetry by
arranging magnets, and then have the program read them back to them by “Dana the poetry
maiden.” The program even went so far as to create a social network of its own, The
PoetrySphere, specifically designed to exhibit user created poems for all to see. After composing
and having their poems read to them, users can upload their poems to The PoetrySphere for the
world to enjoy.
The creation of these programs shows an interest in creating programs that address
creative expression in the context of human-computer interaction as well as peer-to-peer
interaction. However, with an exception to PoetrySinger, none of these programs allow the user
to be truly creative and write their own poetry while interacting with an emotionally inspirational
interface. This is where Poet’s Treeis set apart from what has already been done. Poet’s Tree is
aimed towards aiding in the manifestation of an artist’s creative vision into a finished work that
is ready for exhibition. It relies heavily on the user’s input. Rather than creating poetry itself, it
provides the tools a poet needs in order to convey cunning conceptions through carefully
conscripted cadences. Other programs have fallen short of providing poets with what they need
to elucidate essences, manifest meanings, scribe sounds, advise attitudes, and lavishly lucubrate
lyrics and limericks. Poet’s Tree provides a poet with the tools they’ll need to craft their
compositions copiously.
When designing a new program like Poet’s Tree, basic design principles and heuristics should be
considered and adhered to. Especially when designing a computer interface that is potentially
capable of accomplishing many tasks, or the same task in many different ways. Following these
kinds of standardizations can drastically improve the ease-of-use for first time users. Ignoring the
limitations and needs of potential users when designing a complex interface can create a horribly
frustrating program that will be of no use to anyone. Designers must consider all aspects of a
product and optimize it to be as streamlined as possible. Following laws of design like Fit’s law
is a good place to start.
In the design of Poet’s Tree, Fit’s law was one of the first design principles considered. Fit’s law
makes three assertions. The first of which predicts that the larger an object, the faster it can be
noticed, processed and interacted with by a user. In accordance with this assertion, the icons in
Poet’s Tree were made to be large enough to be easily noticed, processed and interacted with
quickly by first-time users. However, creating larger icons, menus and instructions means that
less can fit onto one page; therefore, some processes were made into step-by-step procedures to
accommodate. The program’s options for the initial formatting of the page to be written on were
made into a step-by-step procedure to allow the information to be presented in appropriate
sequence and in appropriate sizes.
Fit’s law also asserts that the closer an object is to the central point of the screen the easier it is to
notice, read and interact with. In order to avoid violation of Fit’s law, Poet’s Tree presents its
icons and options as centrally as possible to make them easy to find, read, and interact with. The
first page of the program presents the user with the options to write a single poem, a poetry book,
or a poetry series. The options are presented with text and corresponding icons that are large and
fairly centralized, therefore conforming to both of the aforementioned aspects of Fit’s law.
The third pillar of Fit’s law stresses the importance of conforming to social conventions. It states
that the more an object violates a known social convention, the harder it will be to use. Fit’s law
is geared towards reducing the time it takes for a user to process and interact correctly with an
object. So, to reduce the time it would take users to interact with the objects and icons in Poet’s
Tree, the icons and instructions were designed to conform to social conventions as much as
possible. The icons on the first page of the program are easily understood because they conform
to social conventions as to what a single page looks like and what a book looks like. However,
some tools in Poet’s Tree are new to society; therefore, some new icons had to be invented. In
such cases, icons were also clearly labeled with plain language with the name of the tool to
provide further affordance as to what it is and what it is used for.
A design concept that is similar to the conformity to social conventions is the use of mental
models. The goal is to create icons that closely resemble what someone envisions when thinking
of what that icon is supposed to represent. The hope is that when viewing such an icon, the task
or tool that it represents will be brought to the user’s mind as the thing that the icon means or
represents. For the reference tool at the top of the page, a picture of a thick book with its pages
opened and being flipped through was used. This was done in hopes of instilling the notion of
research being done; which is basically what the user would be doing when referring to the
reference section, research to gain more knowledge about poetry. There are many ways to do
research, but a thick book being read is one of the more archetypal visions of the task being
done, which is why it was used as the icon.
Another important aspect of design to be considered is constraints. Constraints limit the actions a
user can take from a certain point in a task. Constraints are important because they can help
indicate what is an acceptable action by making unacceptable actions unattainable. One use of
constraints in Poet’s Tree is the step-by-step process used in the beginning of the program when
setting the formatting of the page(s) the poem(s) will be written on. By making this a step-bystep process, the user can only set one or two settings at a time. The reason for this is that some
of the later settings and features depend upon prior information from previous steps in order to
function properly. For example, the templates settings require knowledge about what shape the
user desires for their page(s). So, the shape information must be provided to the program before
the use can properly use the templates tool; therefore, the shape options page is presented before
the template options page.
Feedback is another very important aspect of good design. Feedback informs users whether or
not their input was processed by the program. Nothing is more frustrating for a user than to try to
interact with a static interface that provides no information that it has recognized any of the
user’s actions. Good feedback will be informative as to when the program has received input
from the user, and possibly what is being done in response to the user’s input. In the primitive
stages of Poet’s Tree, the prototype suggested the use of highlighting of selected icons and texts.
The prototype does not exhibit any animation because it was a static prototype, but in the
finished version, animations and sounds may be used to provide further feedback. For example,
there could be an option that made it so that whenever a letter was typed in the text field of the
program, the sound of a typewriter would sound. This would inform the user that their keystroke
was registered into the program, and also inform them of unwanted keystrokes. A simpler, but
more reasonable, feedback mechanism may be simple beeps or clicks when an icon is clicked by
the mouse, informing the user that the program has recognized their click and is responding to it
accordingly.
Visceral response to the program may be enhanced by possible incorporation of haptic interfaces.
