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Friday, April 24, 2009

Are Human Beings Becoming “Dumb Terminals?”
           The Implications of Certain Deep Structure Interfaces
                                        By Christine Boese, Razorfish
Accordion Interface Design             2




Christine Boese     © Copyright 2009
Photographic Darkroom Interface Design   3




Christine Boese     © Copyright 2009
What I came here to talk about                                             4




 An Overview
 Nick Carr’s Atlantic Monthly Article: “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”
 Framework of Jonathan Zittrain’s book:
  The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It
 Similar Frameworks and Dichotomies
 And then there’s the Blinking 12…
 What does it mean for information architecture and interaction design?
 Would an accordion or a photographic darkroom ever be designed
  by one of us today?
 How can we strive to design for greater “Generativity”?




Christine Boese     © Copyright 2009
SLIDE: 5




                                        Overview

              What is a “Dumb Terminal?”
              What is “The Cloud?”
              Is it a bad thing to be a “Dumb Terminal?”




Christine Boese      © Copyright 2009
What is a “Dumb Terminal?”            6




Christine Boese    © Copyright 2009
What is a “Dumb Terminal?”            7




Christine Boese    © Copyright 2009
What is “The Cloud?”                                                     8




                                          Alexandria

                                                       Tower of Babel?

    Library of Everything

                                          OVERLORD


                                                  Wintermute
           Akashic Records?
Christine Boese        © Copyright 2009
CNN.com: This is your brain on silicon. Any questions?   9




Christine Boese      © Copyright 2009
Is it a bad thing to be a “Dumb Terminal” or a Hollow Statue?   10




Christine Boese      © Copyright 2009
SLIDE: 11




          Nick Carr and the Debate over Attention Span




Christine Boese   © Copyright 2009
Nick Carr: “Is Google Making Us Stoopid?”                                            12




   Main Argument:
                                                              Clive Thompson:
                                                            “The perfect recall of
                                                       silicon memory can be an
                                                      enormous boon to thinking.”

                                                      Nick Carr: “Once I was
                                               a scuba diver in the sea of words.
                                            Now I zip along the surface like a guy
                                        on a Jet Ski.”




Christine Boese      © Copyright 2009
Plato: The Phaedrus on the invention of the technology of WRITING                    13




                                             Through the voice of Socrates,
                                             Plato issued a very clear message
                                             about exactly what he thought of this
                                             new thing that was being invented and
                                             used in the primarily oral culture of the
                                             Greeks, this thing we call


                                             WRITING.


                                             And Plato’s message was…




Christine Boese     © Copyright 2009
Plato: The Phaedrus on the invention of the technology of WRITING   14




                  FREAK OUT!




Christine Boese     © Copyright 2009
McLuhan’s Media “Sense Ratios”        15




Christine Boese    © Copyright 2009
McLuhan’s Media “Sense Ratios” Describe “The Cloud”   16




Christine Boese     © Copyright 2009
Clay Shirky says the current media shift is as disruptive as printing was in 1500s   17




Christine Boese       © Copyright 2009
SLIDE: 18




         Jonathan Zittrain's quot;The Future of the Internetquot;




Christine Boese   © Copyright 2009
Framework of Jonathan Zittrain’s “The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It”   19




 Technology before PCs and the Internet
   Centralized mainframes (IBM business model) used applications
    maintained and updated as part of leasing agreement with the
    vendors.

   Devices for individuals or businesses were designed for limited or
    single purposes, as appliances (e.g. word processors, accounting,
    databases).

   Closed networks with proprietary technology did not allow users
    to shape or contribute to the platforms (e.g. AOL, CompuServe,
    Prodigy).


Christine Boese      © Copyright 2009
Framework of Jonathan Zittrain’s “The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It”   20




 Generative Devices and Networks
   PC revolution distributed weak, programmable machines
    to many users: initially hobbyists and technology enthusiasts;
    later, general consumers and business users.

   Internet connectivity protocols were created by researchers
    embracing a common carrier of packets for an open network
    of distributed sharing and trust.

   Generativity: Zittrain’s term for platforms and tools that are open
    to user contributions, tinkering, harnessing, with little to no
    restrictions.


Christine Boese      © Copyright 2009
Framework of Jonathan Zittrain’s “The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It”   21




Now we face a Revenge of the Tethered Appliances…
                                               or “Dumb Terminals”
  The write-ability of PCs and the content-blind packet network
   left openings for malware: viruses, worm, spam, phishing,
   spyware and adware, botnets, etc.

   As a result, vendors are closing platforms in the name of
    protecting consumers, or in response to consumer demand,
    at a heavy price.

   Or, like the Apple Application Store, vendors give the appearance
    of supporting third party development, while acting as “editorial”
    (and monopoly-guarding) gatekeepers.

