Information Technology Reference
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explored in the discussion of plot, ahead). In summary, then, functionality
consists of the actions that are performed by people and computers working in con-
cert, and programs and interface affordances are the means for creating the poten-
tial for those actions .
An “application” is generally described as a distinct program designed
to deliver a particular set of functionality to interactors, as opposed to pro-
grams that are not directly accessible to people, such as those which live
deep in the bowels of missile silos and operating systems. Informal tax-
onomies of applications exist; e.g., applications for document creation and
computer-assisted design (CAD) belong to the larger class of productivity
applications; drawing, painting, and music programs are often classifi ed
as “creativity” applications; and adventure, action, and strategy games are
“entertainment” applications. The most important way in which applications,
like plays, are individuated from one another is by the particular actions that they
represent . Applications are analogous to individual plays; the larger cate-
gories are analogous to genres and forms of plays (tragic, comic, didactic,
etc.). Style is a more sophisticated concept that is used in both drama and
computer applications, especially games.
We have used the word “representation” throughout the fi rst chapter
to distinguish the shadowy realms of art and human-computer activity
from phenomenal reality. Webster's defi nes a representation as “an artis-
tic likeness or image” (and also, incidentally, as “a dramatic production or
performance”). The Greek word for artistic representation is mimesis . Both
plays and human-computer activities are mimetic in nature; that is, they
exhibit the characteristics of artistic representations. A mimesis is a made
thing, not an accidental or arbitrary one: Using a pebble to represent a per-
son is not mimetic; making a doll to represent him is. We often use the
word “representation” followed by “of” and then the name of some object;
e.g., a character is a representation of a person, or a landscape painting is
a representation of a place. But in art as in human-computer interaction,
the object of a mimesis (e.g., that which it is intended to represent) may be
a real thing or a virtual one; that is, a thing that exists nowhere other than
the imagination. A play may be a mimesis of events (literally, a series of
actions) that are taken from history or that are entirely “made up.” Mimetic
representations do not necessarily have real-world referents .
In computerese, two kinds of representations are acknowledged: in-
ternal and external representations. For example, a page icon may serve
as the external representation of a document. Both the document and the
 
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