Re: [microsound] music in the digital age

[michael trommer <trommer@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> 
> I don't - why should the user accept responsibility for bad design? The
> interface has to mediate a user's actions with computers. It is the job of
> good usability engineering to design interfaces (software or hardware based)
> that are intuitive. There should be feedback-loops and recognisable
> consequences of actions.
> 
> Clearly the way we work with computers currently is not satisfactory - the
> 'one system for everything' concept doesn't really work. We ask one system
> to adapt to many different uses with the same input/display hardware.
> 
> The greatest enemy to good design is familiarity with imperfect systems...
> 
> Simon.
>

i like that last quote.

however: 
 
i've been more frustrated by supposedly 'friendly' 'intuitive' interfaces
(touch screens, wearable interfaces) than by the traditional
point/click/keyboard shortcut thing... they don't really work yet, they're
limited in their own ways, and they more often seem to reflect someone
else's idea of what's necessary than my own...i'm beginning to have my
doubts that they will ever be as straightforward and adaptable as the
keyboard/mouse combo. there's something to be said for familiarity too... i
think that a big mistake (and one that's been repeated many times in the
history of design) is to refuse to accept that what people have become
accustomed to may in the end be what works best... like it or not.

just curious...what do you think are some good examples of re-thinking the
computer interface, then (without having to use different interfaces for
different applications) ?

when you say  the
> 'one system for everything' concept doesn't really work
can you give a reasonable example (i.e. nothing overly esoteric or silly) ?
i'm asking because i had a drunken conversation the other night in which we
were discussing how amazing it was that it DID seem to work (generally, more
or less, etc....at least more efficiently than any other system we could
think of) for all reasonably conceivable applications.

 it seems that a lot of people are stuck on the idea of the computer somehow
emulating the 'real' more convincingly, but computers AREN'T REALITY.
shit...do we really want dildonics ?!?
(if you're wondering about that check http://www.digitalintimacy.com/dildo/)

btw...about that drunken conversation...we concluded that the closest thing
we could think of to a 'perfect machine' was the bicycle. wonder what people
think about that...


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