A History of Immediate Interfaces

Jentery Sayers | Unlearning the Internet | Week 2
DHum 150 | UVic English | 14 January 2019
Slides Online: jentery.github.io/150/slides/week2m

Some Stuff to Remember

Spoiler: no interface is immediate.
Yet immediacy is often a design goal or consumer desire.
Software is a thing (see Kirschenbaum).
But interfaces are not things

Correction Fluid

Central to writing interfaces
Bette Nesmith Graham (1951)
"Mistake Out" / "Liquid Paper"
"Toggle" between discrete acts of writing and editing/correcting

"Mode" in Software

Jef Raskin (Macintosh project, 1979)
gesture: sequence of actions completed automatically once set in motion
"the" (experienced typist) vs. "t-h-e" (new typist)
chunking: when many actions become one
mode: how an interface changes output of a gesture (e.g., caps lock, insert / overwrite, vibrate, airplane, view / edit, paint / select)
problem is mode error (unknown state change or focus stealing), such as #&%!#$& when caps are locked or aggressive popups

Mode, Continued

Raskin: you should know what mode you're in
Also, avoid toggling too often between modes
Example problems: the mouse and check boxes

Modeless interface: gesture G always results in Action A
Monotonous interface: action A is only invoked by gesture G
Modeless + monotonous: 1-to-1 correspondence between cause + effect
Modelessness increases automation and congeals into habit
And also builds product loyalty (a ha!)
See Canon Cat, e.g. (TUI only, 1987, post-Mac)

"Modal" Today

Modal interfaces prompt decisions (pop-ups, alerts, lightboxes, notifications), often through focused "child" views (email on phone, dialogs), with a transition in the interface (a keyboard appears)

Modeless or nonmodal interfaces afford choice, distribute attention, and encourage multitasking (grid views, sliders)

And again, a mode is when a gesture results in a different action than the default interface or "parent" view (e.g., swiping home screen vs. in email)

Some Early Interfaces

Overview by Alan Kay (GUIs and windows, 1987)

Paper Explosion!

IBM's MT/ST word processor (1967)
Modern business has a paperwork problem.

Batch Processing

Programs on punched cards (19th c. + first half of 20th c.)
group of cards = "batch" fed to machine
no direct interaction with machine
"clerk" or "operator" before "user"
perform one task at a time

Command Line Interface

Line of text entered + interpreted
Today, e.g.: ls and echo commands in a "shell"
Shell is a CLI (wrapper) or command "processor"
Terminals: hardware (access point) for data entry
Early terminal history is teletype (pre-display)

TUIs and WYSIWYGs

Shift from text editor to word processor
Text-based interface to What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get
WYSIWYG displays intended formatting (as would appear in print)
Both TUI + WYSIWYG afford "undo" (recall Liquid Paper)
Early WYSIWYG is Bravo (1974)

GUIs and WIMPs

Graphical User Interfaces
Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointers (1980s)

Run modes simultaneously + affords choice between apps
Combines the visible + learnable with invisible + oft-ignored shortcuts
Early example: Xerox Star (1982)

Skeuomorphs

Common in early GUIs and WIMPS
Mimicry of previous design objects in an interface
Maintain ornamentation but without the function
Encourage habits through familiar forms of mediation
Yet increase sense of mediation (hypermediacy + immediacy)
Examples include calculators, shutter clicks, + page turns in e-readers (compare these with now common "hamburger" navs)

Ubiquitous Computing

Tech and computing are "calm," running in the background
Integrated into everyday environment + habits
Shift away from TUI + GUI toward less info overload
Investment in gesture + voice interfaces
Touch + haptic interfaces bridge GUI with gesture + voice
Early example: work of Mark Weiser (1991)

Recall Human Interfaces

Wrens: volunteer members of the Women’s Royal
Naval Service (1930s + 40s) at Bletchley Park

“the analyst would sit at the typewriter output and call out instructions to a Wren to make changes in the programs. Some of the other uses were eventually reduced to decision trees and were handed over to the machine operators" (analyst I.J. Good, describing Colossus, 1943-45)

See also ENIAC, next slide

WordStar

WYSIWYG word processor (late 70s through 90s)
Described by MicroPro in 1983 like so:
"Unwrap the WordStar word processing package and meet your professional editor and layout artist. Put aside correction fluid, scissors, and paste. WordStar software does the work for you. Once you typed and retyped; now you can process words. Your fingers still press those familiar keys, but other tasks that had to be done by handmaking corrections, moving text-can now be done by command." (Reference Manual)

Recently gained traction after George R.R. Martin's remarks on Conan:
"I actually like it. It does everything I want a word processing program to do and it doesn’t do anything else. I don’t want any help, you know? I hate some of these modern systems where you type a lowercase letter and it becomes a capital. I don’t want a capital. If I wanted a capital I would have typed a capital. I know how to work the shift key!"

Defining "Immediacy"

Question is not "whether immediate" but
how "immediate" or "immediacy" is defined through modes

Some definitions:
Instantaneous (lack of waiting / processing)
Consistency (lack of friction or change across applications)
Immersion (focus on one application)
Freedom (choice of apps and movement acrosss them)
Invisibility (don't see or notice it)
Automaticity (build habit through chunking and gestures)
Friendliness (no need for expertise)
???

History: the next interface could always be more immediate.