Perhaps an option could be present for those with tablet PCs to use a pen tool to write by hand on
the screen. Also the program could provide different virtual styluses. For example, the program
could turn the user’s pen input into calligraphy. Beyond already existing haptic devices, it would
be impractical to incorporate any more forms of haptic interfacing into the program.
When taken to the next level, Poet’s Tree would have many other design resources to use to
create a deeper level of emotional response. Through sounds and animation, many of the
processes in the static prototype could be spiced up a little in order to make the program more
emotionally pleasing. Visceral response could be heightened simply by the addition of animation
between menus, fading and scrolling effects, optional background music, or fun, inspirational
sound effects being used as feedback mechanisms. The current step-by-step set-up process is dry
and boring and provides little in the way of feedback or navigation. It could be improved by
setting the process to a theme that is metaphorically semantic to the process itself and in line
with the theme of the program’s title, Poet’s Tree.
Why not indicate each step of the process with its own tree? It would still be a step-by-step
process, so there would be the one Poet’s Tree as the first menu page, then after choosing an
option there, a second tree would grow in front of it along with the corresponding second menu
page. This could continue, each page sprouting a new tree, creating a forest of trees with
corresponding menu pages. Each tree would be numbered as to its respective order in the
process, and the process would be navigable by clicking on previous trees to go back to that
menu. Because each step requires information from the steps before it, the trees after the chosen
tree would have to fall down, quickly decay, and sprout all over again from the ruins of the
previous tree as the process was revised. See figure 1 for a basic visual prototype of how this
may look.
Each step and its associated animation would also be accompanied by a sound bite. The user
would hear each tree grow and sprout its branches and spread its leaves. And when the user
navigates backwards, causing some trees to fall down, those animations would be accompanied
by the sounds of those trees falling. Throughout the process could be the sounds of birds and
babbling brooks and other nature sounds that would conform to the theme. An occasional breeze
could come through and make all the trees rustle and sway. The interface could come to life,
instead of being a classic, cold information processor.
Another possible approach to this process would be to have each step presented on its own leaf.
The leaves would all be on one branch and be rolled up until their menu was reached, at which
point they would unravel, revealing the menu options of the next step in the set-up process. Just
like the tree design, each leaf would be numbered in respect to its order in the process.
Navigation would be possible by clicking on previous leaves, causing the leaves after it to roll
back up, only to be unraveled again when their menu was reached through completion of the
previous menus. Each animation of the leaves unraveling and rolling back up would be
accompanied by audio, and an ambient soundtrack of rustling leaves could be playing in the
background. See figure 2 for a basic visual prototype of how this may look.
Such changes would hopefully improve feedback, navigability, and visceral response in the
program while maintaining the current restraint system. Pictures, animations and sounds could be
all is needed to set Poet’s Tree apart from the classic word processor. Also, the metaphorical
underpinnings of the trees growing to create a forest of knowledge could create some levels of
inspiration as well as reflective emotional response. As a result, poets, seeing it as not just
another word processor, may be more open to giving Poet’s Tree a try.
To further increase the visceral value of Poet’s Tree, tools could be added to aid in the
acquisition of graphics to accompany the poets’ works. VisualPoetry is a series of generative
graphic design programs that turn text into abstract art. Some of the programs respond to each
letter by drawing a line in a particular direction or color or thickness, and by the end of the poem
the program creates a colorful abstract line drawing. Others create abstractions based on the
semantic qualities of the poem. One program finds a picture that corresponds with each word in
the text; it then creates a collage out of these pictures. The resulting collage has high semantic
salience with the words in the poem, since every word has a corresponding picture and vice
versus. Despite which program is used, by the end of the poem the user is presented with an
interesting abstract visual representation of their poem. Possibly, users could implement these
images as backgrounds or cover page images for their poetry.
Apart from fancy animated menus and picture tools, Poet’s Tree offers some very pragmatic
features as well. For example, the new “Rhyme and Reason” tool is designed to aid the poet in
finding a word that will mean what they desire the word to mean, as well as rhyme with a
previous word in the poem. It will accomplish this by running down textual algorithms, isolating
words that would be found in both a thesaurus as a synonym as well as in a rhyming dictionary.
Therefore, the tool considers rhyme and reason, and only presents options that conform to both
criteria. Independent of the “Rhyme and Reason” tool, there will be a classic thesaurus,
dictionary, and rhyming dictionary. Such tools could prove very useful to a beginner poet.
Poet’s Tree is still in the prototype phase and can be changed and improved. The proposed
changes will hopefully improve the emotional experience of the users. Seeing as most users of
the program will be of poetic mind, the emotionality of the program as they encounter it will
most likely weigh heavily on their impressions of it. This indicates that the aforementioned
improvements to visceral aesthetics may prove to be one of the most important changes to make
to the program as it is now. Through design considerations like these, Poet’s Tree should be
optimized to be exactly what a poet wants out of a program like this. With a healthy combination
of aesthetics and pragmatism about it, Poet’s Tree should be all a poet would ever need, all in
one place.
References
Fernando, O. N., Cheok, A.D., Ranasinghe, N., Zhu, K., Edirisinghe, C., Cao, Y.Y. (2009).
Poetry mix-up: a poetry generating system for cultural communication. ACM
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International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology, 422,
396-399.
Mendelowitz, E., (2006). Drafting poems: inverted potentialities. International Multimedia
Conference. Proceedings of the 14th annual ACM international conference on
Multimedia, 1047 – 1048.
Merhi, Y. (2008). Super Atari poetry. International Multimedia Conference. Proceeding of the
16th ACM international conference on Multimedia, 1137-1138.
Mueller, B., (2009). VisualPoetry - generative graphic design for poetry on the road.
International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques archive
ACM SIGGRAPH 2009 Art Gallery, 41.