Christine Boese      © Copyright 2009
Why does Zittrain say we should stop it?                    22




Ramifications of a Loss of Device & Network Generativity
   Closed platforms and systems may lead to networks and
    applications that are less innovative, less
    collaborative, perhaps even less creative.

   Imagine what our world today would look like
    if our current happy confluence of distributed,
    writeable PCs and an open, platform neutral
    Internet had never happened? Can we project
    and visualize that parallel universe?

   Is there anything interaction designers, information
    architects, and content strategists can do about it?

Christine Boese      © Copyright 2009
SLIDE: 23




     Similar Ways of Looking at Technology: Dichotomies




Christine Boese   © Copyright 2009
Dichotomies in Sherry Turkle’s “Life On the Screen”   24




 Programming Cultures:

   Support for Top-Down
    Design vs. Tinkerers

   Cultures of Calculation vs.
    Cultures of Simulation




Christine Boese      © Copyright 2009
If this feels familiar to you, join me in some Déjà vu…   25




Christine Boese       © Copyright 2009
H.G. Wells, The Time Machine: Are we dividing Society into Eloi vs. Morlocks?   26




                                               The Eloi: Beautiful, naïve,
                                                unknowing, uneducated,
                                                foolish, living in a world of
                                                utopian surfaces, living as
                                                food for the engineers and
                                                technologists of their futuristic
                                                world…
                                               The Morlocks: Ugly, ape-like
                                                monsters dwelling
                                                underground, operating and
                                                maintaining the machinery that
                                                keeps everything running.


Christine Boese      © Copyright 2009
So what’s our take-away from all this, other than “Dichotomies are Reductive?”   27




 Most polarized dichotomies are an oversimplification, and don’t
  pass the smell test.

 Dig deeper, and be willing to complicate and add nuance to the
  opposing poles.

 Understand that they are just a rubric for a continuum, rather
  than reducing it to a black/white, either/or distinction.

 Within that continuum, we can tease out the truths in the
  dichotomies, as properties, aspects, features of interface design
  that play more toward one pole or the other, as a conscious design
  decision or a pendulum swing.


Christine Boese      © Copyright 2009
SLIDE: 28




                  How Do We Design for Generativity?




Christine Boese     © Copyright 2009
What does this mean for Interaction Design and Information Architecture?   29




                Is our own imperative to equate usability
             with lowest common denominator ease of use
            forcing skill and mastery of generative interfaces
                out of our common human experiences?

Christine Boese     © Copyright 2009
The Magician is the Tarot Card Archetype symbolizing Extreme Skill or Mastery        30




                                               It’s not woo-woo magick. It is the card
                                                of such great skill, craft, or mastery
                                                that it looks like magic.
                                               Think Jimi Hendrix on the guitar,
                                                a master cook in the kitchen,
                                                a carpenter at the lathe, or
                                                the master bricklayer.
                                               These are masters of generative
                                                interfaces, interfaces that yield more
                                                than lowest common denominator
                                                rewards for the effort expended.
                                               These are tinkerers and builders. But
                                                what if our tethered appliances and
                                                deep structure interfaces cut them off
                                                from access to the best tools?

Christine Boese      © Copyright 2009
Remember my Grandma’s Accordion?     31




Christine Boese   © Copyright 2009
Interface Complexity does not have to carry with it a Class Barrier   32




Christine Boese       © Copyright 2009
Ordinary people have learned to master very complex interfaces and processes   33




Christine Boese     © Copyright 2009
Would you call these tools a Generative Interface?   34




Christine Boese      © Copyright 2009
Yet this is the Darkroom of a Master: William Eugene Smith   35




Christine Boese      © Copyright 2009
Populism and Generative Interfaces and Tools are not Mutually Exclusive   36




                                        1901




Christine Boese      © Copyright 2009
From the Darkroom to MacPaint, iPhoto, Photoshop, Flip, RateMyDrawing   37




Christine Boese     © Copyright 2009
From the Darkroom to MacPaint, iPhoto, Photoshop, Flip, RateMyDrawing   38




Christine Boese     © Copyright 2009
From the Darkroom to MacPaint, iPhoto, Photoshop, Flip, RateMyDrawing   39




Christine Boese     © Copyright 2009
What we really need to encourage is a Culture of Inventors (not Morlocks)   40




Christine Boese      © Copyright 2009
Is our Internet UP for this task, this duty, this calling?   41




Christine Boese        © Copyright 2009
42




                                         The Take-Away

              No, Human Beings are NOT becoming Dumb Terminals.
              However, we are experiencing a real sense ratio shift.
              We should be prepared for outages, even if we live on the
               Cloud.
              So why should it matter to us if interfaces become more or
               less generative?




