The Nature of the Beast - Computers as Theatre - page 23

Figure 1.4. A simple model of the interface, circa 1989. In this view, the interface is that
which joins human and computer, conforming to the needs of each.
Faced with this nightmare, the group at the Atari Lab abandoned the
topic and turned their attention to more manageable concepts, such as the
value of multisensory representations.
Over the years, I have frequently observed interface workers backing
away from such gnarly theoretical discussions in favor of the investigation
of more tractable issues of technique and technology—such subjects as direct
manipulation, “user” testing, online help functions, animation, and sound
and speech, gesture, body tracking, and facial recognition. These areas con-
tain hard problems and add greatly to the potential for interface design, but
they do not necessarily advance the theoretical conversation. The working
defi nition of the interface has settled down to a relatively simple one—how
humans and computers interact (see Figure 1.4)—but it avoids the central is-
sue of what this all means in terms of reality and representation.
It occurs to me that when we have such trouble defi ning a concept, it
usually means that we are barking up the wrong tree.
The World's a Stage
For purposes of comparison, let's take a look at the theatre. We have ob-
served that the theatre bears some similarities to interface design in that
both deal with the representation of action. Theatre, unlike novels or other
forms of literature, incorporates the notion of performance; that is, plays
are meant to be enacted. 6 Enactment typically occurs in a performance area
called a stage. The stage is populated by one or more actors who portray
characters. They perform actions in the physical context provided by the
6. In his book The Elements of Friendly Software Design (1982), Paul Heckel remarks, “When I
design a product, I think of my program as giving a performance for its user.”