Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
can exist at every level, from the application (your remote is a gun) to the
whole system (your screen is a desktop). The theory is that if the interface
presents representations of real-world objects, people will naturally know
what to do with them.
I can't resist including this old quote. In 1990, Ted Nelson delivered a
deliciously acerbic analysis:
Let us consider the 'desktop metaphor,' that opening screen jumble
which is widely thought at the present time to be useful. . . . Why is this
curious clutter called a desktop? It doesn't
look
like a desktop; we have to
tell the beginner
how
it looks like a desktop, since it doesn't (it might as
easily properly be called the Tablecloth or the Graffi ti Wall).
The user is shown a gray or colored area with little pictures on it.
The pictures represent fi les, programs and disk directories which are
almost exactly like those for the IBM PC, but now represented as in a
rebus. These pictures may be moved around in this area, although if a
fi le or program picture is put on top of a directory picture it may disap-
pear, being thus moved to the directory. Partially covered pictures, when
clicked once, become themselves covering, and partially cover what was
over them before.
We are told to believe that this is a 'metaphor' for a 'desktop.' But
I have never personally seen a desktop where pointing at a lower piece
of paper makes it jump to the top, or where placing a sheet of paper on
top of a fi le folder caused the folder to gobble it up; I do not believe such
desks exist; and I do not think I would want one if it did.
The reaction to Nelson from the Xerox PARC inventors would likely be
something on the order of “Geez, Ted, lighten up. It's a
magical
metaphor,
and it's
fun
!”
The problem with interface metaphors is that they are like reality,
only different. Why should this matter? Because we usually don't know
precisely
how
they are different. Some of the applications built with Wii
affordances—playing tennis or directing an orchestra—actually
do
work
metaphorically. The primary reason is that the affordances of the control-
ler in the context of the application are designed to closely match the af-
fordances of the object and activity being represented. The interactor can
forget about the controller and feel secure in suspending disbelief.
Historically, however, interface “metaphors” have usually functioned
as
similes
; whereas a metaphor posits that one thing is another, a simile