Doing the Leonardo

"A week or so ago, I offered a pair of posts (one and two) about an article by Milton Glaser that explored Leonardo da Vinci's use of ambiguity in his The Last Supper. Glaser explains that 'DaVinci clearly believed that ambiguity was a way of arriving at the truth. As a result, the painting moves us in a deeper and more profound way than any direct statement.'

It led me to this thought: As interaction and visual designers, as information architects and engineers, can we 'do a Leonardo?' That is, can we use the brain's fascination with ambiguity to improve our users' experience, better facilitate their accomplishment of goals and (at the same time) interest them a bit in other services we offer? "

I'm not saying we should mislead our users. No sirree. But I am saying that there are definite opportunities to build in some misdirection (or other perceptual techniques) that engage our users more fully than a cut-and-dried taxonomy, IA or modified-L navigation scheme. And engagement is the Magna Carta of UXCentricity.