II

.....

Design and
the communication
between people
and Objects

MoMA

Tall< to Me: Design and the Communication between People

and Objects
208 pages; 407 illustrations
paola Antonelli is Senior Curator in the Department of
Architecture and Design at The Museum of Modern Art,
New Yorl<. Her previous e x hibitions and publications include
Safe : Design Tal<es on Risl< (2 005 ) and Design and the
Elastic Mind (2008) .
Jamer Hunt is a design critic and the f ounding director
of the MFA program in Transdisciplinar~ Design at Parsons
The New school for Design, New Yorl< .
Ale x andra Midal is a design historian, former director
of the Fonds Rgional d'Art Contemporain ( FRAC ) de HauteNormandie, France, and a professor at the Haute cole
d'Art et de Design, Geneva.
Kevin Slavin, a designer and e x pert on the intersection of
technolog~ and life, is Cofounder of Area / code, a compan~
that has pioneered the use of technolog~ in creating
overl aps between the ph~sical and virtua l worlds.
Khoi vinh is the former design director f or n~times.com,
where he helped reconfigure and rebuild the newspaper's
online identit~ . He is cur rentl~ preparing the launch of his
own start-up compan~.
published b~ The Museum of Modern Art
W est 53 Street
New Yo rl<, New Yorl< 10019-5497
www.moma.org

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WORLD

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MoMA

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Published in conjunction with the

e x hibition Talk to Me: Design and the
Communication between people and
Objects, o~ganized b':l Paola Antonelli,
senio~ Cu~ato~, and Kate Ca~mod':l,
Cu~ato~ial Assistant, in the Depa~tment
of A~chitectu~e and Design, at
The Museum of Mode~n A~t, New Yo~k,
Jul':l 24-Novembe~ 7, 2011
www.moma . o~g / talktome

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Canada b':l
Publishe~s,
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Dist~ibuted outside the united states

and Cana da b':l Thames & Hudson Ltd.,
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www .thamesandhudson .com

publication and t':lpeface design

b':l A2 / sW / HK

Cove~s and page 2 : A2 / sW / HK; page 19:

Mike Thompson. wifi Dowsing Rod . 2007
(see page 20); page 57= Zach Lebe~man,
James powde~I':I, Evan Roth, Ch~is
sug~ue, TEMPT1, and Theo watson .
E':IeW~ite~. 2009 (see page 59); page 75:
J ason Roh~e~. Passage. 200B (see page
76); page 99 : And':l London and ca~o l ':ln
London of London squa~ed. The Lost
T~ibes of New Yo~k Cit':l . 2009 (see page
100); page 133: Ch~is woebken and Kenichi
Okada, Design Inte~actions Depa~tment,
R0':lal co llege of A~t. Animal supe~powe~s:
Ant. 200B (see page 134); page 175:
ch~is Woebken and Natalie Je~emijenko,
Envi~onmental Health C lini c, steinha~dt
school of Cultu~e, Education, and Human
Development, New Yo~k Unive~sit':l.
Bat Billboa~d. 200B (see page 176)

p~oduction

P~inted

Huundai Card

GE Partner

The exhibition is made possible

b':l H':Iundai Ca~d Compan':l.
Additional suppo~t is p~ovided b':l
the L il ':l Auchincloss Foundation,
Inc. and The Junio~ Associates
of The Museum of Mode~n A~t .
P~oduced b':l the Depa~tment of
publications, The Museum of Mode~n
New Yo~k

A~t,

Edited b':l Emil':l Hall

P~inted

b':l

Ma~c sapi~,

with Tiffan':l Hu

and bound b':l Main Choice

Development Ltd.

Inte~national

This book was t':lpeset in Cubitt Fa x .

The

pape~

is 140 gsm Hi-Q Titan .

2011 The Museum of

New

Mode~n A~t,

Yo~k

Ce~tain illust~ations a~e cove~ed

claims to
Ali

cop':l~ight

b!:J
cited on page 207.

~ights ~ese~ved

Ale x and~a
f~om

the

Midal's essa':l was t~anslated

b':l Jeanine He~man.

F~ench

Lb~a~!:J

of Cong~ess Cont~ol Numbe~:

2011927239
ISBN: 97B-0-B7070-796-4
published b':l The Museum of Mode~n A~t,
11 West 53 st~eet, New Yo~k, New Yo~k
10019-5497
www .m oma .o~ g

in china

Contents

Foreword
G lenn D . LOWr~

Talk to Me
paola Antonelli

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OBJECT5

18

Nervous s~stems and An x ious 1nfrastructures

Jamer Hunt

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I'M TALKING TO YOU

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LIFE
Design wonder stories: when Speech 1s Golden
A le x andra Mida l

74

92

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98
Con v ersations with the Network
Kho i lJinh

128

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WORLD5
Realit~ 1s Plent~, Thanks : T w e lve Arguments for Keeping the Naked E~e Naked
Kevin slavin

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DOUBLE ENTENDRE
1ndex
Acknowledgments
Trustees of The Museum of Modern Art

174
200
206

208

H4undai Card

GE Partner

H~undai card is delighted to be a part of

The Museum of Modern Art's e x hibition Tal k
to Me, an inspiring e x ploration of the recipr ocal
commun ication bet ween people and objects .
Works in this exhibition e x ceed ordinar~
e x pectations in a fresh approach to design
that is directl~ in line w ith the philosoph~
of H~undai card, Korea's leading issuer
of credit cards.
At H~undai card, we introduce
an element of st~le into financiai services.
Our credit cards are not merel~ a pa~ment
to 01: we scour the wor ld for distinguished
artists and designers to create premium,
distinctive credit cards that pro vi de access
to rich cu ltural experiences. Through a
focus on design and service, H~undai card
establishes a strong emotional connection
between our customers and our credit cards.
The backdrop for the Museum's
insightful e x hibition is a shift in how design
is perceived, creating not on l~ commercial
products but also cultural icons that go well
be~ond their original purposes. This e x hibition
offers a unique platform for conversations
between people and obje cts, highlighting the
groundbreaking wa~s that objects help us
interact with comple x s~stems and networks.
As the sponsor of this e x ceptiona l
e x hibition, we hope to promote the importance
of great design that incorporates innovative
form, function, and meaning. We we lc ome
~ou to e x perience the diverse dialogues that
emerge when design objects talk to ~ou .

Glenn D . LOWr~, Director

The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Talk to Me : Design and the Communication

between People and Objects continues
The Museum of Modern Art's e x ploration into
the new territories mapped out b~ design and
art. In particular it focuses on a shift from the
centra lit~ of function to that of meaning, a shift
that has been brought about b~ cultural movements over the last hundred ~ears and b~
the digital revolution at the turn of the centur~.
From this perspective, ali objects contain information that goes well be~ond immediate use
or appearance, moving the task of the designer
into new realms and demanding new skills .
MoMA has alwa~s pla~ed a major
role in repositioning designo The Museum has
e x panded design's representation-in shows and
the co lle ction, in our historical and contemporar~
programs-and with recent e x hibitions such as
5afe: Design Takes on Risk (2005) and Design
and the Elastic Mind (2008), we ha ve acknowledged that in addition to objects its reach
includes visualization, communication, information, future scenarios and projections, scientific
inquir~, and the design of interfaces. We have
ce lebrated design's rich relationship not onl~
with art but ais o w ith sociolog~, politics, technolog~, and science, and we have reframed these
relationships in a museum context o We have
followed design as it has migrated into the digital
and networked age and mutated to adapt to
the new conditions, estab li shing new criteria
to apprec iate them with e x hibitions that placed
them under scrutin~ for the first time.
Talk to Me is a snapshot in time,
recording the diversit~ and ope n-endedness
of contempo rar~ designo J"ust in the past
few ~ears, communication has explo ded into
new fields, providing us with responsive objects,
ubiquitous data and information, and newl~
instinctive interfaces. Design itself has become
a wa~ of communicating, with the open-source
movement and constant connectivit~ changing
how ideas are conceived and products made.
Interdisciplinar~ co llab oration and a larger

creative network are now inherent to the

design processo
This exhibition includes almost two
hundred objects and concepts, from electronic
pets to virtual worlds, from mobile -dev ice
applications to s~stems designed for navigating
entire cities, ali instigating a dialogue between
object and user-some in order to c larif~, others
in order to help , and others still posing questions.
Organized b~ paola Antonelli, 5enior
Curator, with Kate Carmod~, Curatorial
Assistant, Department of Architecture and
Design, this e x hibition reaffirms the Museum's
commitment to contemporar~ design practice,
as we ll as its ongoing reflection on the future
of designo
We are ver~ grateful to the H~undai card
compan~, the Lil~ Auchincloss F oundat ion, and
The Junior Associates of The Museum of Modern
Art for helping to bring this vital new design
movement into focus.

