Interfaces We Live By
A research project announcement to extend Raskin's Cognetics with richer models of attention, memory, meaning, identity and purpose
“Operator” and “Tool” are the terms Raskin uses in The Humane Interface to describe the relationship between Humans and Computers. This metaphor is at the base of Cognetics, Raskin’s ergonomics of the mind, a theory that gave a generation of designers the theoretical tools to invent the interfaces we use today.
“We are oppressed by our electronic servants. This book is dedicated to our liberation”, page 1, The Humane Interface (2000)
But for a book giving us the theory to reason about the interfaces that we deserve, the metaphors of “Operator” and “Tool” have started to feel outdated.
Today, digital systems are not just tools that we operate on. It would be more accurate to say that we live through our tools, or that we exist within these tools. But this language is clumsy. The digital systems we live through mediate our professional, social and personal lives, determining the forms by which we might and might not interact, determining how we might think of ourselves, and how we might think of others.
The question of how to live and how to exist was and is not the concern of a Tool; a Tool should not presuppose how it should be used. From a humanist’s perspective, that question is ours to ask and to answer (hinting at a need to define Agency within Cognetics). And the question of how to live is a question of how to distribute our attention minute to minute, hour to day, day to week, week to month across the interfaces we live by (hinting at a need to define Attention within Cognetics).
Agency, Attention and their associated concepts - attention span & capture, engagement & awareness, conscious attention & distraction - and the web of how they interact are not accounted for in Cognetics.
Raskin coins a definition for the Locus of Attention, but stops there, and for this reason, stops short; perhaps, in the gilded optimism of early computing, he could not predict that this locus could be captured across its many spans by interfaces, nor that this would be made a deliberate design goal by its designers.
This research project, “Interfaces We Live By”, is an attempt to extend Cognetics with a broader theory of Attention, such that interface designers can incorporate Attention as a design concern in the interfaces we’re about to make.
The holy grail for curl.projects are those interfaces that are contemplative; interfaces that support conscious experiences, where our attention is sustained, and we retain agency over the systems we live alongside. Realizing this dream depends on a firm understanding on what it means to be conscious and attentive on an interface, in the first place.
We aim to draw on evidence from cognitive psychology and theories of consciousness, whether they descend from neuroscience research labs or ancient eastern philosophy, or a center in Berkeley hosting both [2]. As a parting remark,
Software isn’t merely what it does. It is what it allows you to be.
References
[1] Jef Raskin. 2000. The humane interface: new directions for designing interactive systems. ACM Press/Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., USA.
[2] The Berkeley Alembic. https://berkeleyalembic.org/.
love it. i also feel very called to create such intentional feedback loops for evaluating the design/impact of tech in our consciousness/energy/awareness. it also reminds me of the consilience project's layers of technology.
"Tools
Human-scale artifacts, either found or crafted, that enhance individual and social practices. Examples include rocks, axes, forks, and writing implements.
Technologies
The application of complex (scientific) knowledge to problem-solving, embodied in intentionally designed artifacts that are sufficiently intricate to necessitate engineering. Examples include the waterwheel, steam engine, light bulb, and refrigerator.
Techniques
Applied conceptual knowledge or a 'way of doing' that may or may not require tools or instruments. Techniques encompass methods, skills, and processes used to accomplish specific tasks or solve problems.
Ecologies of technologies
Sets of technologies that are symbiotically related and co-evolving as nested functional units. For instance, a light bulb, lamp, power lines, transformers, and power station form an ecology of technologies. Similarly, a microchip, hard drive, screen, mouse, modem, broadband, and server banks constitute another ecology.
Infrastructures
Multiple different ecologies of technology embedded together to form a basic part of social coordination and material reproduction within a society. Examples include supply chains, transportation systems, markets, and communication systems.
Technological epochs
A duration of historical time characterized by a specific suite of infrastructures that are interrelated as the foundation of a social system. Examples include the pre-industrial, industrial, and post-industrial eras. Each epoch is defined by the dominant technologies and infrastructures that shape social, economic, and cultural patterns."
https://consilienceproject.org/technology-is-not-values-neutral-ending-the-reign-of-nihilistic-design-2/
love it. i also feel very called to create such intentional feedback loops for evaluating the design/impact of tech in our consciousness/energy/awareness. it also reminds me of the consilience project's layers of technology.
"Tools
Human-scale artifacts, either found or crafted, that enhance individual and social practices. Examples include rocks, axes, forks, and writing implements.
Technologies
The application of complex (scientific) knowledge to problem-solving, embodied in intentionally designed artifacts that are sufficiently intricate to necessitate engineering. Examples include the waterwheel, steam engine, light bulb, and refrigerator.
Techniques
Applied conceptual knowledge or a 'way of doing' that may or may not require tools or instruments. Techniques encompass methods, skills, and processes used to accomplish specific tasks or solve problems.
Ecologies of technologies
Sets of technologies that are symbiotically related and co-evolving as nested functional units. For instance, a light bulb, lamp, power lines, transformers, and power station form an ecology of technologies. Similarly, a microchip, hard drive, screen, mouse, modem, broadband, and server banks constitute another ecology.
Infrastructures
Multiple different ecologies of technology embedded together to form a basic part of social coordination and material reproduction within a society. Examples include supply chains, transportation systems, markets, and communication systems.
Technological epochs
A duration of historical time characterized by a specific suite of infrastructures that are interrelated as the foundation of a social system. Examples include the pre-industrial, industrial, and post-industrial eras. Each epoch is defined by the dominant technologies and infrastructures that shape social, economic, and cultural patterns."
https://consilienceproject.org/technology-is-not-values-neutral-ending-the-reign-of-nihilistic-design-2/