![found in calcareous soil, preferring always a soil of feldspar, and like
the chestnut flourishes best in a sandy one.” [11]
The cork-oak attains a height of from six to eighteen meters, at
times reaching fifty meters[12] and measures as much as 1.22
meters in diameter.[13] Its branches are covered with small
evergreen leaves, which are rather spongy and velvety to the touch,
have a glossy appearance and a saw-tooth edge, measuring about
three to five centimeters[14] long and one and one-half to two wide.
The roots are strong and spread considerably, and frequently are to
be seen on the surface of the ground. The flowers or blossoms make
their appearance in May; the fruit ripens in the fall or winter, from
September to January, and falling from the tree as soon as ripe.
Three qualities of acorns are to be observed according to their time
of ripening and are called, “brevas primerizas de San Miguel,” which
ripen in September; the second or middling “Martinencas,” which
ripen in October and November; and finally the “tardias Ó palo-
Meras,” which ripen in December and January. These acorns form
one of the forest’s chief sources of revenue, since fed to swine, they
give a peculiarly piquant flavor to the meat, Spanish mountain hams
being noted for their excellence. [15]
In the following paragraphs I will quote principally from Consul
Schenck’s Report, 1890, relating to the growing and procuring of the
bark for shipment, with interpolated sentences and slight changes,
made necessary by other data at hand. The most common practice
is to cultivate this plant by sowing, which is frequently done, above
all, in ground somewhat manured, making alternate furrows with
vines. Up to their twentieth or twenty-fifth year the ground is
cultivated as if it were a vineyard, rooting up at that age the vines
on account of producing less fruit, and also on account of the cork
trees being pretty well grown up and no longer requiring the shelter
of the vines. At the end of even one year it is difficult to transplant
the cork tree on account of the length of the roots, principally the
central one, and if the trees are put out with the intention of
transplanting they are generally sewn in a false ground bottom made
artificially at a certain depth with layers of stones or bricks. French](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/2676597-250530051521-842f5d7b/85/Hci-And-Userexperience-Design-Fastforward-To-The-Past-Present-And-Future-1st-Edition-Aaron-Marcus-56-320.jpg)
![DISEASES
The cork tree has in no wise escaped from disease and infections;
on the contrary it has its full allotted share which worries the
growers more than the acquiring of a perfect texture, and unless
great care is taken will greatly reduce the value of a crop. The larva
of the Coroebus undatus (corch) attacks the interior of the cork,
penetrating frequently into the tree itself, which causes an
undervaluation in the quality of the cork, and, moreover, these
perforations unite so closely and in such a manner even in the trunk
of the tree that in peeling off the cork, part of the skin of the trunk
itself comes off, causing much damage to the tree.
The larva of the Cerambyx cerdo, as well as the ant, Formica rufa L.
hormigas, destroys the fine cork with their numerous borings and
galleries. Jaspered (Jasperado) is the name by which is known one
of the defects of the cork which reduces it greatly in value and as far
as can be learned comes from the tree itself. The porosity of cork is
greatly increased by the presence of cork-meal, resulting from the
disintegration of the Sclerenchyma, or stone cells, which penetrate
the cork fiber and falling to a powder facilitate the entrance of
infection.[16]](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/2676597-250530051521-842f5d7b/85/Hci-And-Userexperience-Design-Fastforward-To-The-Past-Present-And-Future-1st-Edition-Aaron-Marcus-59-320.jpg)
![STRIPPING
[17]The corkwood or cork of commerce is the external part or
“periderm” of the cork-oak; and when it has attained a diameter of
approximately 12.7 centimeters or the tree measures forty
centimeters in circumference according to the Spanish governmental
regulations, which the tree does usually by the time it is twenty
years old, the bark may be removed. The stripping generally takes
place during July and August, and it is a process which demands skill
and care, if injury to the bark is to be avoided. In Algeria the French
strippers sometimes use crescent-shaped saws, but under the usual
Spanish method a hatchet, with a long handle, is the only implement
employed. The bark is cut clear through, around the base of the
tree, and a similar incision is made around the trunk, just below the
spring of the main branches; the two incisions are then connected
by one or two longitudinal cuts, following, so far as possible, the
deepest of the natural cracks in the bark. Inserting the wedge-
shaped handle, the tree’s covering is then pried off. The larger
branches are stripped in the same manner, yielding, generally, a finer
grade of cork than that of the trunk. The thickness of the bark
ranges from 1.27 centimeters to 6.85 centimeters, while the yield
also varies greatly from twenty to 75 kilograms[18] per tree,
depending upon its size and age. After the first stripping the tree is
left in the juvenescent state to regenerate, and great care must be
taken in the stripping not to injure the inner skin or epidermis at any
stage of the process, for the life of the tree depends upon its proper
preservation, for if injured at any point, growth there ceases and the
spot remains forever afterward scarred and uncovered. It is also
necessary to avoid stripping during the prevalence of a sirocco,](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/2676597-250530051521-842f5d7b/85/Hci-And-Userexperience-Design-Fastforward-To-The-Past-Present-And-Future-1st-Edition-Aaron-Marcus-61-320.jpg)
![which would dry the inner skin too rapidly and therefore exclude all
further formation of cork.
The Capgrand-Mothe system, which, as known, consists of dressing
the trunk with the same cork just removed, and leaving it so dressed
for a couple of months, has not met with approval, as being
impracticable on a large scale. After the stripping, the phellogen, the
seat of the growing processes, undertakes at once the formation of
a new covering of finer texture, and each year this, the real skin,
with its life-giving sap, forms two layers of cells, one within,
increasing the diameter of the trunk, the other without, adding
thickness to the sheathing of bark. After eight or ten years this
sheathing is removed, and while more valuable than the first
stripping, it is not as fine in quality as that of the third and
subsequent strippings, which follow at regular intervals of about nine
years. At the age of about forty years the oak begins to yield its best
bark, continuing productive as a rule for almost a century.[19] The
cork of the first barking is called Corcho-Bornio, Borniza or virgin,
and is so coarse, rough, and dense in texture that it is of little
commercial value. The second barking is called “pelas,” or secondary
cork, and this and subsequent barkings constitute the cork of
commerce. As the bark is removed it is gathered up in piles (rusque)
and left for a few days to dry. Having been weighed, it is next
carried either in wagons or on the backs of burros to the boiling
station, where it is stacked and allowed to season for a few weeks.
It is then ready for the boiling process. The outside of the bark in its
natural state is, as may well be imagined, rough and woody, owing
to exposure to the weather. After boiling this useless outer coating is
readily scraped off, thereby reducing the weight of the material
almost twenty per cent. The boiling process also serves to remove
the tannic acid, increases the volume and elasticity of the bark,
renders it soft and pliable and flattens it out for convenient packing.
After being roughly sorted as to quality and thickness, the bark is
then ready for its first long journey, and as the forests are generally
located in hilly or even mountainous country, the faithful burro must
again be called into service. Truly the Spaniards’ best friend, though](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/2676597-250530051521-842f5d7b/85/Hci-And-Userexperience-Design-Fastforward-To-The-Past-Present-And-Future-1st-Edition-Aaron-Marcus-62-320.jpg)
![the worst treated of all, these patient little animals present a most
grotesque appearance when loaded from head to hind quarters with
a huge mass of the light bark. Down from the hills they go in trains
of thirty, forty or even a hundred, threading the rocky bridle paths in
single file and wending their way through the narrow streets of
quaint villages where traces of Moorish occupancy may still be seen,
to the nearest railway station. The corkwood is there freighted to the
various sea-port warehouses in Spain and Portugal, Seville, Spain
being perhaps the largest depository and user of raw material.[20]
This historic city, situated on the banks of the Guadalquivir, presents
a very animated sight in the summer months, and plays a very
important part in the cork industry, for besides the numerous
warehouses for storing and shipping there are factories for the
manipulation of cork and its conversion into the many useful forms
in which it has proven of value. Before shipping, the bales are
opened, the edges of the bark trimmed and the bark then sorted
into the various grades of quality and thickness again. The
importance of this last mentioned operation cannot be
overemphasized, as the whole problem of the successful and
economical manufacture of corks center about it. After sorting it is
ready to be rebaled for shipment, this generally being done by
placing the large, flat pieces called planks or tables, at the bottom of
the bales, and above them the small pieces which are covered in
turn with larger sections; then the whole mass being subjected to
pressure to render it compact, afterward being bound up securely
with steel hoops or wires. Each bale carefully marked indicating the
grade or quality, loaded directly into ocean-going steamers and
shipped to the ports of the world.
From this meager description we at least can learn what “corkwood”
is, the limited sphere of its growth, the constant care necessary to
insure a successful harvest or gathering, the peculiarities of the tree,
its longevity and the general mode of preparing the bark for
shipment; the narration in no wise doing justice to this most
interesting material, in its natural state, for its growing is a
fascinating tale in itself; but for the purpose of this writing the](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/2676597-250530051521-842f5d7b/85/Hci-And-Userexperience-Design-Fastforward-To-The-Past-Present-And-Future-1st-Edition-Aaron-Marcus-63-320.jpg)
![I
BOTANY AND CHEMISTRY
N considering “cork” for the purpose of ascertaining its
characteristics, texture and composition we will, instead of
analyzing the material after it has reached the market, look at it
from the standpoint of botany and learn of its formation upon the
tree, from which it is procured. It appears that the word “cork”[21] in
botany signifies a growth peculiar to all plants and pertaining to
none in particular, being described as “a peculiar tissue in the higher
plants forming the division of the bark (which name is sometimes
restricted to the dead tissues lying outside the cork); consisting of
closely packed air-cells nearly impervious to air and water and
protects the underlying tissues.”[22] Again, “It is produced by the
activity and division of certain merismatic cells known as phellogen
or cork cambium which are situated immediately within the
epidermal covering of the young growth. As the cork cells grow
older, their protoplasmic contents disappear and are replaced by air.
In order that this formation may be clearly understood, I will quote
from a paragraph entitled “Cork and Epidermal Formations Produced
by It” contained in “A Text Book on Botany,” by Sacks.
“When succulent organs of the higher plants, no longer in the bud
condition, are injured, the wound generally becomes closed up by
cork tissue, i.e., new cells arise near the wounded surface by
repeated division of those which are yet sound, and these forming a
firm skin separate the inner tissue from the outer injured layers of
cells. The walls of this tissue offer the strongest resistance to the
most various agencies, similar to the cuticular layers of the epidermis
in their physical behavior, flexible and elastic, permeable only with
difficulty by air and water, they for the most part soon lose their](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/2676597-250530051521-842f5d7b/85/Hci-And-Userexperience-Design-Fastforward-To-The-Past-Present-And-Future-1st-Edition-Aaron-Marcus-66-320.jpg)
![small. Solid substances, with the exception of cork, offer equally
obstinate resistance to change of bulk; even India rubber, which
most people would suppose capable of very considerable change of
volume, we find it really very rigid. Metals, when subjected to
pressure which exceed their elastic limits so that they are
permanently deformed, as in forging or wire drawing, remain
practically unchanged in volume per unit of weight. Not so with cork,
its elasticity has not only a very considerable range, but it is very
persistent. Thus in the better kind of corks used in bottling
champagne and other effervescing wines, you are familiar with the
extent to which the corks expand the instant they escape from the
bottles. I have measured this expansion and find it to amount to an
increase of volume of seventy-five per cent; even after the corks
have been kept in a state of compression in the bottles for ten years.
[23] When cork is subjected to pressure, either in one direction or
from every direction, a certain amount of permanent deformation or
permanent set takes place. This property is common to all solid
elastic substances when strained beyond their elastic limits, but with
cork the limits are comparatively low.” To take advantage of the
peculiar properties of cork in mechanical applications it is necessary
to determine accurately the law of its resistance to compression, and
for this purpose Mr. Anderson instituted a series of experiments of
this kind. Into a strong iron vessel of five and one half gallons’
capacity he introduced a quantity of cork and filled the interstices
with water, carefully getting out all the air. He then proceeded to
pump in water until definite pressures up to one thousand pounds
per square inch had been reached, and at every one hundred
pounds the weight of the water pumped in was determined. In this
way, after many repetitions, he obtained the decrease of volume due
to any given increase of pressure. The observations have been
plotted into the form of a curve which is discernible on the
accompanying diagram.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/2676597-250530051521-842f5d7b/85/Hci-And-Userexperience-Design-Fastforward-To-The-Past-Present-And-Future-1st-Edition-Aaron-Marcus-70-320.jpg)
![Suberone (C14H24O2) being regarded as the ketone of suberic acid,
an aromatic liquid compound obtained when suberic acid is distilled
with an excess of lime.[24] Also described as a colorless oil with an
odor of peppermint and a boiling point of 179 to 181 degrees
Centigrade, chemical formula, Suberone—Cycloheptanone—
CH2 . CH2 . CH2
/
CO
CH2 . CH2 . CH2
Suberate (C8H12M2O4) is known as the salt of suberic acid having a
metal cast,[25] and Suberin or cellulose[26]—is that portion remaining
after nitration and is chemically expressed by the formula (C6H10O5).
Dr. Robert K. Duncan, Prof. of Industrial Chemistry in the University
of Kansas, informs us that this material is the commonest of
common things[27] and when dry, forms one third of all the
vegetable matter in the world. This mysterious substance is the
structural basis of the wood, but with all its prominence and use, we
know nothing more about it than that which is expressed in the
formula.
The presence of this cellulose is only a natural fact, as the greater
part of plant life is cellulose; nor is the list of elements that go to
make up the solid matter so strange and unaccountable, but the
quality that makes it a wonderful growth and so popular above its
fellows is its lightness—this is its commendable feature and it is light
indeed.
