Playmat
Give cards, notes, tokens, or running state a labelled place on the page.
A preset of zones. Attribution: Switchback original (board-game playmat metaphor). Licence: original; no restriction.
Variants
- default
Data fields
The fields a spec's page can set for this component (see switchback show playmat --json):
zones
Grounding
Helps: when several live threads need a fixed place on the table (inbox, doing, done, parked) and moving a piece records a change of state; space works as an external memory, but its advantage over a list is untested
Backfires: when the four stages do not fit the work, so the mat freezes a false taxonomy, or when moving a piece stands in for deciding what to do with it
- CItems placed inside the same bounded region are perceived as belonging together, even against other grouping cues, so labelled zones make category membership readable at a glance.Wagemans et al. (2012)
- CAssigning categories to fixed places on a surface lets people keep track of and retrieve which items belong where with less effort than holding the categories in mind or in a list.Malone (1983), Andrews, Endert & North (2010), Twomey & Kroneisen (2021)
- CPhysically rearranging external objects to think, rather than to reach a physical goal, reduces the cognitive cost of a problem and improves or speeds its solution compared with manipulating the same elements mentally.Kirsh & Maglio (1994), Vallée-Tourangeau et al. (2016), Guthrie, Harris & Vallée-Tourangeau (2015)