Cornell University | kirstenboehner@gmail.com
[ 1] Bolter, J. and
Gromala, D. Windows
and Mirrors: Interaction
Design, Digital
Art, and the Myth
of Transparency.
Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 2003.
[ 2] Gaver, B., Sengers, P., Kerridge, T., Kaye, J. and Bowers, J. “Enhancing Ubiquitous Computing with User Interpretation: Field Testing the Home Health Horoscope.” Proceedings of CHI 2007, ACM Press: 537–546.
[ 3] Pousman, Z., Romero, M., Smith, A., and Mateas, M. “Living with Tableau Machine: A Longitudinal Evaluation of a Curious Domestic Appliance.” Proceedings of UbiComp 2008, ACM Press: 370–379.
November + December 2009
[ 4] Denef, S., Ramirez, L., Dyrks, T. “Letting Tools Talk: Interactive Technology for Fire Systems.” Proceedings of CHI 2009, ACM Press: 4447–4452.
I’m terrified of flying over the ocean. This is an unfortunate neurosis, considering my constant trans-Atlantic travel. My husband tries to assuage my fear of the dark ocean and its creatures engulfing me: He assures me I’d be dead on impact. Somehow this fails to comfort me.
While writing this article, a search for the remains of Air France Flight 447 is under way. I want the black boxes (or the orange cylinders) to tell us what happened. I want the people touched by this tragedy to have a small degree of peace. For myself, I want to be able to ask the pilot on my next flight, “Excuse me, have the Pitot sensors been replaced?”
This incident has prompted reflection for me beyond mortality, chance, and my own fears. I am coauthoring a book that promotes a “representation as response” orientation for computing design, yet I seem to be longing for the more dominant “representation as reality” approach. Why?
interactions
[ 5] Sengers, P. and Gaver, W. “Staying Open to Interpretation.” Proceedings of DIS 2006, ACM Press: 99–108.
The Ideal of Reality A representation as reality approach forges a one-to-one correspondence between something in the world and its abstract computer representation. This approach is at play, for example, in Intel’s vision for a “proactive
home” that could detect and deter intruders, adapt light levels and music for an impromptu party, or alert distant relatives if grandma were to fall in the shower. Implementing this system depends on matching events in the world, such as “upright grandma in shower,” with modeled states and programmed responses of the computer system, such as “all is well; do nothing.” This approach underlies the majority of advances in computing. It may also inform what happened to Flight 447.
An Alternative: Representation as Response. I am interested, however, in an alternate approach to the proactive home in particular and digital systems in general—representation as response. In this approach the system design and evaluation do not strive to mirror reality, but rather to provide a lens through which to apprehend or interpret reality [ 1]. Consider, for example, the Home Health Horoscope (HHH) [ 2] and the Tableau Machine (TM) [ 3]. The HHH ( partially funded by Intel’s People and Practices Group) generates a horoscope projecting the needs or dispositions of the home based on past activities. The TM animates real-time visual displays of the energy, density, and flow of home activity. Both systems use a complex array of sensors to model home activity, yet neither
proposes to understand exactly what is happening. Instead they present contingent representations that require active participation and interpretation. But contingency is not what I want in relation to Flight 447.
Is there a limit, then, to the representation as response approach for HCI? Could an interpretive approach work for safety-critical systems? One affirmative response points out that playful/ interpretive experiences are not limited to play. Another produces examples of safety critical systems that require a degree of openness to interpretation [e.g., 4, 5]. Notwithstanding these arguments, my reaction to Flight 447 has caused me to examine whether there is anything necessarily wrong with the representation as reality approach. Why not use technology to protect grandma at home or prevent future plane accidents?
Trouble in Paradise. The utility of systems that strive to model reality is obvious; systems designed in this manner, however, may lead to unintended, and undesirable, consequences.
Incomplete, Flat, and the Old Switcheroo. All designs have unintended consequences. Yet let’s examine consequences that occur because of, not in spite of, the representation as reality approach. The beleaguered history of symbolic AI demonstrates
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