Tal k to Me

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paola Antonelli

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whether open l'::j and activel'::j or in subtle,
subliminal wa'::js, things talk to us o The'::j do not
ali speak aloud: some comm unicate in te x t,
diagrams, and other graphic interfaces; others
empatheticall'::j and almost telepathicall'::j, just
keeping us compan'::j and storing our memories;
still others in sensual wa'::js, w ith warm th, scent,
te x ture. Objects populate our homes and our
li ves; buildings and places ha ve identities and
c hara cters; cars and airplanes speak and listen;
v irtual wor lds be ckon us; London's T owe r Bridge
and artist Narina Abramovi's chair even send
tweets. 1
That objects -e ver '::jthing that humans
bild, at ali scales (fig. 1), from the spoon
to the cit'::j, the state, the we b, buildings,
commun ities, s'::Jstems, and artificial realitieshave meaning is nothing new. 2 It has been
true for eons, since long before late-t went iethcentur'::j design prophe ts such as Donald Norman,
after decades o f functionalist prea ching, had
an epiphan'::j and declared the era o f "emotional
design" to be upon us . 3 The bond between people
and things has alwa'::js been filled w ith po werful
and unsp oken sentiments going wel l be'::jond
functional e x pectations and including attachment,
love, possessiveness, jealous'::j, pride, curiosit'::j,
anger, even friendship and partnership-think of
the bond between a chef and his knives. philosoph'::J has studied humans' relationships wit h
objects through out histor'::j and from multiple
angles, but the relati ve l'::j '::joung field of design has
taken to it slow l'::j . After ali, design's first preoccupation f o llo wing the technological and aesthetic
eart hqua ke of the industrial revolution was to
bring v isual discipline and intellectual rigor to the
cacop hon'::j o f formal e x periments ushered in
b'::j the new manufacturing capabilities . This was
often achieved b'::j suffocating objects' e x cessive
e x pressiveness and irrati ona l side, qualities
equated b'::j some wit h decoration, as in Adolf
Loos's we ll-kn own 1908 essa'::j "Ornament
and Crime." 4

The push toward formal reduction and

functionalism did not deter the great modern
architects from imbuing minimal shapes w ith
ma x imum pathos. But in the hands of mainstream
practitioners and instru ctors, twentieth-centur'::j
clichs such as "form follows function," the
modernist motto origina ll'::j uttered in slightl'::j
different f orm b'::j Louis H . 5ul li van, and "design
is problem solving" (about w hich more later ) have
been responsible for a great deal of sou lless
and lobotom ized design and architecture. 5 Whi le
a belief in sent ient and se lf-refle ctive buildings
was kept alive b'::j architects such as Erich
Nendelsohn and Frederick Kies ler, philosopherarchitect Rudolf 5teiner, and even pS'::jchologist
Carl Jung, design, still lac king a cohesive theoretica l backbone, did not even acknowledge the
need for a position on the matter. 5
Finall'::j, in the 1960s, the course of design
changed in that era's conflu ence of political and

-I

~ F ig. 1
iGEM 2004 UT A u sti n / UCS F
Tea m . H e li o wor ld b acter ia l
ph otogr ap h . 2 0 05 . P h otograp h
b~ Aa r on A . Cheval ier .
For mo r e a b o ut H e lio wor ld,
see p age 159 .

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F ig. 2
Ca mill e Bozz in i of Dentsu
L ondon and Timo Arna ll
and J ael-< Se h u lze o f BERG .
suwap pu . 2 0 11. po l ~ u rethane
and custom so ft ware , 3 x
1 3 / 8 x 1 3 / 8 " (7 .6 x 3 .6
x 3.6 em)
Suwappu is a gro u p of e ig h t
char a ct e rs, f o u r o f w hi ch
have a l read~ been re leased,
whose lower and upper ha lves
can be swa p ped . I m a gereeogn ition software a ll ows
them to live and perform in
an augme n te d -rea l it~ wor ld,
m al-< ing t h em among t h e f irst
of a new t~pe of enterta inment
environment and e x perience .

social turmoil, technological breakthroughs, and cultural shifts.

In the minds of visionar~ architects and designers, buildings
and cities began to breathe, w alk, plug in, and tal k , as did
objects. The 19605 w ere also an important decade for the
digital re v olution: the foundations w ere laid f or w hat w e t o da~
call interface and interaction design, and the seeds w ere
planted for several groundbreaking inno v ati o ns of the 19805.
It w as also in those ~ears that semioti c s and stru c turalism ,
especiall~ the w ork of Roland Barthes and Mi c hel Fou c ault,
achieved w orld w ide prominence, c ont r ibuting to the f o rmati o n
o f a ne w theor~ of designo Ali these for c es j o ined t o ma k e
the co mmunication bet w een people and obje c ts a mand a t o r~
element of the design processo
In contrast to the t w entieth-centur~ triumph o f
semi o ti c s, w hi c h lo o k ed do w n on communicati o n as n o thi ng
but a mechanical transmissi o n of coded meaning, the
t w ent~ - first centur~ has begun as one of pan co mmuni c ati o n e v er~thi n g and ever~b o d~ con v e~ing co ntent and meanin g
in ali possible co mbinations, from one-on-one to e v er~thing
on-e v er~bod~. W e no w e x pect o bjects to c ommunica t e, a
c ultural shift made e v ident w hen w e see children sear c hin g
for buttons or sensors on a ne w object, e v en w hen the o bj e ct
has n o batteries o r plug. Talk to Me: Design and the C o m muni c ation bet w een People and Objects thri v es o n this imp o rtant
late-t w entieth-centur~ de v elopment in the culture of d e si g n,
w hi c h can be described as a shift from the centralit~ o f
fun c ti o n t o that o f meaning, and on the t w ent~-f i rst- c entu r ~
f oc us on the need to communicate in order to e x ist ( fig. 2 ) .
Fr o m this ne w perspecti v e, ali objects oc c up~ a uniqu e
p o siti o n in material culture, and ali of them contain info rma t io n
be~ond their immediate use or appearance. It is not enough
f o r d e sign e r s toda~ to balan c e form and function, and it is

also not enough simp l~ t o ascribe meaning.

Design no w must imagine ali its previ o us tas k s
in a d~namic, animated conte x t, as K h o i lJi nh
po ints out in his essa~ on page 128. Things
ma~ communicate wi th pe o ple, but designers
w rite the initial script that lets us develop
and improvise the dialogue.

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Rules of Engagement

Fig. 3
Sun Haipeng. Super Baozi vs .
Sushi Man . 2009 . Video (color,
sound), 1:30 mino
super Baozi is a steamed-bun
martial arts superhero that
loves to reenact scenes from
Bruce L ee movies . It is one
of the most rece nt additions
to the arm!:J of animated
o bj ects, fr om sponges to
potat oes, that have captured
the popular imagination .