Ure puts the specific gravity at .24 and this is concurred in by
Brisbane.
Test of Corkwood for Ascertaining the Possible Presence
of an Essential Oil, by Steam Distillation](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/2676597-250530051521-842f5d7b/85/Hci-And-Userexperience-Design-Fastforward-To-The-Past-Present-And-Future-1st-Edition-Aaron-Marcus-73-320.jpg)
Hci And Userexperience Design Fastforward To The Past Present And Future 1st Edition Aaron Marcus
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- 5. Human–Computer Interaction Series Aaron Marcus HCI and User-Experience Design Fast-Forward to the Past, Present, and Future
- 6. Human–Computer Interaction Series Editors-in-chief Desney Tan, Microsoft Research, USA Jean Vanderdonckt, Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium
- 7. HCI is a multidisciplinary field focused on human aspects of the development of computer technology. As computer-based technology becomes increasingly pervasive – not just in developed countries, but worldwide – the need to take a human-centered approach in the design and development of this technology becomes ever more important. For roughly 30 years now, researchers and practitioners in computational and behavioral sciences have worked to identify theory and practice that influences the direction of these technologies, and this diverse work makes up the field of human-computer interaction. Broadly speaking it includes the study of what technology might be able to do for people and how people might interact with the technology. The HCI series publishes books that advance the science and technology of developing systems which are both effective and satisfying for people in a wide variety of contexts. Titles focus on theoretical perspectives (such as formal approaches drawn from a variety of behavioral sciences), practical approaches (such as the techniques for effectively integrating user needs in system development), and social issues (such as the determinants of utility, usability and acceptability). Titles published within the Human–Computer Interaction Series are included in Thomson Reuters’Book Citation Index, The DBLP Computer Science Bibliography and The HCI Bibliography. More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/6033
- 8. Aaron Marcus HCI and User-Experience Design Fast-Forward to the Past, Present, and Future
- 9. Content originally appeared in ACM Interactions Magazine 2002–2007 as part of ‘Fast Forward’ by Aaron Marcus, ©Aaron Marcus and Associates 2014 – used with permission. ISSN 1571-5035 Human–Computer Interaction Series ISBN 978-1-4471-6743-3 ISBN 978-1-4471-6744-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-4471-6744-0 Library of Congress Control Number: 2015947767 Springer London Heidelberg New York Dordrecht © Springer-Verlag London 2015 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Printed on acid-free paper Springer-Verlag London Ltd. is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com) Aaron Marcus Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc. Berkeley, CA, USA
- 10. I dedicate this book to the primary professional mentors of my life: Ms. Zenaide Luhr (may she rest in peace), formerly my art teacher, Omaha Central High School, who encouraged/assisted the development of my artistic and visual design skills (1967–1961). Mr. Gilette G. Griffin, formerly Curator, Graphic Arts Collection, Princeton University Firestone Library, who encouraged my graphic design and photography interests while being a physics major and helped me to learn about, enter, and get accepted to Yale University Graduate School of Art and Architecture’s Department of Graphic Design (1961–1965). Prof. Alvin Eisenman (may he rest in peace), formerly Chair, Graphic Design Department, School of Art and Architecture, Yale University, who encouraged my graphic design education and my involvement in computer graphics (1965–1968).
- 11. Prof. Paul Rand (may he rest in peace), formerly faculty member, Graphic Design Department, School of Art and Architecture, Yale University, who taught me about grids and introduced me to systematic graphic design thinking (1967–1968). Dr. Emilio Ambasz, formerly Assistant Curator, Department of Design, Museum of Modern Art, New York City, who invited me to take over his visual communication/design course at the School of Architecture and Urban Planning and enabled me to join the faculty of Princeton University for 9 years (1968–1977). Mr. Richard Saul Wurman, formerly Architect and later creator of the TED Conferences, who invited me to join him in his Philadelphia office to work on a second (later unpublished) version of Making the City Observable, which moved me along in my shift towards information design and visualization (1976). Dr. A. Michael Noll, formerly Staff Scientist, AT&T Bell Labs, who, together at the time with Dr. Peter Denes (may he rest in peace), invited me to join their group researching computer graphics, which led to my shift to computer-based graphic design and visual communication for the rest of my career (1967–1971). Prof. Sheila deBretteville, now Head, Graphic Design Department, School of Art and Architecture, Yale University, who invited me decades ago to become a
- 12. Research Fellow, East–West Center, Honolulu, Hawaii, to research and design a nonverbal storytelling system for communicating global energy interdependence, which led to my fundamental shift to information-oriented graphic design and visualization (1978). Dr. Carl Quong, formerly Head, Computer Science and Mathematics Department, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, who gave me an opportunity to join his team as a Staff Scientist (because they could not think what else to call me) and thereby helped to begin my career in user-interface design, information design and visualization, and user-experience design (1981–1982). Dr. Ronald Baecker, formerly Professor, Computer Science Department, University of Toronto, who took an interest in my career, enabled me to join him in a 3-year DARPA project as co-principal investigator of new conventions for the C programming language, and was later a coauthor of our book about the project and taught me much about research and writing (1982–1985; 1989–1990). Dr. Andries van Dam, formerly Professor, Computer Science Department, Brown University, with whom I coauthored a major paper on the future of HCI and who taught me much about technical writing (1993).
- 14. ix Foreword In 1980, I attended an early SIGGRAPH conference in Seattle. My academic career was on hold as I learned about business and entrepreneurship the old-fashioned way. Our company wasn’t then doing computer graphics, the field in which I did my Ph.D., but I was keen to stay current. The session that struck me the most was the opening plenary panel keynote given by a tall, bearded, scholarly looking man—Aaron Marcus. The panel, organized by Aaron, introduced the field of graphic design to the computer graphics research community. We spoke at length during the conference reception, held on a cruise of Lake Washington. Although trained in physics, electrical engineering, and the beginnings of computer science, I had empowered my dissertation research by collaborating with two artists and animators, most importantly Eric Martin, and so I was open to learning about graphic design. In speaking with Aaron, I developed the sense that graphic design was key to the success of not only computer graphics and the yet-to-be-invented field of scientific visualization but to the discipline of human-computer interaction, also not yet known to be a field. Aaron spoke of outerfaces, interfaces, and innerfaces—visual methods of elucidating and enhancing function, process, and structure of informa- tion displays, user interaction, and what eventually came to be known as software visualization. He asserted that typography, illustration, sign/symbol design, layout, and sequencing were essential to unlocking the power and potential of the digital computer. The Xerox Star was then little known, and the Macintosh did not arrive until 1984. So we can see that Aaron was way ahead of his time. I soon began to work with Aaron on methods of applying graphic design and typography to make computer program source texts more readable. We also became good friends and so I am pleased to introduce this volume of some of Aaron’s recent writings. Aaron’s commentaries range broadly from metaphor to branding, from robots to dashboards, from corporate success to BabyCHI, from the out-of-box experience to the fun user experience. They betray a rich imagination, an unwillingness to be
- 15. x cowed by conventional “wisdom.” But here is what I find especially salient for potential readers of this book: Aaron refers them to a broad set of additional disciplines that today’s students and practitioners of HCI design are unlikely to have studied sufficiently or in some cases not even explored, for example, metaphor, semiotics, design patterns, culture, the anthropology of time, and even comics. Readers will find this volume an excel- lent launching point for continuing their education. Aaron challenges us to question our assumptions, as with curriculum, and define our terms, as in thinking about users. There is no area of HCI design that is out of his scope, from babies to kids to geezers, from emotion to corporate success. Aaron reminds us constantly to think cross-culturally. Speaking knowingly from numerous visits to Japan and China, he encourages us to enhance our design imagi- nation, to think critically, and to ensure that our designs work as broadly as possible. This writing is filled with neat ideas and wisdom and humor—browse, read, and enjoy! Laboratory of Technology for Aging Gracefully Ronald Baecker University of Toronto Toronto, ON, Canada Foreword
- 16. xi Preface This book grew out of a series of essays in a column called “Fast Forward” that I published in Interactions Magazine, the flagship/membership publication of the ACM Special Interest Group on Human-Computing Interaction (SIGCHI) from 2002 to 2007. I wrote the essays in a way that I hoped would make them “timeless” and give them a “long shelf life,” avoiding getting caught up in the latest tools or mini-trends. The editors permitted me the opportunity to write about interests and concerns of mine regarding the past, present, and future of our profession. I focused more on the essentials of the development process (planning, research, analysis, design, evaluation, implementation, documentation, training, and marketing) and on the essential components (metaphors, mental models, navigation, interaction, and appearance) of user interfaces and user experiences. I was seeking to educate the readership to disciplines, topics, and issues that might stretch their minds and lead them to consider their current research and design activities from a different perspective. Eventually new magazine leadership deemed it appropriate to bring this series to an end. I was grateful for the enlightened leader- ship of the past series of editors that allowed me to “publish at will” (subject to editorial corrections and enhancements that benefitted the texts and imagery). I am also grateful for the many emails that I received thanking me for introducing new topics into the magazine and into professional readers’ minds. I hope the reader will enjoy and benefit from being able to read through these essays collected into one document. I have not tried to revise them thoroughly with modern citations or later developments, except for a brief Postscript 2015, to quickly bring us up to date as best I can. They stand as a historical view of our pro- fessional world at the time of writing and an attempt to consider fundamental issues of computer-based interaction and communication. I apologize for any errors I may have introduced and welcome comments and/or corrections. The original published versions are available separately in the ACM Digital Library. I am grateful to representatives of ACM for confirming that I have the right to repurpose and republish my original submissions as I retained the origi- nal author rights. This published version, with its layout and illustrations, are now copyrighted by Springer.
