Windows
and Mirrors: Interaction Design, Digital
Art, and the Myth of Transparency
by Jay David Bolter and Diane Gromala
MIT Press, Cambridge MA, 2003
208 pp., 59 illus. Trade, $29.95
ISBN: 0-262-02545-0.
Reviewed by Rob Harle
Australia
recluse@lis.net.au
Is your computer simply a tool that allows
you to create a document or graphic image
and in so doing remains transparent (a
window) to the creation? Or is the digital
environment, including peripherals, the
medium (a mirror) itself?
This excellent book critically analyses
this concept. It is most timely as computer
technologies, like many other things we
humans do, we do without any planning.
Computers and associated software and
networks have in a sense evolved in a
higgledy-piggledy fashion with little
critical comprehensive planning.
Windows and Mirrors challenges
the predominant view, espoused by computer
engineers and programmers, that this marvellous
digital tool should be transparent to
the information it processes and displays.
As an example these engineers, which Bolter
and Gromala call the "Structuralists,"
believe web pages should convey information
in the most straightforward and clear
manner possible. "Bell and whistle"
creations, using programs such as "Flash,"
are at best wasteful and at worst actually
distort the real purpose of communication.
In contrast to the "Structuralists"
view that, "computers are
information appliances" (2) the "Interaction
Designers" would argue that if a
person is not attracted to the medium
through well-designed graphic interfaces
in the first place, they will never get
to the information anyway. "I believe
design drives the users experience"
(4). The book provides a well-presented
and thoughtful treatment of this challenging
debate.
Whilst the book is specifically about
digital art, "it is written for digital
designers and technologists in general:
Web designers, educational technologists,
graphic designers working with and in
digital forms, interface designers and
human-computer interaction (HCI) experts"
(2).
Windows and Mirrors looks specifically
at the SIGGRAPH 2000 Art Show. This "carnival
for the twenty-first century" (10)
was an academic conference, as well as
trade show, with the latest release of
software packages such as Photoshop and
OpenGL. Perhaps most importantly it presented
the very latest creations of digital art
featuring the work of 60 leading digital
artists. A selection of their work is
included and discussed throughout the
book together with black and white photographs.
I found the work, "Wooden
Mirror" (p. 32) especially fascinating.
Chapter 9 starts with the following statement:
"Designers cannot afford to ignore
the need for transparency, but they can
show the Structuralists how sites can
be reflective as well as transparent"
(151). It appears that a compromise between
the "byte wasting" of visual
designers and the deadly dull "pure
content" in one boring typeface of
the "Structuralists" may be
happening.
It annoys me somewhat that these extreme
dichotomist views waste so much unnecessary
time and energy, like the so-called "mind-body"
problem in philosophy. The problem only
exists because of the incorrect way of
posing the question. Similarly there really
should be no need for a book such as this
because in essence there can be no absolute
Structuralist or designer position. It
is only a question of how much
design and interaction is the optimum
for a total user experience, and this
is a question especially relevant to psychological
investigation. Even the staunchest Structuralist
philosophy still uses fonts and text layout
dictated by ASCII standards. For those
that are old enough to remember, the artistically
inclined amongst us, developed clever
graphic images using only ASCII characters
to communicate visuallylike the
dog banner of FidoNet. This demonstrates
in a small way the intrinsic need for
an artistic component in all things we
create from bridges, to kitchen sinks
to clothes.
This book goes a long way in helping to
bridge this unnecessary tension that has
shades of the architectural, "form
versus function" dichotomy. Having
done this successfully, it then provides
inspiring examples, especially through
the SIGGRAPH art, for all concerned in
extending or implementing our digital
future.