In our relationship w ith objects, as in an~

relationship, indifferen c e is the wo rst offense
and laziness the wo rst sino End owed w ith
more and more comple x behaviors, objects from
refrigerators to m ob ile phones to income ta x
we bsites have beco me particularl~ tou ch~ and
mood~ (fig. 3); our relationship with computers
sometimes approaches code pendence. Objects
have become as com ple x and demanding interlocutors as people, as Jamer Hunt laments in his
essa~ on page 48, 50 it seems logical to appl~
the rules of human communication to them, too.
In c hecking the five a x ioms of human communication, developed b~ ps~chologist and philosopher
Paul Watzla w ick, against our e x perience of
comm unication w ith objects and s~stems,
we find some interesting insights and parallels,
in particular in his first, third, and fifth a x ioms. 7
The first a x iom tells us, "One cannot
not com municate ." An~ k ind of gesture, beha v ior,
and attitude can and w ill be interpret ed as
commun icati on . In e-mail, for e x ample, responding immediatel~ t o a message creates a parti cu lar
subte x t, as does not responding at ali; a co ngratulator~ message sent "repl~ ali" can be interpreted as displa~ing presence and authorit~
or else insecurit~, and an ill -a d v ised response
b~ a person who re ce ived onl~ a blind cop~
reveals ... something else.
The third a x iom sa~s, "The nature of
a relationship is dependent on the punctuati o n
o f the partners' communication pr ocedures."
Communicat ion, W atzla w ic k posits, is c~c li cal,
w ith each partner belie v ing that he or she is
simpl~ resp onding to the other; some of the m o st
common problems of the digital era arise from
the c ~cle of amplification and reaction that
marks our te x t e xc hanges, something that seria l
e-mail gaffers and awkward users w ill be familiar
w ith . The problem is acute enough to require
the invent ion of ToneChec k, de v eloped b~ L~mbi x ,
an emotional spell-che ck for e-mail messages
that alerts the w riter t o e x cessive displa~s
of anger, sadness, or insensitivit~ . 8
The fifth a x iom, "Inter-human communication procedures are either s~mmetric or

comp lementar~, depending on whether the

relationship of the partners is based on
differences or parit~," reminds us that the
relationship bet we en peop le and objects
is not al w a~s co mplementar~ in the e x pected
proportions, and hardl~ ever s~mmetrical. p ower
imbalance has wor ried generations of thinkers
w ho have predicted a so mber wo rld in w hi ch
machines are more intelligent and therefore more
po we rful than human beings . Thi s e ve nt, k nown
as "the 5ingularit~," w as first mentioned b~
computer 5cient ist and wri ter Uernor uinge
in a speech in 1993. " w ithin thirt~ ~ears, w e
w ill have the te c hnologi c al means to create
superhuman in tel li gence," he said . "5hort l~
after, t he human era w ill be en ded." g Author
and futuri st Ra~ Ku r zwe il reiterated the ome n
in 2005, sa~ing that it wo uld take place b~ 2045;
w riter Adam Gopnik has argued that the 5ingularit~ happened a lo ng t ime ago , w hen we first
delegated so me o f our imp ort ant sk ills t o
machines .10 w hi c he ver timeline we belie ve if we belie ve it at al l - the test pr o posed b~
computer sc ientist Alan Turing t o determine
a machine's abilit~ t o demonstrate h uma n intelligence, in cl uding e mpath~, the serendipitous
p owers o f distraction and humor, and cre ati v it~ ,
has ~et t o be passed .l l In 20 11 a computer ca ll ed
Watson beat the t wo st urdiest human c hampions
o f the tel evis ion quiz s h ow .::Jeopard!=j!, b u t designers ca nn ot cou nt o n CPUs-w hether as might!=j
as Wat s o n's or as nimble as an iPad's-t o know
ho w to beha ve li ke real pe o pl e .
un de r these com ple x ci r c umstances,
ne w branches of design practice have emerged
that co mbine o ld-fashioned attention to form,
fun c ti o n, and meaning w ith f oc us o n the e x change
o f con ten t a nd affect between us er and used.
Communicat ion design f oc uses on deli ve ring
messages, and it encompasses m os t graphic
design, signage, and co mmunicative objects o f ali
k inds, from printed materiais to three-dimensi o nal
and digita l proje cts . Interface and intera c ti on
design, which is sometimes brought under the
more ge n er ic and fun c tionalist rubric o f user e x perience design, delineat es the beha v ior of
products and s~stems, as we ll as the e x perience
) that people w ill ha ve wit h t h em . Info rmati o n o r
vis uali z ati on design includes the maps, diagrams,
and v isuali zation tools that filter and ma ke sense
o f the enormous amount of informati on that is
more w id e l~ a va ilabl e than eve r before. C riti c ai
design is one of the most promising and farreaching new areas of stud~, using conceptua l
scenar ios built a round h~p othe ti ca l objects t o
comment o n the social, political, and cultur al
co nsequences o f ne w technologies and behaviors. Its dis c iple s are e x pert s in "what if?"

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predigital, Digital, and postdigital Affairs

In 1907 Guido Gozzano, an Italian poet,
w rote " L'a mica di n onna 5peranza" ( Grandma
5peranza's friend ), an unassuming and t ouc hing
p o em t hat described in loving detail dozens of
"good things o f a w ful taste" from his grandmother's apartment. 12 Empt~ cand~ bo x es, a c u ckoo
c lock, a stuffed parrot : the scene is at the same
time sad, dust~, and ali ve w ith the sound o f
intima c ~ . It is just one of man~ literar~ e x amples
of the close re lati onship bet ween people, o bje cts,
and pla c es . Rob W alker's 5ignificant Obje cts
project reminds us o f Gozzano's nostalgic in ve nt or ~. 13 W alker has laun c hed a numbe r of proje c ts
de vot ed to things, buildings, c ities, and their
personal biographies, w heth er rea l or imagined,
including "c on sumed", his weekl~ column de vote d
t o o ur relationships wit h brands, w hi ch ran in
the New York Times Magazine from 2004 t o 2011.
F or 5ignificant Objects he handpic ked objects
fr o m thrift st o res and o ther treasure tr ove s
and paired them wit h great wr iters-inc luding
Nicholson Baker and .::J ona than Lethemw ho endowed them w ith stories.
The postdigital design mo ve ment is an
e x treme e x pression of this r o manti c attac hm ent
to ph~s ica l things. It is made up of technologicall~
savv~ designers and artists w h o prefer the
innocence o f o ld-fashioned o bjec ts, such as
the L ondon- based Newspaper club: se x ~ geeks
w ho de c la re t hem selves to be "about ink o n
newsprint" and w ill hel p an~bod~ publish a ne w spaper. 14 In 2010 .::James Bridle, one o f the club 's
founders, published a compe ndium of Wik ipedia
entries on the Iraq W ar, col lected bet wee n
December 2004 and November 2009, in twel ve
cla ssi ca ll~ bound, enc~c l o pedia-st~le vo lumes,
because "ph~sical o bje c ts are usefu l pr o ps
in debates li ke this: immediatel~ illus tr ati ve,
and usefu l to hang an argument and peop les'
attention on." 15
This project ma kes a cruc ial point: in an
era whe n s o man~ mediums and c h anne ls are
a v ailable, the ke~ to effe c ti ve and elegant co m munication is c ho os ing the r ight one, the right
interpreter . The most recent te c hn o l og~, in other
w ords, ma~ not be the most appropriate. Tran smedia stor~telling, a technique f or telling stor ies
o n multiple platforms-such as a combination
o f tele vis ion, Internet, and mobile te x t-is not
a novelt~ an~more , and a fe w ~ears ha v e gone
b~ since the first college appli ca ti on submitted
on v id e o made ne ws. Our fe ver ab out virtual
and augmented realit~ has subsided, as Kev in
51avin p oints out in his ess a~ o n pa ge 1 64.

