information centricity: adventures in monomania peter lucas maya design chi ’07 1 may, 2007
TRANSCRIPT
Information Centricity:
Adventures in Monomania
Peter Lucas
MAYA Design
CHI ’07
1 May, 2007
What it takes to change the world:
A reasonably good idea
A reasonably stable plan to get it done
Work at it year after year after year
Our Little Contribution to Monomania:
Information Centric Design
“Information Centric Design”
Term coined by Steve Roth and me in mid 1990s.
Continuous research since 1989. Refers to a style of interaction design that
emphasizes replicated persistent data objects direct manipulation user-composability collaborative visualization
A Simple Vision
Treat Data as “Things” Things have persistent identity Things have locations within some
topographic space Things are public, i.e. intrinsically shared
Direct manipulation of “things” empowers users
Automate the arrangement of “things” so as to produce lucid visualizations.
Workscape 1989-1994:
Well-funded project commissioned by Digital Equipment Corporation
Unify handling of information in the office Design and prototype a disruptive
application (high-risk/high-reward) Deal with hundreds of documents all at once
Workscape Demonstration (1993)
Introduced at CHI ‘94
Workscape ca. 1993
QuickTime™ and aH.264 decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
QuickTime™ and aTIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
The Web Forager Card, S., et al, PARC, CHI 96
“Ballay [1994] with co-workers at the MAYA Design Group implemented a 3D design for an office system. Their design is artistically striking …”
QuickTime™ and aTIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Data Mountain Robertson, G. et al, Microsoft Research, UIST ’98
“In 1994, MAYA Design Group introduced Workscape as the first example of a 3D spatial layout of documents under the user’s control.”
None of these efforts led to products
Difficult to build
Development tools poorly suited Failure of Will:
Perceived as a new “Desktop” at a time when competing with Microsoft was considered suicide
Web emerging as the new orthodoxy DEC imploding
BUT:
They helped us understand the value of a disciplined, constrained design space
Charles Eames on constraints:
Q: “Can great design be achieved in the face of severe constraints?”
A: “Great design requires severe constraints.”
The Real World is Full of Constraints
The physical world provides plenty of constraints. The laws of physics are unrelenting.
On the screen of a computer, anything is possible -- all bets are off.
Designers need to impose constraints on themselves and their designs
“Physics-based” UI Design
Well-defined object identity model (“Currency”)
Core of inviolate, consistent basic user operations
Pervasive/Ubiquitous Computing
Pervasive computing per se is a done deal and not overly interesting. Technological inevitability. Just economics.
What’s interesting is what it enables: Pervasive Information Access
Peer-to-peer technologies, massive replication, Universally-unique Identifiers (UUIDS) -> a true Cyberspace
The discipline of “thing based” design produces interaction models pre-adapted for the coming Cyberspace
Broadening agenda: VISAGE 1994-date
1994 -- new collaboration with Steve Roth and Jake and the Sage project at CMU
VISAGE was a series of ARL & DARPA-funded systems that pushed information centricity to maturity