Mice on Drugs
The Genetic Science Research Center at the University of Utah runs a site called Mouse Party that features some really creative Flash work and an odd, overdesigned UI - all in the name of drug awareness. It isn’t very informative beyond what you learned in high school health class, but seeing coked up cartoon mice lounge around together is a reward unto itself.
Here’s the presentation: a fish tank contains seven mice under the influence of various narcotics. The ecstasy addict gyrates his hips, the coke fiend twitches nervously in the corner, and the LSD…well let’s just say fiend again…sits mesmerized by his own little waving mouse hand. So far so good. But to learn about a drug’s effect on the brain, you direct a scientist’s gloved hand to grab a mouse and drop it in a mechanized armchair, which dumps it into a machine that plays the animation. The execution of this drop-a-mouse-into-the-chair metaphor isn’t very precise (especially when you want to, say, drop a mouse from great height). The tried and true click-on-what-you-want metaphor is not in any immediate danger.
Some questions, such as which drugs the web designer was on, remain unanswered.