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flowers .
In 2009, in "The Demise of 'Form Follo w s
/ Functi o n,'" Alice Ra w sthorn wrote that "the
I appearance of most digital products bears no
relation to w hat the~ do"; often-and especiall~
after the first coming of the ipod, in 2001-these
products are handsome, minimal bo x es that
perform a large number of functions. 16 5ince
ma c hines ha v e become more or less standardized in shape, and since materiais, finishes,
and co lors do not provide enough distinction,
designers have had to resort to an old human
trick: a face. We e x pect our smart objects to
comm unicate their comple x it~ as w ell as their
instructions in a clear and engaging w a~ through
their interfa c e . Interfa ce s not onl~ provide
thresholds onto e x planation and response,
instruction and information, but also personalities. The term is commonl~ used to indicate
the p o int of co ntact and co mmunication bet w een

""

notes

ixed Notes

a machine and a human being; latel~ it has

e x panded to include communication with and
access to wider s~stems and infrastructures
such as cities, public services, territorial and
metaph~sical networks, and virtual worlds.
The term has come to be identified w ith the digital
era, but interfaces e x isted long before the digital
revolution, for e x ample in ever~ clock and w at c h
face and in the dashboards designed b~ masters
such as Henr~ Dre~fuss and Rodolfo Bonetto.
In the compute r wo rld the term is
shorthand for GUI (gr aphical user interface ),
HMI (human-computer interfa ce) , or HeI
( human-computer intera c tion ) and represents
one of the most important and acti ve areas
of co ntemporar~ design, te c hnol og ~, and cogniti v e science. Its histor~ ar cs fr o m its mechanical
ancestors, well des cr ibed b~ Ale x andra Midal
in her essa~ on page 92, to its graphic brea k thr o ugh in the late t we ntieth centur~, using
a pointing device and icons that relied on

10

-1

.- Fig. 4
rgor Krizhanovsi.<~ and Elliot
Go~i.<hman of ELRO .com . Nadra
Bani.< ATM interface design o
2007

UJ
A
rr

:I

Fig. 5
Benrii.< a nd Turned On D igita l.
si tu at ion lst App. 2011. X c ode
software

11

analogies to the objects normallt,d found in an office (desk w ith

files and folders, trash bin, calculator, alarm clock), to the most
recent gestural interfaces. 17 Some well-known milestones
in the de v elopment Df interfaces are the stuff of legend: Doug
Engelbart's invention of the mouse and ht,dperte x t and his use
of net wo rked computers for collective activitt,d in the second
half Df the 1950s; Alan Kat,d, Larrt,d Tesler, and Dan Ingalls's
first GUI, developed at X ero x PARC and used in the Star
computer in 1981; Jef Raskin and steve Jobs's commercial
GUI, which appeared in the Lisa (1983) and Macintosh (1984)
co mputers; and Marc Andreessen's 1993 Mosaic, the GUI
that made the World Wide Web reallt,d available to the wide
wo rld . Interfaces represent a ne w dimension of our e x isten ce,
a space in which we ali spend a considerable amount of our
time on earth . Even those who cal l themselves Luddites and
profess virginal innocence from the temptations Df net wo rked
technologt,d are at least guiltt,d Df interacting w ith ATMs
or ticket-vending machines. ATMS, among the most universal
Df interfaces (fig. 4), are represented in Talk to Me bt,d t wo
e x amples, a functional unit designed bt,d Barclat,ds, the bank
that originallt,d introduced the ATM in 1957 (page 45), and
a ne w st,dstem de v eloped bt,d IDEO for the spanish bank
BBIJA (page 44) .
To help the public feel comfortable w ith advanced
technologt,d, designers often relt,d on the strategt,d Df incorporating instincti ve traits and appealing to our instincti v e reactions,
such as in computer interfaces in w hich items are moved
around bt,d hands and fingers or bt,d being blo wn on or even
shaken. These ne w technologies ha ve alreadt,d found w idespread commercial application and ha v e made their wat,d
into culture: Jeff Han's multitouch screens, w hich debuted in
2005, w ere used bt,d CNN anchors to cover the US presidential
elections in 2008, and John Under ko ffler's gestural interface,
c alled g-speak, w hich he has been wo r k ing on since 1995,
w as made famous bt,d the mo v ie Minorit!j Report (2 002 ) .18 other
e x amples include the multitouch screens of Apple's iphone
(2007) and iPad (2010), and the gestural interfa c es used in
Guitar Hero (2005), Nintendo wii (2005), and Microsoft Kinect
(2010) . with ever more-sophisticated movement- and v oicerecognition software, objects are being transformed from
tools into companions, and buildings from enclosed shelters
into open environments.
The hardware supporting the interface-whether
it is the ph~sica l shape of a computer or the chassis of a car,
a robot, an ATM, or a self-service check-in kiosk-is equallt,d
significant. In choosing a s~mpathetic bod~ for a mechanica l
mind, designers, engineers, and scientists are ever w art,d
of the theor~ Df the uncann~ vallet,d (page 158, fig o 8 ), which
posits that people cannot feel empath~ for machines that loo k
almost like real humans. 19 The diagram that gives the theor~
its name sho w s these awk w ard e x amples in a dip that
looks like a valle~: on its left are pla~ful, cartoonish, fictional
creatures, such as AIBO, Tamagotchi (page 170, figo 10 ),
and stuffed animais, and on the right are healtht,d, real human
beings. One of the most famous e x amples from the vallet,d is
the Japanese Repliee Q1E Xpo, introduced at the 2005 Aichi
E Xpo, w hi c h was modeled after a ~oung Japanese wo man
but seemed more like a Madame Tussauds w a x figure come

Fig.6
Antoine Bardou-Jacquet
and Lud ovic Houplain of H5
The Child. 1999. video (color,
sound), 3:06 mino

Fig.7
Chaos Computer Club.
Blinkenlights. 2001.
Photograph b~ Dorit Guenter

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A couple rushes to the

hospital-the wi fe is about
to have a bab~-in a ta x i that
travels through a New York
in which ever~thing is spelled
out in te x t, to the sounds
of Ale x Gopher's "The Child ."

12

13

to life. The theor~ a is o applies to voices : the

warnings delivered in an airplane cockp it are
recorded in a human voice to effectivel~ alert
the pilots with real human urgenc~ that the~ can
trust; the (usua ll~ female) vo ice is affectionatel~
known as Bitching Bett~ . uoice operation is one
of t he elements of int eraction that is being the
most thoroughl~ studied, from in-vehicle communication s~stems for cars, with their obvious
safet~ advantages, to dictation software.
Ever~ talking object becomes an entit~, imm edi ate l~ taking on a more important role . w h en
there's a voice, there's a con v ersation.
But voice and human- or petl ike
appearance are not necessar~ for a powerful
interaction to take place. Some objects e x press
themselves subtl~ and int ensel~ using abstract
interfaces, su c h as the breathing light on
Apple's white iBook G4 (2004) (unfortunatel~
abandoned in later models because it lacked
bedside manner, keeping the owner awake w hil e
the computer slept). Apple's master~ of metaphors, in both hardware an d software, is one
element of t h e compan~'s effective interaction
designo The ipad calls up a nearl~ ata v istic
memor~ of the acts of writing and drawing
on a tab let, which is offered as a counterbalance
to overwhelm i ngl~ ke~-based technolog~-just
what w e need; Apple was similar l~ shrewd

bac k in 1984 w ith the Macintosh 128K, w hose

domesticated presence ( Iike a little dog sitting
patientl~ on its master's desk) and e x pressi v e
interface built on analogies and metaphors
(smiling computer, trash bin, folders, question
mark, little bomb ) were just w hat w e needed to
comfor tabl~ integrate technolog~ into the home.
///// / /////////////////////////////

