thesis:	gallery:	contact:	about:
	comments on page 10 ++(4/24/2003) ++(4/20/2003)	The essay seems to cover just about every angle I can think of. In recent years I have come to agree with Nathan Shedroff that we might make better designs if we thought, not about interface design, but about experience design. The idea of "interface," as you point out, is really too limiting, since even the architecture of a database can influence a person's experience regardless of the "interface" built to access it--or of course you could consider the interface to include the internal architecture, but then the word doesn't mean anything at all since it means everything. The real point that you and I and Nathan are getting at, I think, is, how can I as a designer of whatever stripe influence the experience of a person who comes into contact with my design so that it is appropriate to the purpose of the encounter? When we look at it this way, it becomes even more important to understand people physiologically, emotionally, culturally, and contextually. The position of experience design requires research above and beyond the sort of "usability studies" that are part and parcel of the "research" of interface designers. by Brenda Laurel on 5/08/2003 at 18:22:10 Dear Yichun, I have read your essay with interest! I like the writing--it's actually quite good, and it communicates your position as a person thinking about an essential idea behind anything you do as a designer. It invites response, dialogue, discussion, which is in itself a subtle twist of the subject. I am, however, missing a parallel thread to the text: where you translate your thoughts about interface into the practice of designing them. I don't primarily mean that I want to see "real" interfaces; I mean that I want to see how you interface the meta-aspect you are narrating with the practice of designing interfaces. Looking at your website, it strikes me that it is well laid-out, simple but effective, with a few nice visual metaphors, like the "empty image grid" so typical of a new photoshop frame that wants to be filled! But for someone so interested in interfaces and interfacing, thought of as interaction between yourself and visitors to your site, it seems to me you could do so much more in terms of making the experience of your site--i.e. of your work and your thoughts--a more lively and interactive one. Reading your essay, I feel I want to be able to "dream" your site, wander through it as through an "emphatic design", an experience of someone else's mind and work... In short, I am looking forward to seeing how your work develops further, and how you will succeed in making it both open ended _and_ a strong personal statement about your role as a cultural agent. Please take it as a compliment when I say this text is a very good step toward that! Max Bruinsma Amsterdam by max bruinsma on 4/27/2003 at 09:30:12 Thanks for sending the note and link to your thesis. I'm glad to see it. I was especially interested in your diagram. I encourage you to consider making a concept map of interface (and interface design). I am struck by the way your diagram seems to define an interface as a boundary. Yet interface and boundary are not synonyms. What is the difference? A boundary is simply an edge, an end. An interface is a connection. A gate perhaps. A door. A window. [A powerful metaphor.] In your diagram you indicate the connection with a bi directional arrow. Ok. An exchange. Can you say more? What is the nature of the exchange? Where you see an arrow, I propose a circle--a feedback loop. Feedback suggests goals and actions. Through an exchange of actions, we may form models of systems--their properties and goals. And they may understand something of our properties and goals. Indeed, this is how understanding is built--through an exchange of actions. This is the value of an interface. by Hugh Dubberly on 4/24/2003 at 23:36:00 I liked the straightforward, unpretentious tone of this essay, especially refreshing on a subject that seems to invite so many theoretical flights of fancy. I also liked the intrusion of the first person; it emphasized, for me, the other side of the two sided nature of any person-to-person interface. Finally, I admire the choices made in the look and feel of the screen. With "interface" as a subject, each the navigation and appearance decision is an invitation to enter a hall of mirrors. You managed to guide us without getting too lost in the process. by Michael Bierut on 4/24/2003 at 15:44:33 Okay. I spent some time with your essay on your site. I like the site design, and I find the text quite readable on the screen. The writing, however, is too wordy. You should make your point (which I was too impatient to find) more quickly. For people like me (overemployed, kids, etc), I don't "hang out" on the internet. I am actually very interested in interface design and new theories, but was too impatient to page through all that text. You've got a great form. Work on the content now. by Ellen Lupton on 4/24/2003 at 9:21:00 I found the thesis very interesting. The examination of interface in all facets of life takes it out of the arcane realm of the computer and into the real world. There were portions of the essay that truly piqued my interest and curiosity. However, I felt that the more "literary" aspects of the writing were distracting and involuted. The personal references, while fine for your thesis paper, bogged down the reading (for me at least). I appreciate that this is all designed to bring humanity to the otherwise clinical term "interface," but self-reference works best when it is either very demonstrative in a dramatic (or comic) manner or virtually invisible when used for transition purposes. Here the first person is, for me, cumbersome. Again, the thesis is interesting and the design of your own site is without pretense, and therefore accessible, but I believe the essay would benefit from a strong edit. The meat of the argument is what's most important. The litany of what is an interface is the most compelling. by Steven Heller on 4/22/2003 at 5:50:00			+
		+		comment	more >>