So in the readings for Thursday (Bolter & Gromala, 369-82, “Transparency and Reflectivity: Digital Art and the Aesthetics of Interface Design”), I just wanted to ask if anyone noticed that (or agrees with):
Present to Hand & Transparency are the same thing.
Ready to Hand & Reflectivity are the same thing.
Transparency Def:
“… they usually assume that the interface should serve as a transparent window, presenting the user with an information workspace without interference or distortion. They expect the user to focus on the task not the interface itself.”
Reflectivity Def: “There are times when the user wants to be immersed in the data and to forget the interface, and other times when the user needs to step back and look at the interface rather than through it.”
Present-to-hand
You awareness is on the tool, not the task.
Ready-to-hand
You are using the tool, but your awareness is on the task.
————————————–
Do you agree? Yea? Nae?
Are the differences that I am not seeing/understanding? (If so, please make them “present-to-hand” for me!)
Thanks!
8 comments
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November 13, 2009 at 7:24 am
vidya
From what I understood, it is the opposite of what you say. Transparency is ready-to-hand since it makes the artifact/tool transparent and helps the user see-through it and focus on the task. Whereas ‘present-to-hand’ makes us more aware of the artifact/tool itself and hence reflect on what we did and our relationship with the work. So this is ‘reflectivity’. The authors also talk about the two emblems – Window for Transparency and mirror for Reflectivity. I really liked the example given in the reading.
[Pg 378, Bolter Gormala]
” there are times when the user wants to be immersed in the data and forget about the interface and other times when the user needs to step back and look at the interface rather than through it. The need to step back becomes apparent when the application fails, or when the interface provides the user with a message that is totally unexpected”
The former is ready-to-hand[Transparency] and the latter is present-to-hand [Reflectivity].
Hope this makes sense.
November 13, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Yuebo
Ditto with Vidya.
November 13, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Chung-Ching Huang
I agree with argument that transparency is ready-to-hand; however, I doubt that present-at-hand is directly equal to reflectivity.
Sometime interface comes into your main consciousness for several reason, including interface flaws, outsider intervention, or just user’s reflective looking at the interface.
I think the real reason behind the reflective behavior is super interesting. So many stuffs behind that. Users might be impressed by the powe and capability of some software, feeling certain kind of beauty. Or, the logic and procedures in software tasks are related to their past experience, or enhance the current thinking/logic/behavior of current ones.
November 13, 2009 at 3:34 pm
vidya
I agree that they are not directly equal especially because reflectivity on the application is much more than the interface, it might come from the data presented or any other subjective understanding the user might bring to the interaction or for many reasons as you say. But, having said that in the context of interface – reflectivity of the interface is directly correlated to the concept of present-to-hand.
Since present-to-hand and ready-to-hand are more used in context of the tool itself rather than the data, emergent qualities etc., I kind of thought it was understood. Sorry for not being explicit about that. Thanks for the clarification Chung-Ching!
November 13, 2009 at 3:50 pm
lynndombrowski
Also, I wasn’t looking at the statements I parsed to be the one and only definition, I was just looking at how the author was using those definitions, and I think if you look how they are using those definitions, then they become very very similar. (IMHO!)
November 13, 2009 at 3:47 pm
lynndombrowski
Opps! Thanks Vidya et al., about catching my mistake! (Maaaaaybeee I shouldn’t write posts at 2am!)
November 16, 2009 at 3:14 am
Casey Addy
I would think that these types of interface qualities “lead to” or “imbue” our designs with the qualities Heidigger is talking about. With having an interface be transparent, we are free to use the tool and focus on the task at hand, which imbues that interaction with the ability for it to be present at hand (it still needs to be learned by us or have us think of it in this way in order for it to become transparent). When we have an interface imbued with reflective qualities, it is given an opportunity for the user to see that the interaction may be “broken”, or force us to take a step back and have us analyze the steps we need to take to get an interaction to work for us (again, I see it as an opportunity for this to happen), and how we can then work with it again to be epic.
So I would agree with the spirit of what Lynn is saying, but if I had to be in the lifeworld of a reviewer, I would have to say that I don’t completely buy into this notion of “equality”.
November 16, 2009 at 4:31 am
milara
When I first read the article I also had a similar thought about this analogy. It certainly seems that “transparency” can be associated to Heidigger’s “ready-to-hand” concept (expecting the user to focus in the task and not in the interface itself).
About “reflectivity”, Bolter & Gromala start describing it very similar to the “present-at-hand” concept (being aware of the application when it fails). However, in subsequent paragraphs they seem to suggest that it goes beyond that, including as well the user’s subjective preferences (“devices are part of the user’s physical world and cannot meaningfully be separated from it”). Finally, the authors seem to also suggest that “reflectivity” shares some of Borgmann’s “engaging capacity” concept (the highly interactive examples about T-Garden and Brandt’s Exclusion Zone).
So, in summary, just as Vidya and Chung-Ching had already stated it, it seems that “reflectivity” means more than just “present-at-hand”