Christine Boese       © Copyright 2009
Why does this matter?                                                      43




       Even as we externalize more
       of our memories and thoughts
       in the Cloud as if it were
       Dumbledore’s Pensieve…



       We still need to guard against certain
       politics of deep structure interfaces
       that shape our extended brains and
       de-centralized nervous systems

                                       as they run around on the ethers.


Christine Boese     © Copyright 2009
Why does this matter?                                                  44




            We are not Dumb Terminals IF we create
            a Cloud and interfaces to access it that expand and
            connect our minds, rather than reduce them to limited,
            passive consumption activities.




            And if the Cloud allows us all the option to contribute.


Christine Boese      © Copyright 2009
SLIDE: 45




                                     Thank you!

   With freedom
   and tinkering,
   invention and
   hollow statues
   for all!




Christine Boese   © Copyright 2009
46




                                        Contact

              Works Cited available
              christine.boese@razorfish.com
              Twitter: @ChrisBoese




Christine Boese      © Copyright 2009
47




                                               Friday, April 24, 2009

Are Human Beings Becoming “Dumb Terminals?”
          The Implications of Certain Deep Structure Interfaces
                                       By Christine Boese, Razorfish

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Are Human Beings Becoming Dumb Terminals? IA Summit 2009

  • 1. Friday, April 24, 2009 Are Human Beings Becoming “Dumb Terminals?” The Implications of Certain Deep Structure Interfaces By Christine Boese, Razorfish
  • 2. Accordion Interface Design 2 Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 3. Photographic Darkroom Interface Design 3 Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 4. What I came here to talk about 4  An Overview  Nick Carr’s Atlantic Monthly Article: “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”  Framework of Jonathan Zittrain’s book: The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It  Similar Frameworks and Dichotomies  And then there’s the Blinking 12…  What does it mean for information architecture and interaction design?  Would an accordion or a photographic darkroom ever be designed by one of us today?  How can we strive to design for greater “Generativity”? Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 5. SLIDE: 5 Overview  What is a “Dumb Terminal?”  What is “The Cloud?”  Is it a bad thing to be a “Dumb Terminal?” Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 6. What is a “Dumb Terminal?” 6 Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 7. What is a “Dumb Terminal?” 7 Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 8. What is “The Cloud?” 8 Alexandria Tower of Babel? Library of Everything OVERLORD Wintermute Akashic Records? Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 9. CNN.com: This is your brain on silicon. Any questions? 9 Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 10. Is it a bad thing to be a “Dumb Terminal” or a Hollow Statue? 10 Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 11. SLIDE: 11 Nick Carr and the Debate over Attention Span Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 12. Nick Carr: “Is Google Making Us Stoopid?” 12 Main Argument: Clive Thompson: “The perfect recall of silicon memory can be an enormous boon to thinking.” Nick Carr: “Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.” Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 13. Plato: The Phaedrus on the invention of the technology of WRITING 13 Through the voice of Socrates, Plato issued a very clear message about exactly what he thought of this new thing that was being invented and used in the primarily oral culture of the Greeks, this thing we call WRITING. And Plato’s message was… Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 14. Plato: The Phaedrus on the invention of the technology of WRITING 14 FREAK OUT! Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 15. McLuhan’s Media “Sense Ratios” 15 Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 16. McLuhan’s Media “Sense Ratios” Describe “The Cloud” 16 Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 17. Clay Shirky says the current media shift is as disruptive as printing was in 1500s 17 Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 18. SLIDE: 18 Jonathan Zittrain's quot;The Future of the Internetquot; Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 19. Framework of Jonathan Zittrain’s “The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It” 19  Technology before PCs and the Internet Centralized mainframes (IBM business model) used applications maintained and updated as part of leasing agreement with the vendors. Devices for individuals or businesses were designed for limited or single purposes, as appliances (e.g. word processors, accounting, databases). Closed networks with proprietary technology did not allow users to shape or contribute to the platforms (e.g. AOL, CompuServe, Prodigy). Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 20. Framework of Jonathan Zittrain’s “The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It” 20  Generative Devices and Networks PC revolution distributed weak, programmable machines to many users: initially hobbyists and technology enthusiasts; later, general consumers and business users. Internet connectivity protocols were created by researchers embracing a common carrier of packets for an open network of distributed sharing and trust. Generativity: Zittrain’s term for platforms and tools that are open to user contributions, tinkering, harnessing, with little to no restrictions. Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 21. Framework of Jonathan Zittrain’s “The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It” 21 Now we face a Revenge of the Tethered Appliances… or “Dumb Terminals” The write-ability of PCs and the content-blind packet network left openings for malware: viruses, worm, spam, phishing, spyware and adware, botnets, etc. As a result, vendors are closing platforms in the name of protecting consumers, or in response to consumer demand, at a heavy price. Or, like the Apple Application Store, vendors give the appearance of supporting third party development, while acting as “editorial” (and monopoly-guarding) gatekeepers. Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 22. Why does Zittrain say we should stop it? 22 Ramifications of a Loss of Device & Network Generativity Closed platforms and systems may lead to networks and applications that are less innovative, less collaborative, perhaps even less creative. Imagine what our world today would look like if our current happy confluence of distributed, writeable PCs and an open, platform neutral Internet had never happened? Can we project and visualize that parallel universe? Is there anything interaction designers, information architects, and content strategists can do about it? Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 23. SLIDE: 23 Similar Ways of Looking at Technology: Dichotomies Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 24. Dichotomies in Sherry Turkle’s “Life On the Screen” 24  Programming Cultures: Support for Top-Down Design vs. Tinkerers Cultures of Calculation vs. Cultures of Simulation Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 25. If this feels familiar to you, join me in some Déjà vu… 25 Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 26. H.G. Wells, The Time Machine: Are we dividing Society into Eloi vs. Morlocks? 26  The Eloi: Beautiful, naïve, unknowing, uneducated, foolish, living in a world of utopian surfaces, living as food for the engineers and technologists of their futuristic world…  The Morlocks: Ugly, ape-like monsters dwelling underground, operating and maintaining the machinery that keeps everything running. Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 27. So what’s our take-away from all this, other than “Dichotomies are Reductive?” 27  Most polarized dichotomies are an oversimplification, and don’t pass the smell test.  Dig deeper, and be willing to complicate and add nuance to the opposing poles.  Understand that they are just a rubric for a continuum, rather than reducing it to a black/white, either/or distinction.  Within that continuum, we can tease out the truths in the dichotomies, as properties, aspects, features of interface design that play more toward one pole or the other, as a conscious design decision or a pendulum swing. Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 28. SLIDE: 28 How Do We Design for Generativity? Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 29. What does this mean for Interaction Design and Information Architecture? 29 Is our own imperative to equate usability with lowest common denominator ease of use forcing skill and mastery of generative interfaces out of our common human experiences? Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 30. The Magician is the Tarot Card Archetype symbolizing Extreme Skill or Mastery 30  It’s not woo-woo magick. It is the card of such great skill, craft, or mastery that it looks like magic.  Think Jimi Hendrix on the guitar, a master cook in the kitchen, a carpenter at the lathe, or the master bricklayer.  These are masters of generative interfaces, interfaces that yield more than lowest common denominator rewards for the effort expended.  These are tinkerers and builders. But what if our tethered appliances and deep structure interfaces cut them off from access to the best tools? Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 31. Remember my Grandma’s Accordion? 31 Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 32. Interface Complexity does not have to carry with it a Class Barrier 32 Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 33. Ordinary people have learned to master very complex interfaces and processes 33 Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 34. Would you call these tools a Generative Interface? 34 Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 35. Yet this is the Darkroom of a Master: William Eugene Smith 35 Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 36. Populism and Generative Interfaces and Tools are not Mutually Exclusive 36 1901 Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 37. From the Darkroom to MacPaint, iPhoto, Photoshop, Flip, RateMyDrawing 37 Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 38. From the Darkroom to MacPaint, iPhoto, Photoshop, Flip, RateMyDrawing 38 Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 39. From the Darkroom to MacPaint, iPhoto, Photoshop, Flip, RateMyDrawing 39 Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 40. What we really need to encourage is a Culture of Inventors (not Morlocks) 40 Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 41. Is our Internet UP for this task, this duty, this calling? 41 Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 42. 42 The Take-Away  No, Human Beings are NOT becoming Dumb Terminals.  However, we are experiencing a real sense ratio shift.  We should be prepared for outages, even if we live on the Cloud.  So why should it matter to us if interfaces become more or less generative? Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 43. Why does this matter? 43 Even as we externalize more of our memories and thoughts in the Cloud as if it were Dumbledore’s Pensieve… We still need to guard against certain politics of deep structure interfaces that shape our extended brains and de-centralized nervous systems as they run around on the ethers. Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 44. Why does this matter? 44 We are not Dumb Terminals IF we create a Cloud and interfaces to access it that expand and connect our minds, rather than reduce them to limited, passive consumption activities. And if the Cloud allows us all the option to contribute. Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 45. SLIDE: 45 Thank you! With freedom and tinkering, invention and hollow statues for all! Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 46. 46 Contact  Works Cited available  christine.boese@razorfish.com  Twitter: @ChrisBoese Christine Boese © Copyright 2009
  • 47. 47 Friday, April 24, 2009 Are Human Beings Becoming “Dumb Terminals?” The Implications of Certain Deep Structure Interfaces By Christine Boese, Razorfish