TV vs. Reading et al

[David Casseres]

>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 

That was me, Dale replying as follows:

>> Wow, I'm kind of surprised that people at Apple would completely ignore 
>> that work.

>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).

That's true, but as a matter of history, note that Xerox's role in 
developing what we now see as "mainstream" human interface design has 
been greatly exaggerated.  They started the ball rolling but most of the 
identifiable features that survive came from Apple.

On the other hand it's extremely important to note, as you do, that Xerox 
is to this day a company whose main interest is in putting marks on 
pieces of paper.  The fundamental idiocy (look out, here comes my rant) 
of the first 10-15 years of personal computing was the notion that what 
the user is trying to produce is a piece of paper with marks on it.  Not 
an organization of ideas, and not something useful on the computer 
screen.  So all the typography is appropriate to the printed page, not to 
the screen, and most of the power given to the user is about that 
paper-bound typography, not about the content represented in the 
typography.  Marshall McLuhan died for our sins, and it's only in the 
last few years that one can talk to people in the industry about the 
computer as a new medium for communication without being dismissed as an 
unintelligible crackpot.

By the way there are now some software products that concentrate on 
manipulating text on the screen, with screen-appropriate typography and 
many features to aid the user in viewing the text in different ways, 
analytical tools, automated cross-referencing, special conventions for 
seeing the underlying structure of the content, etc.  They are meant for 
writing and modifying the source code of computer programs, and are used 
exclusively by techies.

>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...

Quite so.  Yet note that to correct a blunder of the past may, in many 
cases, constitute a blunder of today.

>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).

Yes.  Real cluelessness is much harder to control in the psychological 
and social disciplines than in software design, though it does occur on 
both sides.

>To return to the subject of TV and reading I will note that the force
>behind TV which makes it so vicious is money.

No surprise!

>Cinema still has a large
>slice of its output which is not heavily controlled by moneyed
>interests. Books ditto.

Less every day, I gravely fear.

>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.

As ever.  Here is a case, by the way, of the technology itself 
(broadcasting) determining the way the medium is financed (either public 
money, or commercial sponsorship) and thus guaranteeing that the product 
as delivered can only be what They decide it should be.


Cheers,
David