Interfaces for the people

Interfaces, w hether on smartphones or facades,
w hether composed of pi x els, LEDs , or neon tubes,
are laid on the surfaces o f objects, s pa ces, and
buildings but provide them w ith communicati v e
depth and d~namism. p orta ble devices such as
w ristbands, sensors, and implants use interfaces
that let individuais monitor themselves and be
monitored b~ others at a distance, a ver~ helpful
wa~ for elder l~ people to keep their doctors
and famil~ up-to-date on their we ll -being. Some
w ebsites are interfaces publicizing k no w ledge at
different scales and with different consequences,
from digital w ater coolers w here emplo~ees rate
their emplo~ers to the w orld-destabilizing force
of Wi k iLeaks. An~ device that recei v es and sends
te x ts can call on flash mobs to commit acts of
ci v il disobedience, but the same interfaces can
be used for acts of ci v il responsibilit~, such as
activating a tsunami-alert service or mapping
emergenc~ are as. Interfaces can amplif~ or
reduce communication to human scale, w hether,
f or e x ample, bringing the government. to the
individual or the individual to the go v ~rnment .
We can now design the face we wish to
present to the wor ld. Where in t he past we relied
on famil~ name, academic pedigree, business
cards, lo oks, and accomplishments to augment
our naked social selves, toda~ w e have t he
additional option o f o ffering o ur riches to the
world with blogs, personal w ebsites, Fl ickr
streams, Fa ce b ook and other social networks,
and avatars. with these interfaces we think we
can control the wa~ we are per c eived b~ the
world ( although things do not alwa~s work o ut
as planned; reports are increasing of job applican t s being rejected because their personal
pages revealed in format ion that didn't match the
who lesome image the~ brought to their job interviews). B~ contrast, some interfa ces disrupt this
facade, encouraging people to let go of control
and reach out to others in serendipitous wa~s.
An app ca lle d situationist, inspired b~ the
Situationist International (a group of European
artists and political agitators in the 1950S and
'60S), connects wi lli ng participants, alerting them
to each ot her's pro x imit~ using geotags, and

delivers instructions for situations both intima te and friendl~,

and po litical and subversive (fig. 5) . 2 0
When interfaces a llo w users ac c ess to net w orks
and s~stems, users can connect, acquire, and e x change
information. Rt the local levei, interfaces can he lp peop le
share car rides and homegrown v egetables, provide support
for the elder l ~, and find compan~. Rt the global levei, pe o ple
can hook their energ~-monitoring s~stems into a local grid and
contribute to data-aggregation projects that raise awareness
of energ~-consumption. R well-designed net w ork or s~stem
can be a potent wa~ to de liver an important message, such
as se x columnist and activist Dan 5avage's It Gets Better
project, prompted b~ a rash of suicides b~ ga~ teenagers
in 2010 . The project began modest l ~, w ith a v ideo of 5a v age
and his partner posted to YouTube, and quick l ~ gathered
steam to include video testimonials b~ hundreds of people,
including c elebrities and politicians such as President Barack
Obama, encouraging lesbian, ga~, bise x ual, and transgender
teenagers to see past the oppressive atmosphere of
into lerance and hatred that the~ live in-that is, to tap into
an international network of hope and acceptance. 2 1

Fig. B
Wesle~

Grubbs and Ml ad en
Ba log of Pitch Interactive .
Invisible Cit~ : what a Hundred
Mi llion Ca lls to 311 Reveal about
New York. 2010 . process ing
software . P u b lished in W ired
magazine, N ovember 2 0 10

:i

ro

14

INVISIBLE
c I TY
WHAT A HUNOREO MllLlON CAllS TO 3 11 REVEA l ABOU T NEW YOR K.

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STEVDI JIIINSII

ILLUSTaAnONS IY . . _

15

Fig.9
Marguerite Humeau, Design
I nteractions Departme n t,
RO>jal col lege of Ar t . LUC>j f r om
BaeK, H erebe low , F orm idable
(t h e rebi rth of pre hi sto ri e
creatures). 2010-ongo ing.
Meta l, p lastic tube, and air
compressor, 45 5 / 16 x
1911 / 16 x 59" (11 5 .1 x 50
x 149 .9 em)

A great deal of communicative e x perimentation tal.<es place in cities , which, because

of their densit~, are the perfect testing ground
(fig. 6). ~ (1988 ), william H . wh~te's great
observation of the ph~sical interactions among
people, cars, buildings, and a cit~'s other animate
and inanimate inhabitants, would benefit from
an update to include the additional la~er of
e x change no w provided b~ digital technolog~. 22
New buildings tall.< in wa~s no one could ha v e
imagined in the analog ~ears. In "Living Sl.<ins:
Architecture as Interfa ce" (2006), critic Peter
Hall cited the Blinl.<enlights project (2001, figo 7 )
as a pioneer in massi v e-scale urban communi c ation: members of the Chaos computer C lub
installed 144 bright lights in the front w indows
of the top eight floors of Haus des Lehrers,
a building on Berlin's Ale x anderplatz, transforming
the facade into a giant computer screen. using
mobile phones, passersb~ cou ld pla~ Pong or
send images to be rendered on the ver~ lo w -res,
ver~ big, ver~ dramatic screen .23
The cit~ tall.<s to citizens, and citizens
certainl~ tall.< bacl.<. Several municipalities, Ne w
Yorl.< among them, have set up serv ices to enable
people to communicate w ith the local go v ernment
v ia phone and w eb . In Ne w Yor l.< that s~stem is
called 311, after its phone number. pitch Interactive, a v isualization design compan~, created
an anal~sis of 34,522 c omplaint calls t o 311
( 2010, figo 8)-a co lorful depicti o n of t he pet
peeves of New Yorl.<ers . Several countries ha v e
set up nation w ide s~stems; in March 2010 Gordon
Bro w n, then the united Kingdom's p r ime minister,
announ c ed a plan to endo w e v er~ c itizen with
his or her own web page, in order to give them
impro v ed access to go v ernment benefits,
information, and services. 24
Design has a whole new set of clichs
to deal with; postdigital design, in its embrace
of the analog, e x presses a fatigue not onl~
( w ith the medi um but also with the forms of digital
technolog~, and the apparent reject ion of aes\ thetics e x pressed b~ hacl.<ers is an aesthetic
ideolog~ in itself. This accusation has also been
le ve led at Google, whose antist~le has been
channeled and c r~stallized in man~ contemporar~
\ interfaces and has set a template for the DIY
ph~sical-design movement . Technological progress alwa~s brings formal innovation, w hi ch
starts as creati v e flair but ma~ soon degrade into
routine. Thus the groundbreal.<ing elegance of
Braun, since the 1950S, or Apple, since the 1990s,
can become mannered if this approach is not
rein v ented ever~ time, an eas~ formal recipe for
I displa~ing zeitgeist sensitivit~.
Tall.< to Me is an opportunit~ to anchor
design's new dimension and highlight innovati v e

