apparatus of film and to the genre of science fiction film, specifically “Minority Report.” In addition, the use of maeve (as shown in the video on the website) suggests other genres or types of performance. Even if only one user is doing a search, the actions are widely visible. The user is cast in the role of performer, in some ways like a performer of a musical instrument, whose search patterns will be visible to others in the installation. In the video we see several users at once; their efforts seem not to be a collaboration, but more of a collective performance in which the cards they throw down form an aesthetically interesting pattern of links. They seem to be performing the role of players of some sort of collectible card game. Their performance is casual and playful, in comparison with the seemingly serious task of searching an architectural database.

Our performance of maeve constitutes an act of self-expression. Whether we try to generate beautiful patterns on it or seek to explore simi-larities in the use of materials across multiple designers says something about us. It also establishes a certain relationship to the audience. Perhaps others nearby are impressed, intimidated, or excited by the public performance of maeve. This relationship, in turn, will lead to behaviors—avoidance, conversation starting, attempting to take control of the table, and so on.

To reiterate, the key to a
performance studies approach
is the acknowledgement that
interaction occurs between or
among people (performer and
audience), not just between
user and application. The goal
of the analysis of interaction
as performance is to comple-
ment the other approaches
to yield techniques that
may be useful in interac-
tion design in an era of social
and tangible digital media.

Criticism 3: Constructing
the User of Maeve

The word “user” can be understood in two very different ways. We can think of the user either as “the kind of person that uses this application” or as “an actual person who uses this application.” The second notion of user involves real people, who can be studied through social science, from surveys and contextual inquiry to cultural probes.

But when we design, we inevitably design with the other notion in mind, a certain kind of user. This hypothetical user, around whom we build personas and scenarios, does not exist in empirical reality and must be constructed out of a combination of available data and a designer’s experience and imagination. This hypothetical user is, in a way, built into the resulting design. As a critical strategy, we can explore how designers build the hypothetical user into their designs and how that hypothetical user is “made visible” in the design itself.

Even a passing acquaintance
with maeve helps us understand
the way it constructs its users.
Obviously, maeve assumes that
users are interested in archi-
tecture. This assumption, in
turn, presumes a certain level
of knowledge of the field of
architecture and its attendant
technical vocabulary, theories,
important examples, and his-
tory. It also assumes that users
have a certain literacy with
computer-mediated information
seeking (e.g., navigation, selec-
tion, and evaluation skills). Its
aesthetic styling, akin to inter-
faces in “Minority Report” and
other sci-fi films, assumes a
user who recognizes and under-
stands science fiction’s visual
languages.

[ 10] Baudry,
J.L. “Ideological
Effects of the Basic
Cinematographic
Apparatus.” In Narrative,
Apparatus, Ideology,
ed. P. Rosen, 286-298.
New York: Columbia
University Press, 1986
[1970].

March + April 2010