Sources on Interface Criticism

As part of the broader contextualization On Instagram a look over the theory of interface design and criticism has proved most helpful. There are two articles I found offered a good overview, and a book too expensive for me to currently buy.

Interaction Criticism & Aesthetics

 * Bardzell, Jeffrey 2009. "Interaction Criticism and Aesthetics" April 4. CHI 2009, Boston.

Overview

 * Bardzell builds on previous aesthetics + criticism work on interaction/interactivity and offers some helpful critiques and ideas.


 * But his most awesome contribution is this amazing chart:

Criticism as an Approach to Interface Aesthetics

 * Bertelsen, Olav & Pold, Soren 2004. "Criticism as an Approach to Interface Aesthetics" October 23. NordiCHI '04.

Content

 * "Interactive artefacts have spread from being efficient, functional tools at the workplace, to become a medium for cultural activity" (23)


 * "It is also a cultural medium in its own terms, in the sense that interacting with interactive artefacts is an increasingly important cultural activity" (23)


 * "From antiquity until the modern age aesthetics was dominated by normative rules and guidelines on how to make beautiful, harmonic, fitting art works. But from around 1750 aesthetics developed into theories of perception, aesthetic judgement, and art. Later aesthetic theory has, while still focusing on art, widened the scope to become theories of representation, sense perception, experience, and modern culture. An important insight is that (post) modern reality is intrinsically mediated, and that representational issues are a defining part of (post-) modernity." (24)

Interface Criticism Guide

 * 1) Analyze stylistic references
 * 2) Identify the use of standards and conformance to tradition
 * 3) Consider the materiality of the interface ... Consider how the interface draws on the materiality of other media
 * 4) Identify and consider various genres in the interface
 * 5) Discuss the interface as a hybrid between the functional (control interface) and the cultural interface
 * 6) Identify representational techniques and analyze how they work (e.g. realistic and naturalistic representations vs. symbolic and allegorical representations)
 * 7) Identify challenges to users' expectations
 * 8) Consider the developmental potentials. How is development in use supported? How may the interface support the development of unanticipated use?


 * All on 26

Interface Criticism: Aesthetics Beyond Buttons

 * Andersen, Christian Ulrik & Pold, Soren 2011. Interface Criticism: Aesthetics Beyond Buttons. Aarhus University Press.


 * Haven't read this, but it is a collected volume of essays and looks awesome!