interfaces that can inform designers in the

future. whether the~ use the skin and shell
of objects as an interface or animate them from
within, designers are using the whole w orld to
communicate and are set on a path that is transforming it into an information parkour and enriching our lives with emotion, motion, direction,
depth, and freedom . Now that the technological
means are widel~ available, designers have
become sophisticated enough to modulate them
with a sensitive touch. The~ have matured past
the first moments of irrepressible and immoderate enthusiasm for the new medium and have
learned to wear technolog~, instead of letting
I technolog~ wear them . It can be difficult to keep
perspective on the magnitude and scope of ali
the interactions we engage in or witness or hear
about; design is flowing into politics, philosoph~,
science, and religion in wa~s both ancient
and new . The predigital Rrecibo message was
one such metaph~sical venture, a string of digits
launched in 1974 from the Rrecibo radio telescope in Pue r to Rico and transmitted via
FM radio wa v es to a star cluster twent~-five
thousand light-~ears awa~-a shout out into
the void, a soaring attempt to talk to creatures
w hose essence we can't even imagine.
Design and design-related e x periments
are propelling us further and further into the
unknown . Interfaces ha v e been proposed that
help us communicate with God; a Taoist pra~er
hall went electronic; 25 an app has been created
for catholic confession; the ~oung designer
Marguerite Humeau has been resuscitating
long-e x tinct prehistoric creatures b~ resuscitating their v oice bo x es (fig. 9); and designers
Jon Rrdern and Rnab Jain, with their evocative
multidimensional camera (page 153), have
attempted to embod~ Hugh Everett's man~
worlds theor~ in an object that adds to the
cinematic tradition of The Matri x (1999), Lost
(2004-10), Fringe (2008-ongoing), and Source
Code (2011), to name just a few . 26
It might seem that design has abandoned
its tested, grounded, functionalist territor~
{ to venture into an ambiguous universe where
its essence is confused and a crisis of identit~
arises-is the 5th Dimensional Camera art or
scientific modeling? Is Humeau's work creative
paleontolog~? Rre sputniko!'s devices (pages 177
and 182) contributing to interpretive anthropolog~? Is pachube ( page 41) mere coding and
infrastructure engineering? Not at ali . I claim
them, w ith their po w erful visions and their focus
on knowledge and awareness, as design, and
I praise their radical functionalism. Ambiguit~
and ambivalence-the abilit~ to inhabit different
environments and frames of mind at the same

time-have become central to our cultural

de v elopment. The~ are qualities that embod~
the openness and fle x ibilit~ necessar~ for
embracing diversit~, and the~ are criticai to the
questioning and imagining that are the preferred
methods of inquir~. Communication is at the
ne x us of ali these necessar~ human features:
the most crucial function for design toda~.

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Notes
1.
The Tower Bridge can be followed at
ltowerbridge, and Marina Abramovi's chair at
lmarinaschair . The latter is the chair the artist
used in The Artist 15 Present, a performance
at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, over
the course of the e x hibition Marina Abramovi :
The Artist 15 Present, March 14-Ma'oj 31, 2010,
in which Abramovi sat when the Museum was
open, and viewers were invited to sit silentl'oj,
one at a time, in front of her.
2.
"Dal cucch iaio alia citt" (From the
spoon to the cit'oj) is a s logan coined b'oj Italian
architect and critic Ernesto Nathan Rogers to
describe the M ilanese architectural and design
process, which at the time encompassed ali
scales-and still does, unfortunatel'oj to a lesser
e x tent. There is some disagreement about when
Rogers said this; De'ojan Sudjic notes that Rogers
wrote something ver'oj much like it in a 1952
editorial for Domus. Sudjic, The Language of
Things : understanding the World of Desirable
Objects (New York: w. w. Norton, 2009), p. 34 .
Donald Norman's Emotional Design
3.
(New York: Basic Books, 2005) proposed the
not-so-groundbreaking thesis that emotions
pla'oj a big part in the wa'oj we relate to objects.
4.
Ado lf Loos, "Ornament und Verbrechen," 1908, published in English as "Ornament
and Crime," in Ornament and Crime: selected
Essays, trans . Michae l Mitchell (Riverside, Ca lif.:
Ariadne Press, 1998), pp . 167 . In it he wrote,
"The evolution of cu lture is s'ojnonymous
with the removal of ornamentation from objects
of ever'ojda'oj use ."

17

5.
"Form ever fol lows function ." Louis H .
Sullivan, "The Tall Office Bui lding Artistica ll'oj
considered," Lippincott's Monthly Magazine 57
(March 1896): 403 9; republished in Sullivan,
Kindergarten Chats and Other writings (New
York: Dover, 1979).
6.
Carl :rung dedicated thirt'oj years of
his life to building a house in Ksnacht, on the
lake of Zurich . He equated the building of a
house with the building of self, as he e x plained
in Erinnerungen, Traume, Gedanken, ed . Aniela
:raff (Dsseldorf: Walter verlag, 1971); published in English as Memories, Dreams, Reflections, trans. Richard and Clara Winston, reprint
ed. (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), p . 225 .
7.
Paul watz lawick, :ranet Beavin
Bavelas, and Don D . :rackson, "Some Tentative
A x ioms of Communication," in pragmatics
of Human Communication: A Stud'oj of Interactional Patterns, Pathologies, and Parado x es
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1967), pp. 48-71.

8.
ToneCheck was listed in the New
York Times's 2010 Year in Ideas, www .n'ojtimes .
com / inter active / 2010 / 12 / 19 / maga zine /
ideas2010 .html#Emotional_Spell-Check.
9.
Vernor vinge, "The Coming Technological Singularit'oj : How to Survive in the
Post-Human Era," presented at the VISION 21
S'ojmposium, westlake, Ohio, March 30-31, 1993,
www.aleph.se / Trans / Global / Singularit.oj
/ sing.html. For those readers who have caught
echoes of earlier li ter ature, vinge clearl'oj refers
to Isaac Asimov and his laws in this speech.
10.
Ra'oj Kurzweil, The Singularity 15 Near:
When Humans Transcend Biology (New York:
viking, 2005); Adam Gopni k , "Get Smart," The
New Yorker, April 4, 2011, pp. 70-74.
-11.
Alan Turing first described the test
in "Computing Machiner'oj and Intelligence,"

Mind: A Quarterl'oj Review of Psychology and

Philosophy 59, no . 236 (October 1950): 433-60,
mind.o x fordjournals.org / content / LI X/ 23 6 / 433
.full.pdf+html.
12 .
Guido Gozzano, "L'amica di nonna
speranza," in La via dei rifugio (Turin : Renzo
streglio, 1907). Author's trans.
13.
significant Objects, significantobjects
.com / about. The project is currentl'oj on hiatus
and will reappear in book form in 2011, published
b'oj Fantagraphics Books. In one of the project's
phases I provided about ten objects for wr it ers.
I consider Rob walker to be a Talk to Me sou I
mate; in a blog post, the curatorial team dubbed
him the Object Whisperer. wp.moma.org / talk_to_
me / 2010 / 09 / the-object-whisperer-aninterview-with-rob-walker.
14.
Newspaper Club, www.newspaperclub.co .uk / about .
15.
"On Wikipedia, Cultural Patrimon'oj,
and Historiograph'oj," The Blog of :rames Br idl e,
booktwo .org/notebook / wikipedia-historiograph'oj .
16 .
Alice Rawsthorn, "The Demise
of 'Form Follows Function,''' New York Times,
Ma'oj 30, 2009, www .n.ojtimes .com / 2009 / 06
/ Dl / arts / 01iht- DESI GN1.html.
17.
:rean-Baptiste Labrune, :ramie
zige lbaum, and Hiroshi Ishii, "From PreHistoric
Interfaces to NearFuture Interactions," www
.slideshare .net / jb .labrune / user-interfacehistor'oj-to-near-future. This slide show is
concise and incisive but, as the authors are ali
part of the MIT Media Lab, rather MIT-centric .
18.
until recent l'oj, commercial screens
could sense onl'oj a single finger at a time .
19.
See "crossing the uncann'oj valle'oj,"
The Economist, November 18, 2010, www
.economist.com / node / 17519716. Masahiro Mori
first published his theor'oj in "The uncanny
valley," trans. Karl F . MacDorman and Takashi
Minato, Energy 7, no. 4 (1970): 33-35.
20.
Gu'oj Debord, La Socit du spectacle
(Paris: Buchet-chastel, 1967); published in
English as The society of the spectacle, trans .
Donald Nicholson-Smith, reprint ed. (New york :
Zone Books, 2008) .
21.
It Gets Better project, www .itgetsbetter.org.
22 .
William H . Wh'ojte, City : Rediscovering
the Center (New York: Doubleda'oj, 1988).
23 .
Peter Hall, "Living Skins : Architecture
as Interface," Adobe Design Center Think Tank,
n.d., www.adobe.com / designcenter / thinktank
/ Iivingskins.
24.
"Ever'oj citizen to Have Personal
webpage," Telegraph, March 20, 2010, www
.telegraph.co.uk / technolog'oj / news / 74 8 4 600
/ Ever'oj-citizen-to-have-personal-webpage .html.
25.
"Taoism Goes High Tech," Wall Street
:rournal (blog), Februar'oj 14, 2011, blogs.wsj.com
/ hong-kong/ 2Dl1 / 02 / 14 / taoism-goes-hightech.
26.
The man'oj-worlds theor'oj, one
of quantum theory's most cinematic offshoots,
postulates that what is happening in this
universe becomes, in other universes, a branch
from which other events and other branches
sprout.