- 17. xii At the end of each chapter, I have provided a brief Postscript 2015, with com- ments on the topic and some bibliographic references to recent publications, as appropriate. Each chapter’s topic, if it were searched for in the Internet today, would yield tens of millions of retrievals, or more, signifying the busy activity of research- ers, academics, and professionals in each of these topics as these areas of analysis and design continue to grow in importance within the disciplines of human-computer interaction (HCI) design and user-experience design. Berkeley, CA, USA Aaron Marcus 2015 Preface
- 18. xiii Contents 1 Metaphors and User Interfaces in the Twenty-First Century ............ 1 1.1 Summary....................................................................................... 1 1.2 Introduction .................................................................................. 1 1.3 Postscript 2015 ............................................................................. 4 References ................................................................................................ 5 2 Culture Class Versus Culture Clash...................................................... 7 2.1 Summary....................................................................................... 7 2.2 Introduction .................................................................................. 8 2.3 Culture.......................................................................................... 8 2.4 Conclusions .................................................................................. 10 2.5 Postscript 2015 ............................................................................. 10 References ................................................................................................. 11 3 CHI as a Cross-Tribal Community ....................................................... 13 3.1 Summary....................................................................................... 13 3.2 Introduction .................................................................................. 14 3.3 Tribal Origins of SIGCHI............................................................. 14 3.4 Cross-Tribal Talk Today ............................................................... 15 3.5 Absorbing Tribal Classics............................................................. 16 3.6 Where do We Go from Here? ....................................................... 18 3.7 Postscript 2015 ............................................................................. 19 References ................................................................................................. 20 4 Dare We Define User-Interface Design? ............................................... 21 4.1 Summary....................................................................................... 21 4.2 Introduction .................................................................................. 21 4.3 A Little History............................................................................. 22 4.4 A Brief User-Interface Lexicon (of Canonical, Reserved Terms) 26 4.5 Postscript 2015 ............................................................................. 28 References ................................................................................................. 28
- 19. xiv 5 The Cult of Cute: The Challenge of User Experience Design............. 31 5.1 Summary....................................................................................... 31 5.2 Introduction .................................................................................. 32 5.3 Caution Signs Upon Entering the Realm of Cuteness.................. 33 5.4 Conclusion.................................................................................... 35 5.5 Postscript 2015 ............................................................................. 36 References ................................................................................................. 36 6 User-Interface Design and China: A Great Leap Forward................. 39 6.1 Summary....................................................................................... 39 6.2 Introduction .................................................................................. 40 6.3 Culture Dimensions and Cognitive Differences........................... 40 6.4 Metaphors..................................................................................... 41 6.5 Mental Models.............................................................................. 42 6.6 Navigation .................................................................................... 42 6.7 Interaction..................................................................................... 42 6.8 Appearance/Presentation .............................................................. 43 6.9 Conclusion.................................................................................... 43 6.10 Postscript 2015 ............................................................................. 44 References ................................................................................................. 45 7 Universal, Ubiquitous, User-Interface Design for the Disabled and Elderly .................................................................. 47 7.1 Summary....................................................................................... 47 7.2 Introduction .................................................................................. 48 7.3 What Is Universal Design?........................................................... 48 7.4 Section 508................................................................................... 50 7.5 Other Resources............................................................................ 51 7.6 Conclusion.................................................................................... 51 7.7 Postscript 2015 ............................................................................. 52 References ................................................................................................. 52 8 Icons/Symbols and More: Visible Languages to Facilitate Communication....................................................................................... 53 8.1 Summary....................................................................................... 53 8.2 Introduction .................................................................................. 54 8.3 What Are the Differences Among Signs, Icons, and Symbols? ... 54 8.4 Signs of the Times ........................................................................ 55 8.5 Universal Sign Systems................................................................ 57 8.6 Conclusion.................................................................................... 58 8.7 Postscript 2015 ............................................................................. 59 References ................................................................................................. 60 9 What Do UI Designers Think About Protecting Their Designs?........ 63 9.1 Summary....................................................................................... 63 9.2 Introduction .................................................................................. 63 9.3 Respondents.................................................................................. 64 Contents
- 20. xv 9.4 Survey Questions.......................................................................... 65 9.4.1 Question 1: Screen Examples ......................................... 65 9.4.2 Question 2: Creating the Designs ................................... 65 9.4.3 Question 3: Planning for Protecting Images................... 66 9.4.4 Question 4: Image Imitation ........................................... 66 9.4.5 Question 5: Design Protection Under Design Patent...... 67 9.4.6 Question 8: Evaluating Your Protection.......................... 67 9.4.7 Question 9: Aspects Needing to Be Protected ................ 68 9.4.8 Question 10: Future of Image Designs ........................... 68 9.4.9 Question 11: Necessary Protection................................. 69 9.4.10 Question 12: Means of Protection................................... 69 9.5 Conclusions .................................................................................. 70 9.6 Postscript 2015 ............................................................................. 70 References ................................................................................................. 71 10 When Is a User Not a User? Who Are We? What Do We Do?............ 73 10.1 Summary....................................................................................... 73 10.2 Introduction .................................................................................. 74 10.3 What Is the Correct Term for User? ............................................. 74 10.4 Who Are We? What Do We Do? .................................................. 77 10.4.1 Terms for Ourselves........................................................ 77 10.4.2 Terms for What We Do ................................................... 78 10.4.3 Professional Organizations ............................................. 79 10.4.4 Conferences..................................................................... 79 10.5 Conclusion.................................................................................... 80 10.6 Postscript 2015 ............................................................................. 80 11 The Emotion Commotion....................................................................... 83 11.1 Summary....................................................................................... 83 11.2 Introduction .................................................................................. 84 11.3 Background................................................................................... 85 11.4 Issues ............................................................................................ 86 11.5 Conclusion.................................................................................... 88 11.6 Postscript 2015 ............................................................................. 88 References ................................................................................................. 88 12 The Next Revolution: Vehicle User Interfaces...................................... 91 12.1 Summary....................................................................................... 91 12.2 Introduction .................................................................................. 91 12.3 New Challenges for the Design of Vehicle User Interfaces and Information Visualization ...................................................... 96 12.4 Conclusions .................................................................................. 97 12.5 Postscript 2015 ............................................................................. 97 References ................................................................................................. 99 13 Patterns Within Patterns........................................................................ 101 13.1 Summary....................................................................................... 101 Contents
- 21. xvi 13.2 Introduction to Design Patterns.................................................... 102 13.3 Pattern Parts.................................................................................. 103 13.4 An Example.................................................................................. 103 13.5 Pattern Patter................................................................................. 104 13.6 The Future of Patterns .................................................................. 105 13.7 Postscript 2015 ............................................................................. 106 References ................................................................................................. 106 14 User-Experience Planning for Corporate Success ............................... 109 14.1 Summary....................................................................................... 109 14.2 Introduction .................................................................................. 110 14.3 Best Practices................................................................................ 111 14.4 Branding ....................................................................................... 111 14.5 Development Process.................................................................... 112 14.6 Evaluation..................................................................................... 112 14.7 Funding/Budgets/Charging........................................................... 112 14.8 Hot Topics..................................................................................... 112 14.9 Management ................................................................................. 112 14.10 Models.......................................................................................... 113 14.11 Organization ................................................................................. 113 14.12 Outreach ....................................................................................... 114 14.13 Outsourcing .................................................................................. 114 14.14 Tools ............................................................................................. 114 14.15 Conclusion.................................................................................... 115 14.16 Postscript 2015 ............................................................................. 115 References ................................................................................................. 115 15 Insights on Outsourcing ......................................................................... 117 15.1 Summary....................................................................................... 117 15.2 Introduction .................................................................................. 118 15.3 The Current Situation ................................................................... 118 15.4 The Story Becomes More Complex ............................................. 119 15.5 The Future .................................................................................... 121 15.6 Postscript 2015 ............................................................................. 123 References ................................................................................................. 123 16 Branding 101 ........................................................................................... 125 16.1 Summary....................................................................................... 125 16.2 Introduction .................................................................................. 125 16.3 Some Anecdotes ........................................................................... 126 16.4 Branding Summarized.................................................................. 127 16.5 Branding and the CHI Community............................................... 129 16.6 And in Closing….......................................................................... 130 16.7 Postscript 2015 ............................................................................. 131 References ................................................................................................. 132 Contents
- 22. xvii 17 It’s About Time........................................................................................ 135 17.1 Summary....................................................................................... 135 17.2 Introduction .................................................................................. 136 17.3 Some Issues .................................................................................. 138 17.4 Time and the CHI Community ..................................................... 140 17.5 Postscript 2015 ............................................................................. 140 References ................................................................................................. 141 18 User-Centered Design (UCD) in the Enterprise: Corporations Begin to Focus on UCD................................................... 143 18.1 Summary....................................................................................... 143 18.2 Introduction .................................................................................. 144 18.3 What, Basically, Is UCD?............................................................. 144 18.4 So Far, So Good in Theory. Now for Reality ............................... 145 18.5 UCD and the CHI Community..................................................... 148 18.6 Postscript 2015 ............................................................................. 149 References ................................................................................................. 149 19 Dreaming of Robots: An Interview About Robots with Bruce Sterling ................................................................................. 151 19.1 Summary....................................................................................... 151 19.2 Robot Dreams: Past Tense............................................................ 152 19.3 Robot Dreams: Present Tense....................................................... 155 19.4 Robot Dreams: Future Tense ........................................................ 157 19.5 Bio of Bruce Sterling.................................................................... 158 19.6 Postscript 2015 ............................................................................. 158 References ................................................................................................. 160 20 The Out-of-Box Home Experience: Remote from Reality .................. 161 20.1 Summary....................................................................................... 161 20.2 Stepping into the Unknown and Unexpected ............................... 161 20.3 Home Consumer Electronics and the CHI Community ............... 168 20.4 Postscript 2015 ............................................................................. 169 References ................................................................................................. 170 21 Usability Grows Up: The Great Debate................................................ 171 21.1 Summary....................................................................................... 171 21.2 Stepping into the Ring.................................................................. 172 21.3 Does Usability Scale Up?............................................................. 172 21.4 Globalization, Offshoring............................................................. 173 21.5 Craftswork Versus Engineering: Are We Certified? ..................... 173 21.6 Conclusions .................................................................................. 174 21.7 Postscript 2015 ............................................................................. 174 22 Education and CHI................................................................................. 177 22.1 Summary....................................................................................... 177 22.2 Introduction .................................................................................. 178 Contents
- 23. xviii 22.3 Issues, Theories, Models, and Methods in HCI............................ 178 22.4 Design and Development of Software Systems............................ 178 22.5 HCI Fundamentals........................................................................ 179 22.6 Designing User Interfaces for Diverse Users ............................... 179 22.7 UI Issues for Special Applications ............................................... 179 22.8 User-Interface and Screen Design ................................................ 180 22.9 Multimedia, Video, and Voice....................................................... 180 22.10 Programming, Intelligent UI Design, and Knowledge-Based Systems.................................................... 180 22.11 Input/Output Devices, Human Factors/Ergonomics, and Design of Work...................................................................... 181 22.12 Application Domains.................................................................... 181 22.13 Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) and Organizational UI Issues........................................................ 181 22.14 Development Process: Requirements Specification ..................... 182 22.15 Design in Development ................................................................ 182 22.16 Evaluation, Including Testing....................................................... 182 22.17 Managing UI Development and Emerging Issues........................ 182 22.18 Individual Differences and Training............................................. 183 22.19 Conclusions .................................................................................. 184 22.20 Postscript 2015 ............................................................................. 184 References ................................................................................................. 185 23 When in Rome, Do as the Romans Do: HCII 2005 Recap .................. 187 23.1 Summary....................................................................................... 187 23.2 What’s Up with HCI International?.............................................. 188 23.3 HCII 2005 Stats ............................................................................ 189 23.4 Conclusions, and Looking Toward Beijing .................................. 191 23.5 Postscript 2015 ............................................................................. 192 References ................................................................................................. 192 24 Dashboards in Your Future.................................................................... 193 24.1 Summary....................................................................................... 193 24.2 Introduction .................................................................................. 194 24.3 What Dashboards Do and Don’t Do............................................. 194 24.4 The Rush to Deliver Dashboards.................................................. 195 24.5 Conclusion.................................................................................... 196 24.6 Postscript 2015 ............................................................................. 197 References ................................................................................................. 197 25 Visualizing the Future of Information Visualization ........................... 199 25.1 Summary....................................................................................... 199 25.2 Introduction .................................................................................. 200 25.3 Progress ........................................................................................ 200 25.4 What’s Ahead?.............................................................................. 201 25.5 Postscript 2015 ............................................................................. 202 References ................................................................................................. 203 Contents
- 24. xix 26 HCI Sci-Fi at the Movies and on TV..................................................... 205 26.1 Summary....................................................................................... 205 26.2 Movies and Television, a 50-Year Run......................................... 206 26.3 Conclusion.................................................................................... 208 26.4 Postscript 2015 ............................................................................. 209 References ................................................................................................. 209 27 Wit and Wisdom: Where Do We Turn for Advice?.............................. 211 27.1 Summary....................................................................................... 211 27.2 Introduction .................................................................................. 212 27.3 A Tome and Its Contents .............................................................. 212 27.4 Other Sources of Wisdom............................................................. 213 27.5 Conclusion.................................................................................... 214 27.6 Postscript 2015 ............................................................................. 215 References ................................................................................................. 215 28 From KidCHI to BabyCHI .................................................................... 217 28.1 Summary....................................................................................... 217 28.2 Introduction .................................................................................. 218 28.3 Postscript 2015 ............................................................................. 220 References ................................................................................................. 221 29 SeniorCHI: The Geezers Are Coming! ................................................. 223 29.1 Summary....................................................................................... 223 29.2 Introduction .................................................................................. 223 29.3 Conclusion.................................................................................... 226 29.4 Postscript 2015 ............................................................................. 226 References ................................................................................................. 227 30 Taxonomies to Tax the Couch-Potato’s Cortex .................................... 229 30.1 Summary....................................................................................... 229 30.2 Introduction .................................................................................. 230 30.3 Postscript 2015 ............................................................................. 232 References ................................................................................................. 234 31 Happy Birthday! CHI at 25 ................................................................... 237 31.1 Summary....................................................................................... 237 31.2 Introduction .................................................................................. 238 31.3 Assessing our Progress................................................................. 238 31.4 Conclusion.................................................................................... 240 31.5 Postscript 2015 ............................................................................. 240 References ................................................................................................. 241 32 Big Spaces, Big Lives, Big Challenges................................................... 243 32.1 Summary....................................................................................... 243 32.2 Introduction .................................................................................. 244 32.3 The Countdown to the Big Splash?.............................................. 245 32.4 Postscript 2015 ............................................................................. 245 References ................................................................................................. 246 Contents
- 25. xx 33 Fun! Fun! Fun! In the User Experience................................................ 247 33.1 Summary....................................................................................... 247 33.2 Introduction .................................................................................. 248 33.3 On the Nature of Fun.................................................................... 248 33.4 Desperately Seeking Fun.............................................................. 249 33.5 Conclusions .................................................................................. 250 33.6 Postscript 2015 ............................................................................. 251 References ................................................................................................. 251 34 Am I Pushing Your Buttons? ................................................................. 253 34.1 Summary....................................................................................... 253 34.2 Introduction .................................................................................. 253 34.3 Conclusions .................................................................................. 257 34.4 Postscript 2015 ............................................................................. 258 References ................................................................................................. 258 35 The Sun Rises in the East....................................................................... 259 35.1 Summary....................................................................................... 259 35.2 Introduction .................................................................................. 260 35.3 Postscript 2015 ............................................................................. 262 References ................................................................................................. 262 36 HCI Goes Mainstream in the Comics ................................................... 265 36.1 Summary....................................................................................... 265 36.2 What Some Comics Are Showing ................................................ 266 36.3 Postscript 2015 ............................................................................. 268 Additional Reading ................................................................................... 268 References ................................................................................................. 269 37 Saving the USA, and So Can You: FaceBucks to the Rescue .............. 271 37.1 Summary....................................................................................... 271 Afterword......................................................................................................... 275 Index................................................................................................................. 277 Contents
- 26. xxi Aaron Marcus Principal of Aaron Marcus and Associates; International Professor at the College of Design and Innovation, Visiting Professor, Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago; Tongji University, Shanghai, China; Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of User Experience Magazine; and Editor of Information Design Journal, is a pioneer of computer graphics, human-computer-interaction design, and user-experience design. He has authored, coauthored, edited, and coedited 16 books and more than 350 articles. He is the former “Fast Forward” column editor of Interactions for 5 years and the first user-interface graphic designer to be elected to both the CHI Academy About the Author
- 27. xxii and to the AIGA Fellows. He organized the opening plenary session about graphic design at ACM’s SIGGRAPH conference in 1980. He organized and chaired two plenary panel sessions about science fiction and HCI at ACM SIGCHI conferences in 1992 and, by request of ACM/SIGCHI, in 1999, in which he invited leading science-fiction authors to speculate about the future of computer-human interaction. His computer graphics artwork and graphic design work are in the collection of the San Francisco Museum of ModernArt and theVictoria andAlbert Museum, London. His first sole-author book for the computer world was Graphic Design for Electronic Documents and User Interfaces, jointly published by ACM Press and Addison- Wesley in 1992. His latest book prior to this one is Mobile Persuasion Design, also published by Springer, in 2015. About the Author
- 28. 1 © Springer-Verlag London 2015 A. Marcus, HCI and User-Experience Design, Human–Computer Interaction Series, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4471-6744-0_1 Chapter 1 Metaphors and User Interfaces in the Twenty-First Century 1.1 Summary Future user interfaces will be more multi-modal, contextual, and associated with devices. Designing components well for users remains the primary challenge. 1.2 Introduction (Fast Forward, a new column of Interactions, which the editors of Interactions kindly permitted me to publish, presents an opportunity for me to think about where our profession of user-interface design has been over the past three-and-a-half Originally, copyright © 2002 by Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc. (AM+A).
