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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 user’s 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 visually–like 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.

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Updated 1st March 2004


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