Con~)ersation ..

u)ith the

~Jet~/)Ork

CT

~
l1l

K hoi Uinh

The design world that I came up in-the graphic

design industr~ at the end of the last centur~
was fundamentall~ about fashioning messages:
ornamenting and embellishing content so that
a core idea, product, or service could be more
effectivel~ consumed. Even if a designer felt
compelled to obscure the content, as was
the st~le of the postmodern discourse that
dominated the field at the time, the operative
notion was that design was still elementall~
about the transmission of messages.
It took nearl~ a decade of working in
digita l media before I understood that this idea
was fundamentall~ at odds with the new archet~pe inherent in networked technolog~ . To be
sure, digital media is conducive to communication;
in fact, the Internet is perhaps the greatest
multiplier of communications that the world has
ever seen. with its enormous and pervasive
reach it transmits ideas across great distances
with great speed, among a large number of
people, and in unbelievabl~ rapid succession, ali
as a matter of course. In man~ wa~s such freedom and efficienc~ have drasticall~ democratized
communication, obsolescing the more deliberate,
thoughtful pace that communication took when
mediated b~ graphic designo But in this new
world designers are criticai not 50 much for the
transmission of messages but for the crafting
of the spaces within which those messages
can be borne .
To understand this difference, it's helpful
to look back at the predigital world and recognize
that the predominant notion of how design
worked was this : ever~ design solution was the
product of a visionar~ who birthed and nurtured
an original idea, a radical insight, or an inspired
revision . The designer gave it life and labored
over it, 50 that the original inspiration evolved
into a complete and definitive work . There was
no design without the designer.
It was a useful construct through
which to comprehend design : the idea that
a single person (or small group of people) was

responsible for a design solution allo w ed hopeful

~oung designers like me to understand this
m~ster~ as something achievable on human
terms. It made inspiration knowable and
potentiall~ reproducible, provided role models,
archet~pes to aspire to . If genius could be
embodied in a single person, then an~one might
be a genius, or at least, with work and discipline,
could learn from the wa~s of their design
heroes . These heroes could be interviewed,
written about, studied, even encountered in
the real wor ld at lectures and conferences .
The~ walked among us; if we were luck~ we
might even come to know them personall~.
In this model the designer was
something of a stor~te l ler, and the finished design
functioned as a kind of narrative . The designer
created the beginning, middle, and end, leading
the audience through something immersive,
wondrous, bracing, sat i sf~ing, and / or inspiring.
Thus the core product, whether an advertisement, magazine article, or consumer object,
would be transformed into a visual stor~: an ad
for a museum might beco me a map of the human
bod~, an interview with a musician might become
a travelogue of an alterna tive mindscape, a jar
of pasta sauce might evoke a classical age lost
to contemporar~ sensibilities . whatever the
conceit, the audience was beholden to the
designer's grand plan, e x periencing the design
according to those original intentions . The closer
the audience's e x perience to the designer's
original script, the more effective the designer .
Man~ of the greatest designers in
histor~ have been measured b~ their abilit~
to tell compelling stories. As an aspirant to
the trade, I marveled at Ale x e~ Brodovitch's
groundbreaking midcentur~ work in the
pages of Harper's Bazaar . Brodovitch forged
h~permodern tales of glamour from e x pertl~
art-directed photograph~, t~pe, and graphic
elements . In each magazine spread he ju x taposed models in une x pected poses with inventive
la~out, commanding the narrative as effectivel~

1 28

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as the magazine's editors and writers; in man~

wa~s his was the hand that eompelled eaeh
issue into a eoherent whole .
In m~ earl~ eareer I also pored over
David Carson's deeonstruetive wor k from his
signature stints as art direetor at Beaeh culture
and Ra!d Gun. with blown-out t~pe and nearl~
unreadable te x t, Carson praetieall~ usurped
the narrative in favor of his own ereative agenda,
privileging the relationship between designer
and reader while dem oting the relat ionship
between the writer and reader; he abstraeted
his own reading of the eontent into an uneonventional, head~ brand of visual narrative, something
that spoke to the unique persuasive power
that designers possessed.
These were m~ heroes: Brodoviteh,
Cipe Pineles, Paul Rand, Ale x ander Liberman,
M . F. Agha, and other originators of the visual
stor~telling methods still plumbed b~ designers
toda~, as well as Carson, Rud~ uanderLans,
Wh~ Not Assoeiates, Ed Fella, P. 5eott Makela,
Neville Brod~, and the rest of the graphie-design
insurgents who were then at the frontiers
of design authorship. It's not eas~ to rationalize
sue h diverse bodies of work in to a eoherent
influenee, but what the~ had in eommon was
that the~ were ali stor~tellers.
As I pursued a eareer in interaetion
design, I saw it as m~ dut~ to earr~ this
sensibilit~ over to a new platform. The Internet
was then, and toda~ remains, a ~oung medium,
and I reasoned that it eould onl~ benefit from
a eentur~'s worth of design eonventions and
lessons aeeumulated in the analog wor ld. And
in this I made a fundamental misealeulation.
The designer as author, as eraftsperson
bringing together beginning, middle, and end,
beeomes redundant in a spaee in whieh ever~
partieipant forges his or her own beginning,
middle, and end. And that is e x aetl~ what
happens in networked media. The narrative
reeedes, and the behavior of the design solution
beeomes prominent . what beeomes important
are questions that eoneern not the author
but the users . Ho w does the s~stem respond
to the input of its users? when a user sa~s
something to the s~stem, ho w does the
s~stem respond?
Where analog media thrived on the
eompelling power of narrative, digital media
insists on mueh less linear modes of
eommunieation. In stead of the one-to-man~
model that dominated the last eentur~-for
e x ample, a magaz'ine artiele written b~ a
single journalist and eneountered b~ thousands
of readers-the Internet is a man~-to-man~
platform, a framework in whieh ever~one

