sha_media_interface

In an age of information design and user interface design, it is interesting to turn back to an article like Licklider's Man-Computer Symbiosis, where the meeting point between men and machines is approached cautiously, almost self-consciously. Small points like "the purposes of this paper are to present the concept and, hopefully, to foster..." or "that assumption may require justification" reinforce the hesitant tone taken by Licklider presenting this article to his peers.

What he is proposing is fascinating, that through each sides' strengths and weaknesses the man-computer relationship can become finely tuned and optimized. In some ways it reminds me of the CAD vs BIM tools, where the program's responsibility is to keep consistent and update information which enables the user to focus more on the changes needed to be made.

In Mcluhan's article, Mcluhan shows how the interface of a mechanism changes the perception of the action (bomb vs petrol, tusk vs spear). This reminds me of a recent post by iA, on the idea of interface as brand. In it, iA writes about how the iPod's (and potentially the iPhone's) success is based around the interface/brand, and how competitors have failed because all they have done so far is to mimic the interface. "Copies can’t “kill” the original if the original is that protoypical." This contemporary view of interface as a realm of advertising or branding shows how entwined the man-computer symbiosis has really become. It reminds me of Alan Kay's comment that people who are really serious about software should make their own hardware -- the idea that interface and interaction can actually drive the machine, much like Schiavo's description of the discovery of the eye as a mechanism for sight and then the subsequent process of replicating and rediscovering the machine as a mechanism for "viewing pleasure."



http://www.informationarchitects.jp/the-interface-of-a-cheeseburger