The crusade marches on, with believers rarely questioning the sacred premise-that software must be interactive in the first place. Yet, software has remained frustrating, and as the importance of software to society has grown, so too has the crisis. Reasoning that the cure for unfriendly software is to make software friendlier, they have rallied under the banner of “interaction design,” spreading the gospel of friendly, usable interactivity to all who would listen. For decades, the usability pundits have devoted vim and vitriol to a crusade against frustrating interfaces. This is a software crisis, and it isn’t news. Instead, their vivified creations often resemble those of Frankenstein-helpless, unhelpful, maddeningly stupid, and prone to accidental destruction. They often approach this challenge like Geppetto’s fairy-attempting to instill the spark of life into a mechanical contraption, to create a Real Boy. Today’s software magicians carry a burden heavier than 13-foot monoliths-communication with the living. He slung some weighty stones, to be sure, but their placement had only to please a subterranean audience whose interest in the matter was rapidly decomposing. Merlin had it easy-raising Stonehenge was a mere engineering challenge. Abelson and Sussman, Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (1984) The programs we use to conjure processes are like a sorcerer’s spells. It can affect the world by disbursing money at a bank or by controlling a robot arm in a factory. Why all this matters.Ī computational process is indeed much like a sorcerer’s idea of a spirit. Information and the world of tomorrow.
A platform for implicit communication between software. Engineering inference from the environment.Dynamic graphics without the programming. Designing the information software revolution.Redesigning Southwest Airlines as an information graphic. Designing a trip planner as an information graphic. How did we get here? The popular focus on interactivity is a vestige of another era.The user can suggest what’s relevant, but only as a last resort. Memories of the past can suggest what’s relevant. The outside world can suggest what’s relevant. Inferring context from the environment.Software trumps print by showing only what’s relevant. Context-sensitive information graphics.Redesigning Yahoo! Movies as an information graphic. Redesigning Amazon as an information graphic. Information software design is graphic design.People spend more time learning than creating. Most software is information software.Creating software for creating is tricky business. What is software for? People turn to software to learn, to create, and to communicate.What is software design? Software is not a new and mysterious medium, but a fusion of two old ones.Is “interaction design” the cure for frustrating software, or the disease itself? These are contentious definitions hopefully, this paper itself will prove far more contentious. “ Software engineering” implements the design on a computer it approaches software as a technology. “ Software design” describes all appearance and behaviors visible to a user it approaches software as a product. “ Software,” as used here, refers to user-facing personal desktop software, whether on a native or web platform. I conclude by asserting that the principles of information software design will become critical as technology improves.Īlthough this paper presents a number of concrete design and engineering ideas, the larger intent is to introduce a “unified theory” of information software design, and provide inspiration and direction for progressive designers who suspect that the world of software isn’t as flat as they’ve been told. I outline a tool which may allow designers to create data-dependent graphics with no engineering assistance, and also outline a platform which may allow an unprecedented level of implicit context-sharing between independent programs. After discussing the cultural changes necessary for these design ideas to take root, I address their implementation. I demonstrate the crucial role of information graphic design, and present three approaches to context-sensitivity, of which interactivity is the last resort. Information software design can be seen as the design of context-sensitive information graphics. For a majority subset of software, called “information software,” I argue that interactivity is actually a curse for users and a crutch for designers, and users’ goals can be better satisfied through other means. The ubiquity of frustrating, unhelpful software interfaces has motivated decades of research into “Human-Computer Interaction.” In this paper, I suggest that the long-standing focus on “interaction” may be misguided.
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