Magic Ink: Information Software and the Graphical Interface

Amazing Paper by Bret Victor. 

He challenges current computer interaction paradigm and paints a picture of the feature where all the “interacting” of clicking, dragging, and typing will be unnecessary by design.

I love his closing remarks: 

The future will be context-sensitive. The future will not be interactive.

Are we preparing for this future? I look around, and see a generation of bright, inventive designers wasting their lives shoehorning obsolete interaction models onto crippled, impotent platforms. I see a generation of engineers wasting their lives mastering the carelessly-designed nuances of these dead-end platforms, and carelessly adding more. I see a generation of users wasting their lives pointing, clicking, dragging, typing, as gigahertz processors spin idly and gigabyte memories remember nothing. I see machines, machines, machines.

I expect that designers who cling to these models will appear to the next generation like classical physicists as the world turned quantum, like epicycle-plotters as Kepler drew ellipses, like Aristotelians as Galileo stood atop the tower at Pisa. No matter how hard they work or how much they invent, these designers will not be revered as pioneers. They are blazing trails through a parking lot.

Our pioneers are those who transcend interaction—designers whose creations anticipate, not obey. The hero of tomorrow is not the next Steve Wozniak, but the next William Playfair. An artist who redefines how people learn. An artist who paints with magic ink.

Context: Lance Armstrong battling cancer.

His brain tumors were surgically removed by Scott A. Shapiro, MD, Professor of Neurosurgery at Indiana University and Resident Director, and were found to contain extensive necrosis.^[11] According to Armstrong’s first book, Dr. Shapiro convinced him that he was the right neurosurgeon for him by saying: “You’ll have to convince me you know what you’re doing,” said Armstrong. “Look, I’ve done a large number of these,” Shapiro said, “I’ve never had anyone die, and I’ve never made anyone worse.” “Yeah, but why should you be the person who operates on my head?” Armstrong responded. “Because as good as you are at cycling”-he paused-“I’m a lot better at brain surgery”.

[wikipedia]

Interesting to think about when you think back to a skill you mastered or are currently mastering.

Michael Eraut summarized the five stages of increasing skill as follows:^[2]

1. Novice

• “rigid adherence to taught rules or plans”
• no exercise of “discretionary judgment”

2. Advanced beginner

• limited “situational perception”
• all aspects of work treated separately with equal importance

3. Competent

• “coping with crowdedness” (multiple activities, accumulation of information)
• some perception of actions in relation to goals
• deliberate planning
• formulates routines

4. Proficient

• holistic view of situation
• prioritizes importance of aspects
• “perceives deviations from the normal pattern”
• employs maxims for guidance, with meanings that adapt to the situation at hand

5. Expert

• transcends reliance on rules, guidelines, and maxims
• “intuitive grasp of situations based on deep, tacit understanding”
• has “vision of what is possible”
• uses “analytical approaches” in new situations or in case of problems