Context
We’re motivated by faith in the future and hope that the present could be even better
Our population and gross product are increasing at a considerable rate, but the complexity of our problems grows still faster, and the urgency with which solutions must be found becomes steadily greater in response to the increased rate of activity and the increasingly global nature of that activity. Augmenting human intellect, in the sense defined above, would warrant full pursuit by an enlightened society if there could be shown a reasonable approach and some plausible benefits.
Douglas Engelbart
Responsible for the GUI, hypertext, real-time collaborative text editing, etc.
Speaking to reporters at the entrance to Mar-A-Lago alongside a flag-waving Don King, then President-elect Trump observed that “Computers have complicated lives very greatly… This whole age of computer has made it where no one knows exactly what’s going on.” Trump, who emerged as president amidst a humid fog of internet psyops, self-described alt-right “meme warriors,” email scandals, fake news, and bizarre internet subcultural ideologies, is uniquely qualified to make such an observation. But he’s hardly the first. Dutch political designers-as-artists Metahaven create work that explores the notion of virtual reality not in the sense of an Oculus headset but “the psychological condition of VR, or truth bubbles, in our lives, and in society. We are thinking of VR as a social phenomenon... Virtual Reality as belief.”
Besides disrupting traditional notions of political sovereignty and reality in general, computers influence how we think and feel. They’re incredibly useful, but people often get frustrated with the long-term side effects of computing. People like Jenny Odell, Amber Case, Tristan Harris and Nicholas Carr have written extensively about the topic. Viscerally, consider this April 2018 viral tweet from @Kristen_Arnett: “why does my neck always hurt” i wondered as i contorted my body exorcist-style to peer at a tiny glowing misery rectangle
Negative sentiments notwithstanding, our lives are probably richer for having computers in them. So the negativity reveals an opportunity. It's definitely still possible to create a more pleasant and productive computer interface by building one with these goals in mind.
Computational and network technologies determine what is technically feasible, but interface architecture determines how people engage with those technologies and the way they manifest in our lives. The characters who played a key role in pioneering human-computer interface technology from the 1940s to 90s were united by a shared goal of using computer technology to help people manage the complexity of working with large amounts of information so we can think more clearly, communicate more broadly, and work more effectively.
Computer interfaces have been wildly successful in some ways, but as the “accidental megastructure” of planetary scale computation grows larger and more ubiquitous, things fall apart. How did this come to be? Studying the ideas and prototypes that led to today’s interface paradigm helps us understand what went right and what went wrong. For Enai, we find clues as to how today’s interface designers can address contemporary challenges in human-computer interaction. Combining an understanding of how people learn, the history of human-computer interaction, and a commitment to building simple, practical software that normal people want to use is key to unlocking a new era of calm, focused computing.