concentric circles
for a triangular hierarchy
in imagining my universal ontology
i gain the significant dimension of
distance from the center
which i mapped first
onto how common, in the real world
a given story-concept was
and second onto how
simple or complex
but now i want to re-map
that significant dimension
onto how much cost
or how much benefit
the realization of a story
would cost or benefit
the story-realizer
so in the 'benefits view'
stories with small benefit
will lie closer to the center
and stories with great benefit
farther out
and in the costs-view
small costs are close
and great costs farther out
and planning
means finding cost-stories
that lead to greater-benefit stories
now when a designer refines a tool
the goal is to maximize benefits
and minimize costs
and in software tools
the costs are mostly linear
sequences of keyclicks and mouseclicks
and when good design
makes a benefit cheaply accessible
for the first time
via a series of cost-clicks
below some unknown threshold
you have a killer app
a visicalc
a mosaic
an itunes