- 29. 2 decades in which I have worked and about its future. I hope you will enjoy and ben- efit from joining me in this discussion. Your feedback is welcome). Let’s begin our journey in the twenty-first century by thinking about metaphors in user interfaces. I have defined them as the essential concepts in computer- mediated communication that substitute for the underlying code and terminology of operating systems, applications, and data. Instead, concepts are communicated through words, images, sounds, and even touches (Marcus 1998). An example familiar to most computer users is the desktop metaphor that substitutes a screen depicting something like a desktop covered with documents and folders for the underlying realities of data, functions, and how users manipulate them. In the disci- plines of semiotics, this communication technique, or rhetorical trope, of metaphor is an important figure of spoken and visual communication. Although others (e.g., (Carroll and Thomas 1982)) and I consider metaphor to be a fundamental compo- nent of all user interfaces, not all professionals in the user-interface design commu- nity agree. Some years ago, in the late 1980s, during informal conversation with Jaron Lanier, one of the prime innovators of virtual reality’s new paradigms, he made a characteristically mysterious, oracular, and challenging pronouncement. He said that he considered most current user interfaces inadequate and envisioned a future time in which there would be virtual reality displays (e.g., advanced versions of headsets he helped invent) working with input devices (e.g., advance versions of DataGloves ™ he helped invent) that would not require metaphors. He envisioned something like a musical instrument, e.g., a piano’s keyboard on a device, which, when “played,” “directly conveyed input” to displays that we, in turn, could directly experience. I challenged him about the notion of a user-interface, a medium of communica- tion, existing without metaphors, because I have been influenced by the likes of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (1980) to understand that all communication requires agreement on metaphorical underpinnings; otherwise, people talk in a skewed fashion, misunderstanding basic concepts or references, or being baffled by them. If you are talking about football, and I think you’re talking about soccer, or the latest marketing skirmish of our company, eventually one of us will become quite puzzled by the other, and we shall have to reconnect, to agree upon fundamen- tal metaphors. The only kind of “communication” that can take place without meta- phors is of a direct signaling kind. If I am foolish enough to place a lighted match below my hand, stimulus–response mechanisms are invoked that directly signal to my skin that it is facing a dangerous temperature situation. It requires some internal computation in my “wetware”, but not metaphorical intervention (i.e., substitution, the key to metaphors), to convince me to move my hand. Some future devices will certainly feature sophisticated virtual reality displays or augmented reality displays. Leaping forward a few generations and imagining direct neural input of signals, as envisioned by early cyberpunk authors like Vernor Vinge in True Names (Vinge 1984) or William Gibson in Neuromancer (Gibson 1984) one might ask: where or what is the user interface under these extreme condi- 1 Metaphors and User Interfaces in the Twenty-First Century
- 30. 3 tions? In this situation, user interfaces would be deprived potentially of any physical input devices and physical visual or acoustic display devices. What is left is a world of “pure” mental communication with signs. In my vocabulary, communication includes interaction. In fact, semiotics is usually predicated as a behavioristic sci- ence,askinghowpeoplebehaveorinteractwithsignsinordertodeterminetheirmeaning.- What one is left with is a kind of mental theater, or mental ceremonies. For me, this is the essence of user-interface design: envisioning facts, concepts, and emo- tions within dynamic, interactive symbolic and iconic artifacts. One thing seems certain: metaphors won’t disappear, they are essential to having any communication at all. In fact, Lakoff and Johnson argue that most of these metaphorical references are spatial in nature, e.g., in our English language expressions “things are looking up,” and “I’ve been getting into this new topic of semiotics.” OK, so where are computer metaphors going? Many analysts, prognosticators, and pontificators, e.g., David Gelernter, Don Norman, and George Robertson (Loebl 2001) are calling for the end of the desktop metaphor. Many seem to sense that something is clumsy about fundamental notions of files and folders, of applications and data, embodied in the visual artifacts of government-surplus 1950s metal desks with manila folders stuffed in the drawers and lying in piles on top, with scattered arrays of papers, mostly full of text and an occasional chart or table. Some have argued that this entire scheme is notoriously culture-biased. (Chavan 1994), for example, has argued that most people in India do not own desks or fold- ers, and do not have much experience with them. They do have bookshelves, how- ever, with books that have chapters and pages. Perhaps if some Indian researchers at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad originally had invented an equiva- lent of the Xerox Star ™ at Xerox PARC or later the Apple Macintosh ™, we might have had a completely different history of envisioning operating systems and win- dowing environments…ooops, if there had been any “windows” at all. If Chinese researchers at the Academy of Sciences in Beijing had invented modern computing, as the Chinese did for printing, perhaps a Chinese computer, and most others around the world, would have been displaying vertically unrolling scrolls, not Microsoft Windows ™. Baby faces, devices with small user interfaces, invariably shrink the visual real estate and emphasize acoustic and haptic (touch) multimedia communication as well as visual. The desktop metaphor simply does not work in a size of 3 × 2 cm. We need something else conceptually and perceptually, to help us represent our key structures and processes. What might that be? Speech interfaces (vocal user interfaces, or VUIs) offer new opportunities, but still have hierarchies of objects and navigation, even when one cannot see them. For example, one can “move” within Sports to locate the place where one can purchase baseball tickets online. Even menus are a persistent navigation concept or meta- phorical construct of all user interfaces. Other key pervasive concepts include options, tasks, preferences, decisions, and contexts (as in contextual awareness). The early personal communicators, like the Apple Newton, emphasized com- munication over computation as an essential computer-mediated assistant. Today, nouns and verbs of messaging associated with email functions have become essen- 1.2 Introduction
- 31. 4 tial paradigms for many people’s interactions with computers and a source of new, fundamental metaphorical concepts for almost all computer-mediated communica- tion. - Some have argued that having to store files in separate groups related to applica- tions that are also stored in separate groups might do as much damage to mental health, and productive time, as the harm of using the Basic programming language was supposed to cause in the 1980s. Having to store email messages and references about metaphors in a place separate from text documents about the same content seems clumsy, and a number of solutions have been proposed, such as Apple’s OpenDoc™ (Apple 2002) or some offshoots of the Be Operating System (Be, later part of Palm (Be Operating 2002)), which enable users to focus on contents rather than tools. In the future, it seems likely that visualized metaphors will focus on agents that, or who, will help us in all of our regular and even irregular tasks. Some major chal- lenges, it seems to me, are to visualize how agents gather information from us, how we can review what they know about us, and how they report the results of their autonomous activities to us. We have significant developments ahead in inventing the metaphorical apparatus of future butlers that/who take care of many of our needs freeing us up significantly to take care of other, “more important” (harumph) tasks. We may even need metaphor management software, as the Friend21 project from Japan pioneered in the late 1980s and early 1990s (Nonogaki and Ueda 1995). This software would enable computer systems to swap metaphorical references when reconfiguring entire contexts of data and the best way to present that information to the user in his/her current context. In any case, I do not foresee user interfaces of the future devoid of metaphors. In fact, the metaphor invention business seems likely to be busier than ever as com- mercial products seek to make themselves indispensible to our daily lives. One tool just published that might help us sort out these new concepts as fast as they are invented is Faith Popcorn and Adam Hanft’s Dictionary of the Future: The Words, Term, and Trends that define the Way we Live, Work, and Talk (Popcorn and Hanft 2001). In this book, one can find the just-in-time neologisms of the wordsmiths who shape our perceptions and our conceptions. Are you geared up for the future (to use a metaphor)? 1.3 Postscript 2015 In recent years, metaphor analysis/design has become an essential component of methodologies seeking design innovation. One of the early analysts of metaphors, Dr. George Lakoff, author of Metaphors We Live By (Lakoff and Johnson 1980) went on to an illustrious career advising political groups about choosing the meta- phors of their political discussions and communications in order to “frame” public discussions about their favored issues. The same basis underlies all product/service 1 Metaphors and User Interfaces in the Twenty-First Century
- 32. 5 user-experience design, including concepts, terminology, and graphics in the user interface; documentation, and marketing communications. As smart watches and other wearables, driverless vehicles, robots, and the Internet of Things become more ubiquitous and absorbed into our lives, all of us, in the development and consumer communities, will be challenged to invent and to accommodate to new, sometimes unfamiliar and unexpected metaphors. These may vary by broad cultures or regions, as I suggest in a recent publication (Marcus and Baradit 2015) in which I suggest new metaphors may arise out of China. In the area of design innovation, Kumar (2013) also mentions metaphors in terms of frame- works and framing. Metaphors are alive, teeming, and evolving every day, almost like living organisms. References Apple Computer (2002) Web URL for 2 Jan 2002: http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/macos8/ Legacy/OpenDoc/opendoc.html Be Operating System (2002) Web URL for 2 Jan 2002: http://www.be.com/ Carroll JM, Thomas JC (1982) Metaphor and the cognitive representation of computing systems. IEEE Trans Syst Man Cybern SMC-12(2):107–116 Chavan AL (1994) A design solution project on alternative interface for MS windows. Master’s thesis, London Guildhall University, London, Sept 1994 Gibson W (1984) Neuromancer. Ace Science Fiction Books, New York Kumar V (2013) 101 Design methods. Wiley, Hoboken Lakoff G, Johnson M (1980) Metaphors we live by. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago Loebl D (2001) Let’s Kill the Hard Disk Icon, osOpinion.com December 18, 2001. See Internet URL: http://www.osopinion.com/perl/story/15357.html Marcus A (1998) Metaphors in user-interface design. ACM SIGDOC 22(2):43–57, ISSN 0731–1001 Marcus A, Baradit S (2015) Chinese user-experience design: an initial analysis. In: Proceedings of the design, user experience, and usability conference, 2–7 August 2015, Springer-Verlag London, London, pp TBD (in press) Marcus A, Emilie WG (2000) Crosscurrents: cultural dimensions and global web user-interface design, Interactions, vol 7, No. 4. ACM Publisher, pp 32–46. www.acm.org. July/August 2000 Nonogaki H, Ueda H (1995) FRIEND21 project: two-tiered architecture for 21st-century human interfaces In: CHI Proceedings of the conference on human factors and computing systems, Denver, Colorado, pp 160–161. ISBN:0-89791-755-3 Popcorn F, Hanft A (2001) Dictionary of the future: the words, term, and trends that define the way we live, work, and talk. Theia/Hyperion, New York. ISBN 0786866578 Vinge V (1984) True names. Bluejay Books Inc., New York References
- 33. 7 © Springer-Verlag London 2015 A. Marcus, HCI and User-Experience Design, Human–Computer Interaction Series, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4471-6744-0_2 Chapter 2 Culture Class Versus Culture Clash 2.1 Summary Future user interface developers will need to recognize and account for cultural dif- ferences in Web- and mobile- oriented products and services. Fortunately, more documents, theories, and tools are on the way. Originally, copyright © 2002 by Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc. (AM+A).
