response:::sept 19

Interface Culture
Steven Johnson

This reading made me think a lot about what really is a link. If I simplify the concept, I can say that links are like bridges that join two points [not ends]. Links are what there is in between a start and an end [but not necessarily “the” start and “the” end]. They certainly can extend the time of a “web surfer” by giving him many different options along the cyber way, making the navigation through web browsers very personal. Depending on the user’s interests, it’s likely that his way through the web will differ from the paths traced by other people. So, if links are like bridges, like mediators, just like interfaces, can we trace a parallel between the similarities of the concepts of links and interface? If an interface is a link to the execution of a task, then we can consider the starting point the user’s intention and the end, the machine’s execution. So how similar are hyperlinks and interfaces?

Another thing that made stop and think was when he said that images are stronger than words [or as Johnson says it’s the “tyranny of image over text”]. As a graphic designer, I agree in part. Of course, images can communicate to an audience regardless of age, language, and many other features, but there are cases where images would never be able to communicate as well as words [imagine our mind maps with images! It’d be too subjective.]. With an image, the audience is sometimes left to their own interpretation, while with a word the margins for misunderstandings are fewer. Once I was talking to a friend of mine, who is a copywriter, about this tyranny of images over words because I was trying to convince her that one image worths a thousand words. What was my surprise when she replied saying “well, if that’s so, than give me an image that represents this saying!”. She left me speechless and not capable of doing so!

[here’s what I found on the intenet: If one image worths a thousand words, I would say that one good GUI worths at least a few megabits.]

Another example is of a game that is very popular in Brazil, called Image and Deed [I’d believe you also have it here]. Each representative of a group has to draw an image of whatever word appears on a card. The group has to guess what the drawing is. Regardless their ability to draw well, these representatives often try to use letters or special characters to guide their group into the victory. They simply give up on the image and by doing so, many times they are saying that is easier to communicate with words and letters than with images. I know it’s more complicated than that, but in the case of this game, I can say that words or characters are much faster to be understood than images.

However, images that were transformed into icons in interfaces are of great help in our everyday life. The desktop icons, which may differ from platform to platform make the computer environment more friendly. As Johnson says, they are visual metaphors that work with a cognitive function. It’s easy to know why there’s a trash can on the desktop. We make visual associations and understand functions [interface]. But, what if we just get used to these visual representations but never really learned what they mean? What if they appear on a different place every time we start an application? Would we be able to make our way through or have we been tamed to use them comfortably because we know their location and we know what to get from them?

Computers are creating new habits, creating new forces of habits. We’re leaving physical materials as paper and pens to dedicate our time to screens and keyboards. We’ve learned a different and unlimited way to either make associations or to link subjects.Every day users are more and more depended on these machines. It’s like humans and computers are performancing a very strong physical and intellectual symbiosis. This is scary and fascinating at the same time. Scared because of this dependency and fascinating because the computer can do what we as humans will never be able to do. It’s like computers are an extension of ourselves. However, this sense of extension could be improved. I believe that in a near future, the communication between parts will be even more transparent and fluent than it is today. Where we are going from now, I don’t know, but I know computer people will work to bring users and machines closer, not only visually but mostly physically.

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