Focusing on “interaction” is misguided
Every now and then you come across a piece of writing that really makes you stop and think. Magic Ink: Information Software and the Graphical Interface is just such a paper.
Bret Victor makes some salient points in this piece — in essence, rather than desiging good interactive experiences, we should present information in such as way that the user doesn’t have to interact with it to find things. He proposes redesigns of Amazon and Yahoo! Movies that are very information-dense but also quite useable (and not “interactive”).
Abstract:
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. 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.
Information software design can be seen as the design of context-sensitive information graphics. I demonstrate the crucial role of information graphic design, and present three approaches to context-sensitivity, of which interactivity is the last resort. After discussing the cultural changes necessary for these design ideas to take root, I address their implementation. 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. I conclude by asserting that the principles of information software design will become critical as technology improves.
Although 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.
It’s well worth the read. At least twice!