- 34. 8 2.2 Introduction The events of 11 September 2001 changed the perceptions of many people in the USA. One good result of this terrible day was increased awareness and interest on the part of USA citizens, as well as citizens of other countries, about other cultures, other religions, and other ways of thinking. We can’t go back. For those who are already living outside the USA, or those in the USA who have traveled internation- ally extensively, many are thankful for an increased global awareness of connectiv- ity, conflicts, and possibilities of mutual cooperation. Much of our hope relies on understanding other cultures better and communicating with people better. We can do our part. On 11 September 2001, user-interface development received a catalyst toward further maturity of its philosophy, principles, and techniques. User-interface developers may need to go to “culture class” in order to minimize culture clashes in their designs. 2.3 Culture Cultures are evidenced at work, at home, in schools, and in families through sym- bols, heroes, rituals, and values. Cultural anthropologists have studied similarities and differences among cultures for decades. One theorist (Hofstede 1997) summa- rizes the key dimensions of all cultures this way: • Power distance: a culture’s acceptance of the differences between leaders and followers • Individualism vs. collectivism: self- vs. group orientation • Femininity vs. masculinity: merged or distinct traditional gender roles • Uncertainty avoidance: lack of tolerance for ambiguity • Short vs. long-term time orientation: the degree to which a culture takes a long- term view. In the minds of most culture and design theorists, many professional designers across all disciplines, and some appreciative users, these kinds of dimensions per- vade every human activity and every artifact, including user interfaces. In 1989, in Japan, I heard my first personal, anecdotal evidence of something about which I had already had some suspicions. A Japanese computer-science researcher commented that he thought Japanese developers preferred software applications from Europe, specifically the Scandinavian countries of northern Europe, to those developed in the USA. The reason? According to this person, European software seemed more “elegant, sensitive, and in tune with Japanese cul- ture” than the “impolite software from the USA, which sometimes turned out to be vaporware due to USA marketing habits.” Cultural affinities and alienation were being expressed. In 1993, after publishing some culturally diverse, dialog box con- 2 Culture Class Versus Culture Clash
- 35. 9 ceptual designs (Trompenaars and Turner 1998), I organized an early CHI event, a SIG about cultural diversity. Since that time, many papers, panels, tutorials, conferences, books, and Websites offer user-interface developers an increasing panoply of excellent choices by which to learn more about the issues, accomplishments, techniques and tools available. To its credit, CHI has relocated itself internationally, most recently in 2000 to the Hague, The Netherlands. Other conferences, like those of HCI International, regu- larly hop among global venues, and the more recently started InternationalWorkshop on International Products and Services (IWIPS), has featured international venues as well as focusing precisely on the topic of how to develop (i.e., plan, research, analyze, design, implement, evaluate, document, and train) for global markets. Recent discussions of user/human experience design, branding, and interaction/ behavior design indicate a growing expansion of user-interface design concerns. These discussions are beginning to foster a strong intellectual relationship with many disciplines, not only anthropology and other social/cognitive sciences, but intercultural communication and marketing, which has analyzed branding and the characteristics of target markets for many decades. Still, it is an uphill battle for some developers to get budgets for culture-oriented research and development accepted, to find/allocate the necessary human resources, and to achieve project success. Why? There are several reasons, but one of the most important is the lack of a clear return-on-investment (ROI) information resource that most user-interface developers can access, respect, and use to defend their posi- tions. Such a document would help convince top management to make the funds, people, and time available to accomplish many wished-for projects, e.g., culture- oriented contextual analysis, development of culture databases, and culture-oriented tools. Together with such documentation, attention to culture differences needs to move more rapidly from nice-to-have to necessary. Some companies are focusing on localization/globalization issues. In the USA, Sapient (Harris and McCormack 2000) published an excellent white paper on local- ization issues in 2000, but, significantly, while providing a fine summary and resources beyond translation, its content had almost nothing about culture differ- ences. On the other hand, Microsoft understood that it must change the menu hier- archy, not just the terms, when it introduced word-processing software into Japan in order to match the expectations of that country, and it recently changed its Xbox input device to match smaller Japanese hands (Gaither 2002). As another example from Europe, mobile device manufacturers have sent user-interface developers (with or without cultural anthropologists) to distant lands to study why people do what they do and to look for insights in making future products better (Honold 1999) is an example. Many are learning, many are taking action, but others in com- panies large and small, don’t quite get it yet. The situation should change in the near future. Many books on culture issues in user-interface design are now beginning to appear, and more are in the works for later this year and 2003, which will provide data from actual projects, refinements to theory, and significant heuristics. Attending to culture differences in product 2.3 Culture
- 36. 10 development should be a hot topic, become part of best practices, and eventually be incorporated into industry standards. Newly published research on persuasion (Cialdini 2001), trust (Bailey et al. 2001), and cognition (Nisbett et al. in press), and some long-ago published work on intelligence (Gardner 2015) raise further questions about how to understand culture and how it can/should affect user interface design. For example, Cialdini lists reciprocation, consistency, social validation, liking, authority, and scarcity as key factors that persuade us to believe or do something. He readily admits that the factors have different weightings indifferent cultures. Bailey et al. cite attraction, dynamism, activity, expertness, faith, intentions, localness, and reliability as key factors in developing trust. Bailey has commented in private com- munication that culture may affect which of these are more important in establish- ing that trust. Nisbett et al. have established that, given the same perceptual input, Western and Asian people from different conceptions: Westerners tend to think in isolated objects or concepts; Asians tend to think more in terms of relations among objects. 2.4 Conclusions Consequently, as user-interface developers, you will have the opportunity to deal with these new challenges. Are our notions of usability culture-biased? How do culture differences relate to persuasion and the establishment of trust in Websites and Web-based applications? How do culture dimensions relate to established dimensions of intelligence and change your thinking about online help, documenta- tion, and training? How do cultures differences provide new insight about cognition differences and change your thinking about user search strategies, mental models, and navigation? How should culture be accounted of in user-interface design pat- terns? All of these questions should affect our judgment as user-interface developers. Can you confidently state, for the target cultures for which you are developing, what is usable, useful, appropriate, beneficial, and harmful in the products and ser- vices for which you may have partial or complete responsibility? Global user-interface development in the twenty-first century is really going to get interest- ing. Are you ready for the challenge? 2.5 Postscript 2015 As I have mentioned in recent years in my lectures and tutorials, the number of conference sessions and papers about culture-related research and development has steadily risen. Entire conferences as well as tracks at larger conferences are now devoted to this topic. Notable among many are the following: 2 Culture Class Versus Culture Clash
- 37. 11 Frandsen-Thorlacius et al.’s (2009) analysis of Danish and Chinese computer- based product users who have different notions of how fun and esthetic are inti- mately tied to the concept of usability (more tightly bound for the Chinese), which suggests that the exact standard definition of usability may not be universal (or at least world-wide). Dong in her innovative Master’s Thesis (Dong 2007) using eye-tracking of Web sites showed that Chinese, Korean, and US viewers look at the sites differently, with the US viewers looking in a kind of S or five pattern before quickly jumping deeper into the site, while Asian viewers tend to circulate around the surface, examining more items and in greater detail first (viewing sites in their own preferred lan- guages). This West–east difference seems to mirror Nisbett et al.’s (Nisbett et al. in press) findings about the “geography of thought.” We have been fortunate to complete two related projects, about which we pub- lished case studies in MultiLingual (Marcus et al. 2011; Marcus and Gould 2011). One project involved a culture-audit of the concepts, terminology, and graphics of a software user-interface going from English to Arabic (for Saudi Arabia) to deter- mine before translation items which should not be translated, thereby saving reduc- ing errors, time, and money, and increasing customer satisfaction. The second project involved analyzing the culture characteristics of a multinational software developer’s teams in five countries to assist the company in developing culture- sensitive teamware tools that improved communication, cooperation, and collaboration. These brief examples suggest the increased value of considering the culture(s) of the developers as well as the consumers of computer-based products and services. References Bailey BP, Gurak LJ, Konstan JA(2001)An examination of trust production in computer-mediated exchange. In: Proceedings of the 7th conference on human factors and the web, Madison Barber W, Badre A (1998) Culturability: the merging of culture and usability, HFWeb’98., http:// www.research.att.com/conf/hfweb. 5 Jun 1998 Cialdini R (2001) The science of persuasion. Sci Am 284(2):76–81, www.influenceatwork.com Dong Y (2007) A cross-cultural comparative study on users’ perception of the webpage: with the focus on cognitive style of Chinese, Korean, and American. Masters thesis, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Seoul, South Korea Frandsen-Thorlacius O, et al (2009) A survey of how usability is understood by Chinese and Danish users. In: CHI conference 2009, San Diego, pp 41–50 Gaither C (2002) New riddle for Xbox: will it play in Japan. New York Times, 18 February 2002, 151; 52,033, Section C, 4 Gardner H (2015) Frames of mind, the theory of multiple intelligences. Basic Books, New York. ISBN 0465025102 Hall ET (1969) The hidden dimension. Doubleday, Garden City Harris J, McCormack R (2000) Translation is not enough: considerations for global internet devel- opment, Sapient. 18 Feb 2002: http://www.sapient.com/pdfs/strategic_viewpoints/sapient_glo- balization.pdf Hofstede G (1997) Cultures and organizations: software of the mind. McGraw-Hill, New York References
- 38. 12 Honold P (1999) Learning how to use a cellular phone: comparison between German and Chinese users. J Soc Tech Commun 46(2):196–205 Marcus A (1993) Human communication issues in advanced UIs. Commun ACM 36(4):101–109 MarcusA(2001) Cross-cultural user-interface design. In: Smith MJ, Salvendy G (eds) Proceedings of the, human-computer interface international (HCII) conference, vol 2, 5–10 Aug 2001, New Orleans, LA, USA, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, pp 502–505 Marcus A (2002) User interface design and culture dimensions, workshop on internationalization. In: Proceedings of the CHI 2002, Minneapolis, MN, 21–24 April 2002 (in press) Marcus A, Gould EW (2000) Crosscurrents: cultural dimensions and global web user-interface design, vol 7, No. 4. Interactions, ACM Publisher. www.acm.org, July/August 2000, pp 32–46 Marcus A, Gould EW (2011) Improving a development team through culture analysis. Multilingual, September 2011, pp 48–52 MarcusA, Gould EW, Wigham L (2011) Conducting a culture audit for SaudiArabia. Multilingual, June 2011, pp 42–46 Nisbett RE, Peng K, Choi I, Norenzayan A (2001) Culture and systems of thought: holistic vs. analytic cognition. Psychol Review 108(2):291–310 Trompenaars F, Turner CH (1998) Riding the waves of culture. McGraw-Hill, NY. ISBN 0-7863-1125-8 URL Resources ACM/SIGCHI Intercultural Issues database. www.acm.org/sigchi/intercultural/ Bibliography of Intercultural publications. www.HCIBib.org//SIGCHI/Intercultural Cultural comparisons. www.culturebank.com Culture resources. www.webofculture.com, www.acm.org/sigchi/intercultural/Glossary, six lan- guages: www.bowneglobal.com/bowne.asp?page=9&language=1 HCI International (2003) Contact: Stephanidis Constantine <cs@csi.forth.gr> Internet statistics by language. www.euromktg.com/globstats/index.html, www.worldready.com/ biblio.htm Internet users survey. Nua: www.nua.ie/surveys/how_many_online IWIPS. http://www.iwips2002.org Java Internationalization. http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial Localization. www.lisa.org/home_sigs.html Microsoft Planning for and testing global software. http://www.microsoft.com/GLOBALDEV/ Non%20mirror/back%20up/gbl-gen/INTREFNEW.HTM Microsoft’s global development page. www.eu.microsoft.com/globaldev/fareast/fewinnt.asp Microsoft Windows Internationalization. http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/gbl-gen Simplified English. http://userlab.com/SE.html Unicode. www.unicode.org/, IBM Unicode Glossary: www–4ibm.com/software,/developer/ library/glossaries/unicode.html 2 Culture Class Versus Culture Clash
- 39. 13 © Springer-Verlag London 2015 A. Marcus, HCI and User-Experience Design, Human–Computer Interaction Series, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4471-6744-0_3 Chapter 3 CHI as a Cross-Tribal Community 3.1 Summary Computer-human interaction requires a multi-disciplinary effort. The disciplines intersect and interact in a team. For teams to develop products and services together successfully, they must know how to communicate and cooperate in an environment of mutual respect. SIGCHI is moving along these directions inevitably, with conse- quent enrichment of the professions involved. Originally, copyright © 2002 by Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc. (AM+A).
