Exam Project Extended Theory

Interactivity and Interfaces

Title : The humane interface: new directions for designing interactive systems.
Author : Jef Raskin
Publisher : Addison-Wesley, 2000
233 pages

Interface Definition

“Many people assume that the term user interface refers specifically to today’s graphical user interfaced (GUIs), complete with windows and mouse-driven menus. For example, an article in Mobile Office magazine said, “Before too long, you may not have to worry about an interface at all: you may find yourself simply speaking to your computer.” As I pointed out in response, a voice-controlled system may have no windows, but neither do telephone voice-response systems, and they often have hellaciously bad interfaces. The way that you accomplish tasks with a product—what you do and how it responds—that’s the interface.”

Keep the Simple, Simple

“Despite a burgeoning population of interface designers, few consumers claim that new products, such as an electric, four-button wristwatch, are easier to use than they were a few decades ago. If you point out to me that watches, like computers, now have much greater functionality (true) and that, in consequence, the interfaces have had to become more complex (debatable), I respond by pointing out that even the simple tasks that I used to do easily have become mired in complexity. Complex tasks may require complex interfaces, but that is no excuse for complicating simple tasks. Compare the difficulty of setting the time on your electronic, four-button wristwatch to that of completing the same task on a mechanical model. No matter how complex the overall system, there is no excuse for not keeping simple tasks simple.”


Title : The art of interactive design: a euphonious and illuminating guide to building successful software.
Author : Chris Crawford
Publisher : No Starch Press, 2002
385 pages

User Interface

“The study of user interface is a modern offshoot of human factors. Its focus is narrower, with the goal of optimizing the communications between people and electronic devices. Consequently, some people prefer to refer to this as the study of human-computer interface. Its focus is more on communication that interactivity.
Interactivity design, on the other hand, addresses the entire interaction between user and computer. While it shares much with the study of user interface, interactivity design differs because it considers thinking in the process of optimization. The user interface designer optimized the design towards the computer’s strengths in speaking and listening, and away from its weaknesses in these same areas. The user interface designer never presumes to address the thinking content of software (the algorithms that determine its core behaviours).
The interactivity designer optimized the design for all three dimensions of interactivity; this entails additional balancing considerations and could conceivably produce results that the user interface designer, using his narrower considerations, would reject as incorrect. We can grasp the task of the interactivity designer by regarding the thinking content of software as its function, and the user interface as its form. In this frame of thinking, the user interface designer considers form only and does not intrude into function, but the interactivity designer considers both form and function in creating a unified design.”