talks to ever~one and ever~ utterance might

inspire a repl~. It is a conversation rather
than a broadcast.
Although we are approaching the
commercial Internet's third decade, it feels like
we are still in an evolutionar~ phase, still coming
to grips with this transition from narrative to
conversation . We remain preoccupied b~ the
residual power of brands built upon aging narrative authorities: the major broadcast networks,
the major publishers, and the major record labels
and film studios . Yet few of these industries have
achieved trul~ comfortab le footholds in the new
landscape; the~ continue to grapple with the
new digital paradigm-sometimes elegantl~, often
fitfull~, occasionall~ with tremendous intolerance.
In part this transitional difficult~ can be
blamed on the superficial resemblance that digital
int erfaces can share w ith artifacts of the analog
wor ld: pages, headlines, paragraphs, logos, icons,
and photographs are just as common in digital
products as the~ are in print products. Graphic
communication appears to be a thread common
to both analog and digital worlds, so for man~, like
me, who came from the former, it has onl~ been
natural to tr~ to appl~ narrative thinking to the
latter. But to understand digital media as a form
of narrative is to misread the problem entirel~.
Digital media is not a printing press;
( it does not ~ield publications but objects of
a new kind-some people cal l them products,
a decidedl~ commercial (and not altogether
objectionable) term, but I prefer e x periences.
The great e x periences of this new medium
have no beginning, middle, and end; there is no
narrative arc for Google, no measurable breadth
for Facebook, no climactic resolution for Twitter.
of course the companies that brought these
e x periences to life have a narrative of their
own: the~ were founded one da~ in the not-toodistant past and the~ will fold one da~ in the
unforeseen future. But in the da~-to-da~
interactions of countless millions of people,
these e x periences e x ist as a continuum.
Certainl~ the~ are a coherent environment of pages, headlines, paragraphs, logos,
icons, and photos, but the~ are also an amalgam
of invisible user cues, organizational structures,
intentional and unintentional s~stem responses,
ambient content, constantl~ regenerating
activ it ~, and, most important, reflections of
each user, in the content, in the ornamentation,
in the ver~ personalit~ of the e x perience .
To design these s~stems is to anticipate
what cannot be planned, to create a framework
in which the une x pected can be e x pected to
happen. The designer's job is not to execute
the vision of one person but to establish the

conditions under which rich, rewarding

conversation can happen. This work occurs
at man~ different leveis, from the prompts
for user input and the character of s~stem
output to the channels for peer dialogue
and the continuai iteration that takes place
over a product's life c~cle.
Take the search function. A user enters
a term in a search field, and the s~stem reflects
back the user's intention and then some; it
must respond in a manner that acknowledges
the thrust of what was requested, but it must
also provide more-more accurac~, more depth,
more variet~ . Just as a conversation between
two people must move forward, search results
must reiterate what one participant sa~s to
the other while simu l taneousl~ sharpening and
broadening the subject of discussion.
The search function is perhaps the most
common interaction performed toda~, across
ever~ subject, under the aegis of man~ different
brands, and in count less conte x ts . Yet it is
quite often thoroughl~ unsatisf~ing, mostl~
because few s~stems can participate in
sufficientl~ rewarding search-based conversations with their users . I might argue that
in spite of its criticai importance, searching
is so difficult a problem that it has required
the most overwhe lmin g combination of human
intellect and raw computing power to design
a search e x perience that can adequatel~
converse with users: Google. Its success is
well known, but it's still worth emphasizing how
thoroughl~ Google's effectiveness has shaped
the Internet e x periences designed in the first
decade of this centur~ . Designing s~stems
in such a wa~ that their core content is transparent to Google-that is, so that it will be found
b~ Google's remarkab l ~ effective search-became
a nonnegotiable design principie for countless
digital products .
Perhaps beca use of its inherent
difficult~ and the fact that few sites have the
resources to do it well, searching, in most digital
e x periences, is designed on l ~ as a supplemental
feature. In recent ~ears more and more digital
e x periences have come to re l~ on the more
readil~ available power between peers; social
networks have become so expansivel~ propagated that the conversations between users
on these networks threaten to eclipse the
primac~ of search in terms of directing traffic .
Conversations on Facebook and Twitter-status
updates, tweets, and other fragmentar~ bits
of communication-can contain within them
recommendations, references, asides, and links
to other content and Internet destinations that
are much richer and more powerful than search

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results because the~ originate from trusted

sources. As a result we are entering an age in
whic h these conversations can be more effective
at driving attention and commerce than results
provided b~ Google and other search engines .
Designing for social media is an e x ercise
in negating the designer's authorial privilege .
E x periences that hope to reap the rewards of
rich social interactions must be in cred ibl~ mod est
in demonstrating the stor~telling ski ll s of the
designer, because the~ are ver~ much in the
business of creat ing the cond iti o ns under which
these rewarding conversations can happ en .
The~ must a ll ow the narrative to recede and
the behaviors of the s~stem to come forward.
The most popular soc ia l networksand social networks are a l wa~s measured
in popularit~-have been paragons of neutralit~.
There is a brand presence at Fa c ebook, of
course, but it is decidedl~ less prominent than the
artistic showmanship in the pages of an~ major
print magazine . The design of its predecessor,
M~space, was distinguished on l~ as a platform
for some of the most uninhibited, aestheticall~
unsound user custom izat ion ever brought into
the wor ld. And Twitter, that unpredictable out let
for billions of stra~ thoughts, ma~ be a harbinger
of design to come : a design practicall~ wit h out
a designo F or man~ users Twitter is e x perienced
through third-part~ c li e nt software; the T w itter
logo and the Twitter brand are a li but invisible,
~et at the same time the e x perience is indelibl~
Twitter. This is what digital design looks li ke
when it does awa~ w ith the biases of the
ana log world.
But social networks must do more than
allow for conversation between users. If the~
were s impl~ bulletin boards for motivated users
on the networks, if their on l~ design challenge
was to le t those who wou ld talk be heard, the~
wou ld be somet hin g ver~ different . The~ must
a lso allow for passive conversation, for the
thousands of users who pass through a posting
without speak ing up. These lur kers ma~ mark
a post as a favorite, or the~ ma~ make the
implicit endorsement o f repub li s hing it, or th e ~
ma~ forward t h e post to their own networks;
although the~ take no e x plicit action , the s impl e
fact of their having v iewed a post is auto mati ca ll~
recorded. These ghost li ke tracks are a lso a kind
of conversat ion; the~ sa~ something back to the
original poster as we ll as to themselves-their
presence is participation in itself. Designers who
create social e x periences must antic ip ate these
marginal but criticai behaviors, and there can
be a multitude of them-enough so that there
is li ttle or no room for the designer to e x ecute
e x pressions of his or her ego. As a design

c h al lenge, soc ial media is st ill new; it is significant

in its implications toda~ but wi ll on l~ become
more and more so as social net works become
more pre valent, more com pl e x , and more diffuse.
In the last decade of the twentieth
centur~ it was clear that the Internet would
transform ever~thing; now that this has nearl~
come to pass, it is becoming increasingl~ evident
that soc ial media wi ll do so as we ll. But part
of that transformation is a sense of continua i
renewal, and this is the last and perhaps the
most significant wa~ in which digital media
tran sforms the work of the designer: the designer's cha ll enge is to create a framework for t h e
use r to engage in conve rsati on, but the designer
is also now c h arged with engaging the user
in conversation through the fr amework it self.
Design solutions can no longer be conc lud ed;
the~'re now works in progress, objects that
, continuall~ evolve and are continuall~ reinvented.
A designer creates a framework for e x perience,
the user conducts e x periences within that
\ framework, and through feedback-both e x plicit
and implicit-the designer is e x pected to progressivel~ alter that e x perience to reflect the
user's usage patterns, frustrations, successes,
and une x pected b~-products. In the langua ge
o f digita l products : iterate, iterat e, iterate, and
then it erate some more . Ea ch iteration, each
ne w vers ion of the product, each modified
or opt imi zed function, each newl~ added feature
set are ali parts of the conversation between
the designer and the user. W hen an inveterate
use r of a digital product encou nt ers a new
c hange, she is li sten ing to the obje ct ta lk to her.