- 40. 14 3.2 Introduction I would like to continue considering cross-cultural communication, which I dis- cussed in the previous chapter, but now I turn inwards towards the SIGCHI com- munity itself, which is complex intersection of professions. SIGCHI celebrated its twentieth anniversary at CHI 2002. The CHI conference featured exhibits and docu- ments from SIGCHI’s history, as the organization plans its future. I comment infor- mally on the organization’s history, its current status, and its future. During discussions of cross-cultural communication, I am struck by analogies to the CHI community itself. We at CHI are a gathering of many disciplines or “tribes,” with different symbols, heroes/heroines, rituals and values. In Flagstaff, Arizona, Native-American tribes used to gather from all over the USA each year (in what are called generally All-Indian Pow-Wows) to salute their cultures, display their skills, and exchange ideas. We do something similar at CHI conferences. The possibilities for exchange, learning, and stretching of assumptions and expectations are quite rich. CHI offers a community for multiple disciplines to meet and to learn how to work together for mutually successful projects featuring inter-disciplinary commu- nication and cooperation. 3.3 Tribal Origins of SIGCHI SIGCHI started in 1982 as a convening of psychologists, human factors specialists, social scientists, software developers, and some outliers, like myself, who joined in from other disciplines. The focus of our attention was primarily research, on proj- ects related to mainframe computer systems and client-server-network development of productivity tools on workstations, and on personal computers, which were then coming into use. Over the decades, the core user-interface research areas expanded to include, among others: • Cognitive science • Computer science • Graphic design • Hardware development • Human factors • Information architecture • Social science • Software psychology • Software development • Web development Some differences of philosophy emerged. For example, the Usability Professionals Association broke away more than a decade ago to focus specifically on usability issues. Other groups have been added, like the visual designers who have sponsored special-interest groups and other events. 3 CHI as a Cross-Tribal Community
- 41. 15 3.4 Cross-Tribal Talk Today In the latest growth spurts, we have seen the addition of such disciplines or profes- sions as these: • Anthropology • Branding • Culture models • Decision support • Experience design • Futurists (including science-fiction writers) • Game and entertainment design • Information design • Information visualization • Mobile device and information appliance development • Semiotics • Sound design • Strategic planning • Systems science • Usability analysis and evaluation • Visual design One of the key shifts has been to include many more media-design disciplines, i.e., practitioners, not only researchers and analysts, or scientists and engineers. Visual designers of all kinds have enriched the organization, conference, and topics of debate. In earlier years, consultants, who marketed their services, were viewed as somewhat impolite, distasteful interlopers in a community of corporate-funded researchers. Now, visual designers, design consultants, and other designers discuss topics originally “off-limits,” like branding, return-on-investment, architecture- inspired pattern languages, user-experience design, etc. The net result, is that we have more to consider, more to say, and more to debate. Perhaps I notice this kind of development more because, like many CHI folks, my own background is an amalgam of disciplines: an undergraduate education in physics, mathematics, and philosophy; graduate study in graphic design at a univer- sity art school; and a decade of teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in a school of architecture and urban planning One of the more exotic events at CHI, besides the advent of science-fiction writ- ers, was a breakthrough in 2001, a first-ever panel that featured marketing profes- sionals trying to explain their approach to understanding user-interface design processes. To many old-guard CHI attendees, having marketing people participate as presenters in the conference itself (as opposed to out on the exhibit floor, of course, where they are presumably expected and tolerated) would have seemed extreme heresy and folly. The anti-marketing opinions of some CHI folks are simi- lar to the anti-designer opinions voiced by others. Much of this suspicion, and in some cases even hostility, is rooted in ignorance of each group’s humane, logical, 3.4 Cross-Tribal Talk Today
- 42. 16 ethical, passionate, and compassionate objectives. Some professionals are still wor- ried about the new tribes moving into the familiar neighborhoods. I took part in this panel and expected fire-and-brimstone invectives, perhaps even fisticuffs. However, the specific subject areas of marketing were so narrow and the audience so polite that we didn’t have to settle our debates with rolled up sleeves out in the hallway. Nevertheless, the event marked a significant point in CHI’s evolvement. These events that cross over do much to educate and sensitize CHI folks. I still hear even today comments that reveal disparagement or suspicion about all the designers (i.e., synthesizers) who float among the researchers and analysts. This dichotomy between the terminology, philosophy, techniques, objectives, and goals of research vs. design was even the subject of at least one panel discussion at the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) Forum, a special 2-day event held for the first time at CHI 2002. The AIGA Forum, focusing on user-experience design, is another watershed moment for CHI. Here, for the first time, another professional organization, histori- cally and primarily oriented to graphic design, has found a temporary home within a CHI conference to offer opportunities for communicating across established tribal boundaries. This is an exciting organizational and intellectual development. We should be thinking about how to foster this kind of interaction. One of the essentials of cross-cultural cooperation is mutual respect, another is mutual trust. Both of these attitudes must be predicated on a partial, but shared, unambiguous, and consistent vocabulary, so that all may reliably communicate. Sharing of literature, of terminology, of concepts, brings surprising benefits. We have already seen these benefits in the absorption of psychological issues into what was originally considered a mathematical and logical arena of investigation. 3.5 Absorbing Tribal Classics Another interesting benefit of cross-tribal communication is how CHI seems even- tually to discover the classic literature of other disciplines, some of it decades or more old, and gradually to absorb these essential documents into its own profession. I realize this goes against the grain of some professionals and, specifically, publica- tion reviewers, who generally consider that only publications within the past few years merit attention. This transferal from one discipline to another has been part of my own tech- niques of discovering new ideas of value to the CHI community for the past 30 years. Here are a few of the resources that I have found especially worthwhile. Some of them derive from my continuing study of visual communication; others I encoun- tered in the 60s and 70s when I taught in architecture and urban planning. Some of them are now becoming well known within some CHI subgroups. I hope to give a few an additional boost of recommendation, and urge Interactions readers to con- sider them for study as a means to stimulate vital discussions: 3 CHI as a Cross-Tribal Community
- 43. 17 Consider Christopher Alexander’s (Alexander et al. 1977) study of patterns of architectural form. Over many years at the University of California/Berkeley, Prof. Alexander and his colleagues compiled insights about essential structures (and implied processes) of architectural form, which he feels are universal, or at least broadly shared human experiences. This approach to pattern catalogs was devel- oped at other institutions, also. I am aware of the work, for example, of Profs. Bernard Spring, Lance Brown, et al., at Princeton University’s Center for Urban Research in the late 60s and early 70s. The technique has been much discussed in the architectural community for 30 years and has at last, over the past few years, come to the general attention of the CHI community as they develop pattern collec- tions of user-interface design modeled on the taxonomies of this earlier work. We shall see much more of these publications in the coming years as they consider all of the components of user-interface design (metaphors, mental models, navigation, interaction, and appearance). Ludwig Von Bertalanffy (1962) (1901–1972), was an important theoretician of the twentieth century. His research in physiology, psychology, the social sciences, and the philosophy of science led to his proposing a general systems theory, which influenced generations of system scientists and engineers of complex processes and products. His ideas published as early as the 1930s may bear fruit further in the CHI profession as today’s developers come to understand the full dimensions of com- plexity across multiple platforms, modes of communication, and the social and psy- chological underpinnings of cooperative work and interactive communities. Prof. Umberto Eco (1979) of the University of Bologna, Italy, first began pro- moting semiotics, the science of signs, and explaining his theory 25–30 years ago, and semiotics theory (or its French variation semiologie) has taken hold in most of the disciplines of communication and design. The relevance of semiotics to the world of icons and symbols in user-interfaces is immediately apparent. Deeper insights and new discoveries are likely as researchers and designer use semiotics/semiologie comprehend user interfaces as cultural artifacts, especially in relation to branding and user experience modeling. Howard Gardner (1993) proposed almost 20 years ago that intelligence could be understood as 7±2 dimensions of human cognition and emotion, and he examined the implications for education. His theory gives rise to issues of how computer- mediated communication might be biased toward specific modes. As the CHI com- munity attempts to develop successful global devices and systems, these variations in methods of understanding and communicating will seem more and more relevant. Geert Hofstede’s classic work about culture dimensions in organizations (Hofstede 1997) presents the results of his study of IBM employees in more than 50 countries during the late 1970s and early 1980s. He proposed five dimensions of all cultures, which affect work, education, and family life. His approach is being used by more and more user-interface analysts and designers to improve how user- interfaces can be developed to meet the needs of specific target markets. The linguists George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (1983) examined in their classic work the way people use language, and they discovered, among other things, funda- 3.5 Absorbing Tribal Classics
- 44. 18 mental metaphors within most human communication. Just as one cannot not com- municate, one cannot not use metaphors in communication. They theorize that most metaphors are spatial in nature. The book gives insight into one of our fundamental design challenges: how we help people to understand fundamental structures and processes that computer-based systems present to users. For insight into how human being understand complex information, consider the classic book by Kevin Lynch (1960) which is now more than 40 years old. This insightful view of how the phenomena of the urban environment can be understood is a basic to modern urban theory, which posits nodes, areas, edges, landmarks, etc., as classic elements of urban form. These same elements seem appropriate to con- sider for large collections of information, e.g., in Web-based documents, applica- tions, and databases. At issue is how ordinary human beings comprehend a large mass of content and how we user-interface developers might learn from our urban experience to provide better frameworks for our cyberspace constructs. James Miller (1985) proposed decades ago that all living systems can be under- stood according to 18 fundamental functions modeled on those of biological organ- isms, e.g., ingestion, excretion, etc. He proposed that all complex enterprises, from the scale of microbes, to those of entire civilizations could be understood more fundamentally and powerfully through this perspective. His approach might be applicable to understanding communities of information processing. 3.6 Where do We Go from Here? These references, and the activities mentioned above, are just a start at thinking about the future of user-interface design by going back to some of the classics of other disciplines, and thinking about how, together, we can accomplish much more than we can do alone. As the many tribes of CHI gather each year, there will be more cross-cultural communication and cooperation. This intersection of cultures will make the CHI community continually stimulating and challenging. Let us work toward the objective that CHI continues to be this unique place of intersection, where we can learn to communicate and relate well with each other. Through these interactions, we will learn to serve better our users, clients, employ- ers, and profession. Now, groups like AnthroDesign celebrate the collaboration of anthropologists and ethnographers with designers of many kinds: software, visual, interaction, experience, branding, and others. We have come a long way. The journey will become ever more interesting as the rolling credits for computer-based products and services, like the scrolling lists of movies seemingly go on forever in order to give credit where credit is due. 3 CHI as a Cross-Tribal Community
- 45. 19 One of the main challenges of today and the future, will be to find common ter- minology, diagrams, processes, and language that enable all the disciplines to work together effectively to resolve disagreements, to empower each kind of contribution, and to achieve their mutual objectives. This cooperation, collaboration, and com- munication is symbolized in Fig. 3.1 (adapted from a previous project I led about global energy interdependence). 3.7 Postscript 2015 It would be fascinating to do a chronological study of the number and types of dis- ciplines that comprise user-experience development teams over the past four decades. Both the kinds of disciplines have multiplied, as well as professional titles and the kinds of terminology, processes, and concepts. I can recall in the early 1980s, when a research-laboratory software engineer was astonished to learn that there were actually people called typographers who spent their entire days designing typefaces. I can recall in the mid 1980s, when an HP software engineer marveled that the number of lines of code for input-output had grown larger than the code for the program’s functionality. I can recall in the 1980s and 1990s when anthropologists crept somewhat furtively around SIGGRAPH and SIGCHI conferences, feeling a little like aliens. I can recall when I invited science- fiction writers to come to SIGCHI conferences in 1992 and 1999 to speculate on what future products-services would be like. Fig. 3.1 Symbol for global interdependence designed by Aaron Marcus, Yukio Ota, and others, as research fellows, East-West Center, Honololu, Hawai”I, 1978 (Copyright © 1978 by the East-West Center and used with permission) 3.7 Postscript 2015
- 46. 20 References Alexander C, Ishikawa S, Silverstein M, Jacobson M, Fiksdahl-King I, Angel S (1977) A pattern language. Oxford University Press, New York. ISBN 0195019199 Eco U (1979) A theory of semiotics. Indiana University Press, Bloomington. ISBN 0253202175 Gardner H (1993) Frames of mind, the theory of multiple intelligences. Basic Books, New York. ISBN 0465025102 Hofstede G (1997) Cultures and organizations: software of the mind. McGraw-Hill, New York. ISBN 0070293074 Jordon P (2000) Designing pleasurable products. Taylor and Francis, London Lakoff G, Johnson M (1983) Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. ISBN 0226468011 Levy-Strauss C (1958) Anthropologie structurale. Structural anthropology (trans: Claire J, Brooke GS, 1963). Basic Books, New York Lynch K (1960) Image of the city. MIT Press, Cambridge. ISBN 0262620014 Miller JG (1985) Living systems. University Press of Colorado, Denver. ISBN 0870813633 Moles A (1968) Information theory and aesthetic perception. University of Illinois, Urbana Von Bertalanffy L (1962) General system theory: foundations, development, applications. George Braziller Publisher, New York. ISBN 0807604534 3 CHI as a Cross-Tribal Community
- 47. 21 © Springer-Verlag London 2015 A. Marcus, HCI and User-Experience Design, Human–Computer Interaction Series, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4471-6744-0_4 Chapter 4 Dare We Define User-Interface Design? 4.1 Summary What do experts in user interfaces actually design? Many definitions have been proposed, some of which may leave out key ingredients. The author proposes a general definition. 4.2 Introduction What exactly do we mean by user-interface design?Apparently, it depends on who’s asking, or who’s speaking. Consider these events: Marcus A (2002) Dare We Define User - Interface Design? Interactions 9(5) ACM Publications, New York pg 19–24
- 48. 22 The late Bill Moggeridge, a well-known product designer, acknowledged in a keynote address at DIS 2002, a SIGCHI-sponsored design conference, that he, with the assistance of a fellow product designer, Bill Verplank, was the inventor of the concept of interaction design in the early 1980s. In his review of important contribu- tors to this term that he never defined, but which seemed to include much of user- interface design, he included a number of well-known user-interface researchers as well as founders of Google, a successful Web-based information search service, and of Palm’s mobile-device operating system. The term user-interface almost never entered their discussions. About 2001, Alan Cooper, a well-known software designer (literally an inventor ofasoftwarelanguage)announcedinakeynoteaddressoftheUsabilityProfessionals Association, a major usability conference, that he was the inventor of the concept of interaction design in the 1980s, a concept that he, too, never defined in his lecture but seemed to include much of user-interface design. He also opined that interaction design (thus, user-interface design) didn’t exist until he brought it into being. In publications of the American Institute of Graphic Arts and conferences that it has co-sponsored with SIGCHI, proponents of a concept called experience design have put forward the notion that they are designing something larger than, different from, and, of course, more important, than user-interface design. Attempts to define exactly what this term includes in proponents’ magazines, books, lectures, and con- ferences remains ambiguous thus far. During a gathering to discuss the newly formed University of California’s Berkeley Institute of Design, Arnold Wasserman, a well-known corporate product designer/strategist praised the product design community for having been the first to emphasize usability rather than the human factors specialists’more narrow focus on ergonomic issues. In doing so, he seemed to overlook the typography and graphic design community’s contemporaneous investigation of these same kinds of issues. During the advent of the Web and the rise, then fall, of the dot-coms, information architecture seemed to be the new term to describe much, but not all, of user- interface design. Note, however, that information architects, unlike their more established cousins, are not licensed to practice. (The issue of certification for ana- lysts and designer is a complex, thorny matter that I shall not address here.) 4.3 A Little History When I first began writing a user-interface design manual in 1979–1980, I was already aware that there was a topic of user-interface design. Shortly after that, CHI held its first conference. Today, product reviews in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times comment regularly on user-interface design. Apparently, these crit- ics, and presumably the general public understand the term user-interface design. What is going on here? Many reasonably well-educated and presumably well- meaning professionals seem to be forgetting history, rewriting history, and muddy- ing conceptual waters rather than clarifying them. 4 Dare We Define User-Interface Design?
