Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
quality and nature of these contributions are strongly infl uenced by the
available tools.
7
Perhaps the greatest difference between theatre and
human-computer interaction is that the human interactor is also part
of the effi cient cause; that is, interactors are co-authors. We will return
to this topic.
End cause:
The end cause of human-computer interaction is what it
is intended to
do
in the world. Thus the end cause obviously involves
functionality; word processors had better spit out documents. But
ex-
perience
is an equally important aspect of the end cause; that is, what a
person thinks and feels about the activity is part of its reason for being
the way it is. In this sense, as Michael Mateas (2004) observes, the inter-
actor co-shapes the end cause as well in terms of the kind of experience
she wants. Or, to use Norman's famous doorknob, the end cause of the
doorknob may be different for the person who opens it and the per-
son who locks it. This aspect of the end cause, especially in “productiv-
ity” applications, seems trivial to many; it is too often handed off as
an afterthought to harried interface designers who follow programmers
around with virtual brooms and pails. At the very least, a person must
understand the activity well enough to do something. At best, he or she
is engaged, pleased, or even delighted by the experience. In this as in
many other aspects of well-designed interaction, the world of computer
games has been much more effective at producing pleasurable experi-
ences. How much better it is to place the notion of pleasurable expe-
rience where it can achieve the best results—as part of the necessary
nature of human-computer interaction.
One of Aristotle's fundamental ideas about drama (as well as other forms
of literature) is that a fi nished play is an
organic whole
. He used the term
“organic” to evoke an analogy with living things, insofar as a whole or-
ganism is more than the sum of its parts, all of the parts are necessary for
7. Theatrical artists increasingly rely on computer-based tools for such tasks as lighting and
scene design, lighting execution, moving scenery, designing costumes, storing and simulating
dance notation and period movements, and, of course, writing scripts. Theatrical folk express
the same frustrations with their tools as graphic designers and other artists who are working in
the computer medium itself.
