5. Digital Technology: From Medium Bias to Balance
5.2 Insights into the Bias of Digital Technology
5.2.3 Traces of Bias in the Interface
a fat, sated penguin (the Linux mascot) and Windows users are mainstream, functionalist types perhaps comforted by the regularly crashing computers.”717
Starting from a definition of the user-interface metaphor “as a device for explaining some system functionality or structure…by asserting its similarity to another concept or thing already familiar to the user”, Barr et al. provide a taxonomy of interface metaphors.723 A first group refers to orientational metaphors, which maps interface concepts onto spatial concepts, e.g. up, down, left, right.724. This is a very usual metaphor, although the authors rightly remark that one related problem is that “different cultures can have substantially different associations with spatial concepts”.725 A second category refers to ontological metaphors that identify “a system concept with a basic category of existence in the physical world, such as substance, object, container or entity”, representing an abstraction as if it were a real physical object.726 A third category named by Barr et al. comprises structural metaphors, which identifies an abstract system concept with a real world concept or object, with examples including the trash can, music players, toolbars or documents. The fourth and final category that Barr et al. name refers to conventional and new metaphors, which as their name suggests are metaphors that are either familiar or not, with example of the former being the image of a sheet of paper containing text, whereas the later refers for instance to new icons that are not yet well known.727 The role of metaphors in interface design is very important, as also illustrated by the example previously outlined in this dissertation regarding the Microsoft Bob interface, whose failure was partly caused by the wrong choice of interface metaphors.728 The user-friendliness of digital computers is actually said to have been revolutionised with the development of the interactive interface known as the graphical user interface (GUI).729 In her discussion about the interactive interfaces, Chun explains that also their origin lies in the military. By then, interactivity implied giving tasks that people could not accomplish over to machines, and thus the goal was to develop systems that combat human frailty. However,
723 Pippin Barr et al., “A Taxonomic Analysis of User-Interface Metaphors in the Microsoft Office Project Gallery,” ed. Mark Billinghurst and Andy Cockburn, Conferences in Research and Practice in Information Technology, vol. 40 (2002). For the purpose of this dissertation a text was used where the taxonomy is presented in abbreviated form, which has been deemed sufficient for purposes of illustration. In the text the authors do explain and send to another text where the full taxonomy is elaborated, and also explanations are provided regarding which authors they took inspiration from.
724 Barr et al., “A Taxonomic Analysis”.
725 Ibid.
726 Barr et al., “A Taxonomic Analysis”.
727 Barr et al., “A Taxonomic Analysis”.
728 See subchapter 5.1.2 in this dissertation.
729 Chun, Programmed Visions, 59; The Graphical User Interface is a software package enabling people to interact with computers. It consists of graphical elements or icons, which can be clicked, dragged and dropped with a mouse, etc. Apple Mac and Microsoft Windows interfaces represent examples of GUI. For this definition and explanation see Davies and Riley, “Glossary of ICT”.
despite this historical background, interactive interfaces are presently associated with human and machine freedom.730
Interactivity can be considered a key characteristic of computer interfaces, given that in terms of shape and function, the screen is not new. In an essay entitled “The Archaeology of the Computer Screen” Manovich argues that interactivity and virtual reality “are made possible by the recent technology of a digital computer. However, they are made real by a much, much older technology -- the screen. It is by looking at a screen -- a flat, rectangular surface positioned at some distance from the eyes -- that the user experiences.”731 Manovich traces the screen back to Renaissance paintings, arguing that
“visual culture of the modern period, from painting to cinema, is characterized by an intriguing phenomenon: the existence of another virtual space, another three-dimensional world enclosed by a frame and situated inside our normal space. The frame separates two absolutely different spaces that somehow coexist. This phenomenon is what defines the screen in the most general sense.”732
However, the computer continues and also challenges existing traditions. Manovich clarifies that the screen as painting was static, with the dynamic screen later developed with the cinema, television and video; while it still had the properties of a classical screen it introduced a dynamic element, because the image it displayed changed over time. Despite these differences, the “viewing regime” - as Manovich calls it - was similar in both; the singular image filled the entire screen, requiring the viewer to fully concentrate on the screen and disregard the physical space beyond it.733 However, the computer challenged this tradition, because the screen can display several windows at the same time, none of them entirely dominating the viewer’s attention. With the development of Virtual Reality (VR),734 the screen has even disappeared altogether. As Manovich explains “VR typically uses a head-mounted display whose images completely fill the viewer’s visual field. No longer is the viewer looking forward at a rectangular, flat surface located at a certain distance and which acts as a window into another space. Now s/he is fully situated within this other space.”735 Indeed, but the intention of making the interface disappear is not only typical for VR and with
730 Chun, Programmed Visions, 60-62.
731 Lev Manovich, “An Archeology of a Computer Screen,” Kunstforum International, vol. 132 (1995) http://manovich.net/TEXT/digital_nature.html (accessed 24 March 2013).
732 Manovich, “An Archeology”.
733 Manovich, “An Archeology”.
734 Virtual Reality is defined as “the simulation of an environment by presentation of 3D moving images and associated sounds, giving the user the impression of being able to move around with the simulated environment.
Users wear helmets and visors that convey the images and sound and gloves that give them the experience of touching objects.” For this definition see Davies and Fred Riley, “Glossary of ICT”.
735 Manovich, “An Archeology”.
head-mounted display. It is the very intention of the so-called “ubiquitous computing” whose ultimate aim is “to make the interface metaphor invisible to the user in the same way as computer systems are invisible in home appliances, such as the VCR,736 the microwave oven and the washing machine.”737 As Mark Weiser, who came up with this idea, explains:
“ubiquitous computing has as its goal the enhancing computer use by making many computers available throughout the physical environment, but making them effectively invisible to the user.”738 As opposed to Virtual Reality, which aims to integrate the individual into the information display, ubiquitous computing aims to integrate the information display into the everyday physical world.739 However, the disappearance or invisibility of the medium could have very visible impacts, and from an Innisian perspective this is not necessarily something to welcome, given that each medium has its bias and thus the ubiquitous presence of digital technology could bring a serious challenge for balance. In line with this concern, the analysis now turns to a final subchapter, discussing the medium bias against the notions of space and time.