Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Noah's Surface
The diagram below shows a model of interaction proposed by Noah Wardrip-Fruin
in his book
Expressive Processing
(2009).
Audience(s)
Surface
Data
Process
Outside
processes and
data sources
Author(s)
Author(s)
Interaction in digital media. From
Expressive Processing
by Noah
Wardrip-Fruin (MIT Press, 2009). Used with permission.
Noah explains:
When playing a console game, for example, the surface includes the console
and any indicator lights or other information it provides, the television or moni-
tor and any image it displays, the sound hardware (e.g., television speakers, ste-
reo, or headphones) and any sound produced, and the controller(s) with their
buttons, lights, and perhaps vibrations.
He also notes that other sorts of input devices may be part of the Surface, espe-
cially in (but not limited to) videogame consoles, including “dance mats, simulated
musical instruments, or cameras.” Wii and Kinect fall in this category.
Noah's book focuses on processing, but I fi nd his defi nition of the Surface quite
useful primarily because he includes two distinct sources of interaction: the interac-
tor and outside processes and data sources. In this sense, QR codes as portals could
be seen as part of the Surface. The second source opens up the fi eld interaction to
inputs from simulations that employ real-world data or direct sensor data from the
natural world. I'll expand on the importance of this in Chapter 6.
For the purposes of this topic, I exclude the specifi c images, sounds, and other
outputs created by the system in running a particular program and narrow the defi ni-
tion to include simply the affordances for such outputs. With these reservations, I think
that Noah's Surface is the best notion of the “interface” (old word) that I have found.
It is the affordances of the Surface that explicitly constrain input from the interactor.
