Orthogonality
Orthogonality (literally straight line) is harder to say than it is to understand.
It really describes perpendicular lines where the lines represent some measure of an attribute.
Imagine a graph.
The axes of the graph are said to be orthogonal because they represent independent
attributes like speed and time.
Controls and Orthogonality
Consider an am radio.
It has two non orthogonal controls.
There is one to tune the station and the other to set the volume.
Before the advent of digital tuners, tuning the channel also affects the volume.
As the station would tune in and out the volume would go up and down.
Once the channel is tuned the volume output is affected by the signal strength.
The volume control left at the same value does not result in the same volume for different stations.
One control affects the other.
The controls are not orthogonal.
Orthogonal controls are easier to use.
You can set one and leave it to set others.
When controls effect each other there is constant referring back to another control to achieve the desired goal.
So one design goal is to attempt to make the controls orthogonal.
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2/20/2007 2:54:33 AM
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