TV vs. Reading et al

[andrew at cee.hw.ac.uk]

Dale L. Larson writes:
> > Alas, reading is in real trouble.  Some years back I tried to campaign 
> > with managers in the personal-computer industry to get serious about 
> > adapting typographical principles and designs to what happens on our 
> > computer screens, so as to make them more readable.  The managers' eyes 

> Along the lines of the kinds of things Aaron Marcus does?

> Wow, I'm kind of surprised that people at Apple would completely ignore 
> that work.  I thought Marcus had done consulting for Apple in this area.

There's a whole discipline of Computer Science devoted to this problem
called Human Computer Interaction. In the UK it is now taught quite
regularly as an undergraduate course, and as the main theme of an MSc
course. It draws on social science and psychology for understanding
and methods which allow human perceptual limits and social
organizational factors to be identified and taken account of in the
designa and evaluation of computer systems. Typography was merely the
starting point (and note it was Xerox, a printing company, not Apple
who started it all rolling).

The reason why systems are still so difficult to use is i) vested
interests in maintaining the existing technology, with at best an HCI
gloss (usually referred to as window dressing), rather than correcting
the blunders of the past ii) little understanding of the software
engineering, management and quality control processes on the part of
HCI researchers and academics, psychologists and social scientists (of
course the tecchies are just as ignorant of these other disciplines
[and often not too hot in their own] which is why the problem arose in
the first place).

To return to the subject of TV and reading I will note that the force
behind TV which makes it so vicious is money. Cinema still has a large
slice of its output which is not heavily controlled by moneyed
interests. Books ditto. But TV is almost exclusively dominated by the
interests of advertisers and ahs been since its very early days. Even
here in the UK where we have had high quality public TV in the past
the squeeze is on public TV to gain audience figures and the product
is responding accordingly - lots of pap, which is guaranteed to catch
an audience by pandering to ignorance and sloth, interspersed with
high-budget `culture', some of it fake, some of it fer real, almost
all of it serving to keep the flag flying and provide an excuse for
the pretentious as to why they watch TV. As ever, look to the money
and power.


Andrew Dinn
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How do you know but ev'ry bird that cuts the airy way
Is an immense world of pleasure clos'd by your senses five