- 49. 23 It seems appropriate on the occasion of SIGCHI’s 20th anniversary to consider how the profession defines itself, particularly in its “design” aspects. Of course, whether SIGCHI should undertake such an activity at all is debatable to some who worry about which professions are included and which are not. Others might say, let a 1000 definitions bloom; the more the better. I take a middle road in trying to be simple, clear, and consistent in defining the terms. Much is at stake in this conceptual turf battle. Around the world, institutions of higher learning are attempting to establish clear pedagogical objectives and cur- ricula that present a coherent, inclusive view of user-interface design. More than 10 years ago, SIGCHI itself undertook an effort to describe a user-interface analysis/ design/theory curriculum for computer science departments. Now, many profes- sions are involved in trying to define this complex, challenging topic. One could use almost any practical term in place of user-interface design. However, without clear, consistent, agreed-upon conventions, the terminology may confuse professionals, teachers, and students, further confusing or boring the gen- eral public, and not reaching the business community effectively. Some inappropri- ate terms may become conventions, which sometimes impoverishes distinctions. For example, the computer industry, unfortunately in my opinion, has gradually obliterated much of the useful distinctions of sign, icon, and symbol. The general semiotics term sign is casually equated with its sub-terms icon (representational, or “natural” sign) and symbol (abstract or conventional signs). In many professional situations of analysis and design, these distinctions are important to maintain. Alas, all of the small visual signs of user-interfaces are now loosely called icons by pro- fessionals as well as the public. Some of the organizations who have a stake in this process of defining the terms user interface and design include the following: • American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) • Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) • ACM Special Interest Group for Computer-Human Interaction (SIGCHI) • ACM Special Interest Group for Graphics and Interaction (SIGGRAPH) • Human Factors and Ergonomics Society • Industrial Design Society of America • International Institute for Information Design • Society for Technical Communication • Society for Software Design • Society for Software Psychology You may have candidates to add to this list. Professionals of these and other organizations have considered one or more of these topics to be the appropriate term for essential design activities: • Applied semiotics • Computer-based communication design • Computer-based theater design • Computer-human interaction design 4.3 A Little History
- 50. 24 • Experience design • Human-computer interaction design • Information architecture • Information design • Interaction design • Interactive media design • Narrative design • User-experience design • User-interface design • Visual design Again, you may have additions to suggest. The terminology has always been fluid and subject to social, political, and technological shifts. Recall that man– machine interface (MMI) was changed to less-gendered synonyms during the late 1980s and early 1990s and that multimedia became a redundant term by the late 1990s. The availability of virtual and augmented reality, mobile devices, wearable computers, and less-noticeable, ubiquitous computers have all caused theorists, teachers, and professionals to rethink their terminology and definitions. It is also possible that well-designed definitions may serve during many changes of technol- ogy, if the terms are well defined. Here is what seems to me to be a reasonable approach to defining user-interface design: First, we should acknowledge that human beings, to paraphrase the structural anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss (2000), are fundamentally tool- and sign- makers. As artifact makers, we are deeply connected to our wired-in capabilities; to personal emotional, cognitive, and spiritual needs/desires; as well as our socio- cultural constructs. We have been making clothes, hammers, and other physical tools for countless millenia. We also have been communicating through physical gesture, touch, sound, smell, and vision for countless millenia. Tools enable us to change our physical environment. Written artifacts, including coins, parchment rolls, and walls, carry messages across space and time in a way that physical ges- tures and speech and noise-making cannot. These aspects of the history of communication are worth mentioning, because the history of computers itself is closely enmeshed with the challenge to improve input and output techniques. What we are addressing essentially is not solely physi- cal object design, but computer-mediated human-human communication. User-interface design could be defined from a tool, i.e., physical object, point of view or from a communication point of view. Either way, both definitions would include interaction as a concept. However, it is important to appreciate the full meaning of user-interfaces as communication artifacts. To call user-interface design interaction design misses some important points, as seems evident if one listens to proponents of interaction design. In Patrick Jordan’s book Designing Pleasurable Products (Jordan 2001), he presents a property checklist for designing a power drill. The list includes many sensory attributes, functionality, and “interaction design” which is defined else- 4 Dare We Define User-Interface Design?
- 51. 25 where as interaction sequences and protocols. The communication dimensions seem to be missing. In the recent keynote lecture I mentioned earlier about the past 20-year history of interaction design, Bill Verplank mentioned that there was something else besides interaction design called “media design,” which was essentially an “expressive” activity. By “media,” I understand such terms as broadcast television, video tapes, printed books, comic books, cinema, CDs, DVDs. In previous centuries, one would mention religious and governmental architectural sculptural friezes, documents, and monuments. As communication forms, according to Moles’ definitions (Moles 1968), media convey information, persuasion, and esthetics (some might add spiri- tual content as a fourth kind). Definitions of media by interaction designers seem to view media as only expressive or esthetic/persuasive communication, neglecting the long history of information-oriented visual communication design, with its close ties to graphic design, education, government, commerce, and technology. Regarding “experience design,” it seems that some graphic designers, media designers, Web designers, branding and business strategists, and others claim the design of the interactive experiences of a viewer, customer, visitor, resident, and/or reader. This claim seems a bit vague. What would architects of buildings or land- scapes make of this? Would they not be one of the first to claim the design of inter- active human experience? Those wishing to understand the work of experience designers might do well to consider the work of Disney designers, who do, indeed, control the total experience of visitors to Disney-fabricated environments (Marling 1997). What then are my proposed definitions? I have been refining them for many years, and I present them below in a short lexicon. This philosophical perspective emphasizes communication as a fundamental characteristic of computing, one that includes perceptual, formal characteristics, and dynamic, behavioral aspects of how people interact through computer-based media. This approach acknowledges user- interface design more strongly as a set of communication design tasks, but tries, also, find places for product and architectural design. The intention has been to acknowledge the specific skills of many different artifact-design professions. Sound designers, theater designers, graphic designers, information designers often seem marginalized in the definitions that I have encountered. I have tried to formulate the definition of user-interface design in a manner that allows it to be inclusive, not exclusive. I have also tried to define terms so that they can survive the rapid change of platform technology. The eventual “disappearance” of computers and the rise of “smart” objects will always involve communication rituals. In some ways, we are back where we started 10,000 years ago with the exchange of three-dimensional tokens, but with many new magnificent twists in our computer-based media. I hope you will find this lexicon useful. Others may propose different perspec- tives and terms. If we are careful in our thinking, we should be able to translate from one paradigm to another, appreciating the varying complexities and values. Discussing these world views and terminology is a healthy intellectual, professional exercise. I invite you to join the ongoing debate. 4.3 A Little History
- 52. 26 4.4 A Brief User-Interface Lexicon (of Canonical, Reserved Terms) Appearance Appearance includes all essential perceptual attributes, i.e., visual, auditory, and tactile characteristics. Examples include choices of colors, fonts, ani- mation style, verbal style (e.g., verbose/terse or informal/formal), sound cues, and vibration modes. Communication The conveyance of information, persuasion, esthetics, (and some would add spiritual content) from one entity to others. Typically, people describe, explain, emote, praise, or ritually enact through their communications. The activity requires senders, receivers, messages, and media. The process assumes that some behavior indicates that the receivers have acquired the messages and understood them. Information One level in a hierarchy of organized content to be communicated. The levels of increasing complexity are: data, information, knowledge, and wisdom, described as follows: • Data: Organized input from the senses • Information: Significant patterns of organized data • Knowledge: Significant patterns of organized information with action plans • Wisdom: Significant patterns of organized knowledge plus real-world experi- ence gained over time. Information Visualization A special aspect of user interfaces is information visu- alization, the means for communicating structures and processes, which may be shown in abstract or representational forms. Classically, these may be described as tables, forms, charts, maps, and diagrams. The list suggests an approximately increasing complexity of visual syntax. This term emphasizes visualization, but is intended to include other sensory means to communicate information. Interaction Interaction includes input/output techniques, status displays, and other feedback, both locally and globally. In the computer platforms of today, local exam- ples include the detailed behavior characteristics of equipment such as: keyboards, mice, pens, or microphones for input; visual display screens, loudspeakers, or head- sets for output; and the use of drag-and-drop selection/action sequences. Global examples include context issues, usage scenarios, and task activities at a larger scale. Metaphor Metaphors are fundamental concepts (Lakoff and Mark 1980) commu- nicated via words, images, sounds, tastes, smells, and tactile experiences. In com- puter operating systems, metaphors substitute for collections or individual elements and help users understand, remember, and enjoy the entities and relationships of computer-based communication systems. Metaphors can be overarching, or com- municate specific aspects of user interfaces. 4 Dare We Define User-Interface Design?
- 53. 27 An example of an overarching metaphor is the desktop metaphor that substitutes for the computer’s operating system, functions, and data. Examples of specific con- cepts are the trashcan, windows and their controls, pages, shopping carts, chat rooms, and blogs (Weblogs, or Web-based diaries). The pace of metaphor invention, including neologisms, i.e., verbal metaphor invention, is likely to increase because of rapid development and distribution, through the Web and mobile devices, of mutable products and services. Some researchers are predicting the end of the desk- top metaphor era and the emergence of new fundamental metaphors. Mental Models Mental models are structures or organizations of data, functions, tasks, roles, and people in groups at work or play. Examples of related, but not iden- tical versions of mental models are user models (which include concepts of perso- nas, goals, needs, desires, roles, etc.), user cognitive models, user task models, and designer models. Mental models exhibit hierarchies of content, tools, specific func- tions, media, roles, goals, tasks, etc. Some professionals speak of goal-oriented design, user-centered design, task-centered design, etc., These orientations empha- size close analysis of varying mental models. Navigation Navigation involves movement through the mental models, i.e., through content and tools. Examples of user-interface elements that facilitate such movement include those that enable dialog, such as menus, windows, dialog boxes, control panels, icons, and tool palettes. Semiotics Semiotics is the science of signs (Eco 1979). Semiotics identifies four dimensions of “meaning” for information visualizations that communicate through “signs.” • Lexical: how are the signs produced? • Syntactic: how are the signs arranged in space and time, and with what percep- tual characteristics? • Semantic: to what do the signs refer? • Pragmatic: how are the signs consumed or used? User Interface (UI) A computer-mediated means to facilitate communication between human beings, or between a human being and an artifact . The user inter- face embodies both physical and communicative aspects of input and output, or interactive activity. The user interface includes both physical objects and computer systems (i.e., hardware and software, which includes applications, operating sys- tems, and networks). A user-interface may be said to consist of user-interface com- ponents. Reasonable synonyms for user interface include: human-computer interface and human-human interface. This last term seems appropriate for an era in which computers themselves disappear, leaving only “smart” ritual objects/dis- plays, such as “smart eyeglasses,” “smart clothes” and “smart rooms” User-Interface Components Metaphors, mental models, navigation, interaction, and appearance. 4.4 A Brief User-Interface Lexicon (of Canonical, Reserved Terms)
- 54. 28 User-Interface Design The general activity more properly should be called user- interface development similar to software development. Design focuses on the syn- thesis stages. User-Interface Development User-interface development consists of these tasks undertaken in a partially parallel, partially serial, partially iterative sequence: plan, research, analyze, design, implement, evaluate, document, train, maintain, and recy- cle/replace. User-Interface Platform The user-interface platform is the physical home of the user interfaced, i.e., of the hardware and software. Traditional examples include terminals, workstations, desktop computers, Websites, Web-based applications, information appliances, and mobile/wireless devices. However, in general, the plat- form encompasses all physical products (consumer or professional) such as chairs, power drills, tea kettles, tape measures, and physical environments, such as rooms, buildings, and vehicles. 4.5 Postscript 2015 The lexicon of computer-based product/service development has added many terms in the last decades, such as Agile and lean development, terminology associated with robotics, the Internet of Things, cloud-based services, and wearables, as well as legacy terms of the conventional platforms of past generations: desktop client– server systems, Web, mobile, appliance, and vehicle systems. One of the more significant changes has been to incorporate all of human experi- ence into the realm of computer-based products. Where do artifacts touch our lives? User-experience design, customer-experience design, service design, culture-driven design, coginitive-neuroscience-driven design, and allied topics have all become important additions. No doubt as the decades progress, more, unexpected platform types may emerge. New terms may show prominence. However, the canonical terms above, for the most part, will have long-standing relevance to the work of HCI and user-experience professionals. References Eco U (1979) A theory of semiotics. Indiana University Press, Bloomington. ISBN 0253202175 Jordan P (2001) Designing pleasurable products: an introduction to the new human factors. Taylor and Francis, London. ISBN 0-748-40844-4 Lakoff G, Mark J (1980) Metaphors we live by. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago. ISBN 0226468011 Levi-Strauss C (2000) Structural anthropology (trans: Claire J, Brooke S). Basic Books, New York. ISBN: 046509516X 4 Dare We Define User-Interface Design?
- 55. Random documents with unrelated content Scribd suggests to you:
- 56. found in calcareous soil, preferring always a soil of feldspar, and like the chestnut flourishes best in a sandy one.” [11] The cork-oak attains a height of from six to eighteen meters, at times reaching fifty meters[12] and measures as much as 1.22 meters in diameter.[13] Its branches are covered with small evergreen leaves, which are rather spongy and velvety to the touch, have a glossy appearance and a saw-tooth edge, measuring about three to five centimeters[14] long and one and one-half to two wide. The roots are strong and spread considerably, and frequently are to be seen on the surface of the ground. The flowers or blossoms make their appearance in May; the fruit ripens in the fall or winter, from September to January, and falling from the tree as soon as ripe. Three qualities of acorns are to be observed according to their time of ripening and are called, “brevas primerizas de San Miguel,” which ripen in September; the second or middling “Martinencas,” which ripen in October and November; and finally the “tardias Ó palo- Meras,” which ripen in December and January. These acorns form one of the forest’s chief sources of revenue, since fed to swine, they give a peculiarly piquant flavor to the meat, Spanish mountain hams being noted for their excellence. [15] In the following paragraphs I will quote principally from Consul Schenck’s Report, 1890, relating to the growing and procuring of the bark for shipment, with interpolated sentences and slight changes, made necessary by other data at hand. The most common practice is to cultivate this plant by sowing, which is frequently done, above all, in ground somewhat manured, making alternate furrows with vines. Up to their twentieth or twenty-fifth year the ground is cultivated as if it were a vineyard, rooting up at that age the vines on account of producing less fruit, and also on account of the cork trees being pretty well grown up and no longer requiring the shelter of the vines. At the end of even one year it is difficult to transplant the cork tree on account of the length of the roots, principally the central one, and if the trees are put out with the intention of transplanting they are generally sewn in a false ground bottom made artificially at a certain depth with layers of stones or bricks. French
- 57. silviculturists recommend about 110 to 120 trees to the hectare (2.471 acres). The cork tree gives but little shade, which contributes greatly in causing the soil to become dry. To avoid all these inconveniences, which are highly unfavorable to the good production of cork, it is requisite that young plants grow up with sufficient foliage, so that the branches touch each other, and even overreach, till they are about twenty-five years old. It may be convenient, if there is not sufficient foliage from the cork trees themselves, to introduce secondary species, such as the elm tree, ash and pine, known as (pi meli), these being depended upon to supply the requisite coolness and manure to the ground. If the soil is poor, the cork is thin but of fine quality and very appropriate to make the best stoppers. If, on the contrary, it is rich, the cork is thick but spongy. Consequently it is requisite to treat the cork tree in such a manner that whilst the cork grows thick it will at the same time be fine in texture. This is of course an agricultural problem and may differ from year to year in the necessary details.
- 59. DISEASES The cork tree has in no wise escaped from disease and infections; on the contrary it has its full allotted share which worries the growers more than the acquiring of a perfect texture, and unless great care is taken will greatly reduce the value of a crop. The larva of the Coroebus undatus (corch) attacks the interior of the cork, penetrating frequently into the tree itself, which causes an undervaluation in the quality of the cork, and, moreover, these perforations unite so closely and in such a manner even in the trunk of the tree that in peeling off the cork, part of the skin of the trunk itself comes off, causing much damage to the tree. The larva of the Cerambyx cerdo, as well as the ant, Formica rufa L. hormigas, destroys the fine cork with their numerous borings and galleries. Jaspered (Jasperado) is the name by which is known one of the defects of the cork which reduces it greatly in value and as far as can be learned comes from the tree itself. The porosity of cork is greatly increased by the presence of cork-meal, resulting from the disintegration of the Sclerenchyma, or stone cells, which penetrate the cork fiber and falling to a powder facilitate the entrance of infection.[16]
- 61. STRIPPING [17]The corkwood or cork of commerce is the external part or “periderm” of the cork-oak; and when it has attained a diameter of approximately 12.7 centimeters or the tree measures forty centimeters in circumference according to the Spanish governmental regulations, which the tree does usually by the time it is twenty years old, the bark may be removed. The stripping generally takes place during July and August, and it is a process which demands skill and care, if injury to the bark is to be avoided. In Algeria the French strippers sometimes use crescent-shaped saws, but under the usual Spanish method a hatchet, with a long handle, is the only implement employed. The bark is cut clear through, around the base of the tree, and a similar incision is made around the trunk, just below the spring of the main branches; the two incisions are then connected by one or two longitudinal cuts, following, so far as possible, the deepest of the natural cracks in the bark. Inserting the wedge- shaped handle, the tree’s covering is then pried off. The larger branches are stripped in the same manner, yielding, generally, a finer grade of cork than that of the trunk. The thickness of the bark ranges from 1.27 centimeters to 6.85 centimeters, while the yield also varies greatly from twenty to 75 kilograms[18] per tree, depending upon its size and age. After the first stripping the tree is left in the juvenescent state to regenerate, and great care must be taken in the stripping not to injure the inner skin or epidermis at any stage of the process, for the life of the tree depends upon its proper preservation, for if injured at any point, growth there ceases and the spot remains forever afterward scarred and uncovered. It is also necessary to avoid stripping during the prevalence of a sirocco,
- 62. which would dry the inner skin too rapidly and therefore exclude all further formation of cork. The Capgrand-Mothe system, which, as known, consists of dressing the trunk with the same cork just removed, and leaving it so dressed for a couple of months, has not met with approval, as being impracticable on a large scale. After the stripping, the phellogen, the seat of the growing processes, undertakes at once the formation of a new covering of finer texture, and each year this, the real skin, with its life-giving sap, forms two layers of cells, one within, increasing the diameter of the trunk, the other without, adding thickness to the sheathing of bark. After eight or ten years this sheathing is removed, and while more valuable than the first stripping, it is not as fine in quality as that of the third and subsequent strippings, which follow at regular intervals of about nine years. At the age of about forty years the oak begins to yield its best bark, continuing productive as a rule for almost a century.[19] The cork of the first barking is called Corcho-Bornio, Borniza or virgin, and is so coarse, rough, and dense in texture that it is of little commercial value. The second barking is called “pelas,” or secondary cork, and this and subsequent barkings constitute the cork of commerce. As the bark is removed it is gathered up in piles (rusque) and left for a few days to dry. Having been weighed, it is next carried either in wagons or on the backs of burros to the boiling station, where it is stacked and allowed to season for a few weeks. It is then ready for the boiling process. The outside of the bark in its natural state is, as may well be imagined, rough and woody, owing to exposure to the weather. After boiling this useless outer coating is readily scraped off, thereby reducing the weight of the material almost twenty per cent. The boiling process also serves to remove the tannic acid, increases the volume and elasticity of the bark, renders it soft and pliable and flattens it out for convenient packing. After being roughly sorted as to quality and thickness, the bark is then ready for its first long journey, and as the forests are generally located in hilly or even mountainous country, the faithful burro must again be called into service. Truly the Spaniards’ best friend, though
- 63. the worst treated of all, these patient little animals present a most grotesque appearance when loaded from head to hind quarters with a huge mass of the light bark. Down from the hills they go in trains of thirty, forty or even a hundred, threading the rocky bridle paths in single file and wending their way through the narrow streets of quaint villages where traces of Moorish occupancy may still be seen, to the nearest railway station. The corkwood is there freighted to the various sea-port warehouses in Spain and Portugal, Seville, Spain being perhaps the largest depository and user of raw material.[20] This historic city, situated on the banks of the Guadalquivir, presents a very animated sight in the summer months, and plays a very important part in the cork industry, for besides the numerous warehouses for storing and shipping there are factories for the manipulation of cork and its conversion into the many useful forms in which it has proven of value. Before shipping, the bales are opened, the edges of the bark trimmed and the bark then sorted into the various grades of quality and thickness again. The importance of this last mentioned operation cannot be overemphasized, as the whole problem of the successful and economical manufacture of corks center about it. After sorting it is ready to be rebaled for shipment, this generally being done by placing the large, flat pieces called planks or tables, at the bottom of the bales, and above them the small pieces which are covered in turn with larger sections; then the whole mass being subjected to pressure to render it compact, afterward being bound up securely with steel hoops or wires. Each bale carefully marked indicating the grade or quality, loaded directly into ocean-going steamers and shipped to the ports of the world. From this meager description we at least can learn what “corkwood” is, the limited sphere of its growth, the constant care necessary to insure a successful harvest or gathering, the peculiarities of the tree, its longevity and the general mode of preparing the bark for shipment; the narration in no wise doing justice to this most interesting material, in its natural state, for its growing is a fascinating tale in itself; but for the purpose of this writing the
- 64. foregoing has been deemed sufficient to convey an understanding of it. As we have now seen how this wonderful material grows, its haunts and dwellings, we will look at it more closely and see what it really is, how this particular formation comes about and its peculiarities.
- 66. I BOTANY AND CHEMISTRY N considering “cork” for the purpose of ascertaining its characteristics, texture and composition we will, instead of analyzing the material after it has reached the market, look at it from the standpoint of botany and learn of its formation upon the tree, from which it is procured. It appears that the word “cork”[21] in botany signifies a growth peculiar to all plants and pertaining to none in particular, being described as “a peculiar tissue in the higher plants forming the division of the bark (which name is sometimes restricted to the dead tissues lying outside the cork); consisting of closely packed air-cells nearly impervious to air and water and protects the underlying tissues.”[22] Again, “It is produced by the activity and division of certain merismatic cells known as phellogen or cork cambium which are situated immediately within the epidermal covering of the young growth. As the cork cells grow older, their protoplasmic contents disappear and are replaced by air. In order that this formation may be clearly understood, I will quote from a paragraph entitled “Cork and Epidermal Formations Produced by It” contained in “A Text Book on Botany,” by Sacks. “When succulent organs of the higher plants, no longer in the bud condition, are injured, the wound generally becomes closed up by cork tissue, i.e., new cells arise near the wounded surface by repeated division of those which are yet sound, and these forming a firm skin separate the inner tissue from the outer injured layers of cells. The walls of this tissue offer the strongest resistance to the most various agencies, similar to the cuticular layers of the epidermis in their physical behavior, flexible and elastic, permeable only with difficulty by air and water, they for the most part soon lose their
- 67. contents and become filled with air. They are arranged in rows lying at right angles to the surface or parallelopipedal form, and form a close tissue without intercellular spaces. These are the general distinguishing features of cork tissue. It is formed not only on wounded surfaces, but arises in much greater mass where succulent organs require an effectual protection (e.g., potato tubers) or where the epidermis is unable to keep up with the increase of circumference where growth in thickness continues for a long period. In these cases the cork tissue is formed even before the destruction of the epidermis, and when this splits under the action of the weather and falls off, the new envelope formed by the cork is already present. The cork tissue is the result of repeated bipartitions of the cells by partition walls, rarely in the epidermis cells themselves, more often in the subjacent tissue. The partition walls lie parallel to the surface of the organ, divisions also taking place in a vertical direction, by which the number of the rows of cells is increased. From the two newly formed thin-walled cells of each radial row one remains thin walled and rich in protoplasm, and in a condition capable of division; the other becomes transformed into a permanent cork cell. Thus arises, usually parallel to the surface of the organ, a layer of cells capable of division, which continues to form new cork cells, the cork cambium or layer of phellogen. In general this is the innermost layer of the whole cork tissue, so that the production of cork advances outwardly and new layers of cork are constantly formed out of the phellogen on the inner surface of those already in existence. When in this manner a continuous layer of cork arises, steadily increasing from the inside, it is termed “periderm.” As the epidermis is at first replaced by the periderm, so in turn is this replaced by cork (the dead tissue). The development and configuration of the cork cells may change periodically during the formation of periderm. Alternate layers of narrow, thick-walled and broad, thin-walled cork cells are formed; the periderm then appearing stratified, like wood, showing annual rings as in the periderm of the Quercus Suber, Betula Alba, etc.”
- 68. Mr. Sacks, as a botanist, has clearly set forth the explanation of the formation of the periderm of the Quercus Suber in the foregoing, and although the story of the life producing this formation would be an acceptable sequel to this explanation, it would in no wise assist in the ultimate findings, and therefore it is dispensed with. Mr. William Anderson, in a paper read at the Royal Institution of Great Britain in 1886, has the following to say on cork formation, which is very interesting: “In considering the properties of most substances, our search for the cause of their properties is baffled by our imperfect powers and the feeble instruments we possess for investigating molecular structure. With cork, happily, this is not the case; an examination of its structure is easy and perfectly explains the cause of its peculiar and valuable properties. All plants are built up of minute cells of various forms and dimensions. Their walls or sides are composed chiefly of a substance called cellulose, frequently associated with lignine, or woody matter, and with cork, which last is a nitrogenous substance found in many portions of plants, but is especially developed in the outer cork of exogenous trees, that is, belonging to an order, the stems of which grow by the addition of layers of fresh cellulose tissue outside the woody part and inside the bark. Between the bark and the wood is interposed a thin fibrous layer, which in some trees is very much developed. The corky part of the bark which is outside is composed of closed cells, exclusively, so built together that no connection of a tubular nature runs up and down the tree, although horizontal passages radiating toward the woody parts of the tree are numerous. In the woody part of the tree, on the contrary, and in the inner bark, vertical passages or tubes exist, while a connection is kept up with the pith of the tree by means of medullary rays. In one species of tree, known as the cork- oak, this is strongly developed.” It appears that Mr. Anderson enlivened his lecture by microscopic projections, for he goes on to say: “First I project on the screen a microscopic section of the wood of the cork tree. It is taken in a horizontal plane, and I ask you to notice the diversity of the structure and especially the presence of large tubes or pipes. I next exhibit a section taken in the same plane of the corky portion of the bark. You see the whole substance is
- 69. made up of minute many-sided cells about 1⁄750 of an inch in diameter and about twice as long, the long way being disposed radically to the trunk. The walls of the cells are extremely thin and yet they are wonderfully impervious to liquids. Looked at by reflected light, bands of silvery light alternate with bands of comparative darkness, showing that the cells are built on end to end in regular order. The vertical section next exhibited shows a cross section of the cells like a minute honeycomb. In some specimens large crystals are found. These could not be distinguished from the detached elementary spindle-shaped cells, of which woody fiber is made up, were it not for the powerful means of analysis we have in polarized light. I need hardly explain that light passed through a Nicol’s prism becomes polarized, that is to say, the vibrations of the luminiferous ether are all reduced to vibrations in one plane and consequently if a second prism be interposed and placed at right angles to the first, the light will be unable to get through; but if we introduce between the crossed Nicol a substance capable of turning the plane of vibration again, then a certain light will pass. I have now projected on the screen the feeble light emerging from the crossed Nicol. I introduce the microscopic preparation of cork cells between them, and you see the crystals glowing with many colored lights on a dark ground. Minute though these cells are, they are very numerous and hard, and it is partly to them that is due the extraordinary rapidity with which cork blunts the cutting instruments used in shaping it.” In his research or experimentations Mr. Anderson was most deeply impressed with the elasticity of cork, and has the following to say upon his findings: “It would seem difficult to discover any new properties in a substance so familiar as cork, and yet it possesses qualities which distinguish it from all other solid or liquid bodies, namely, its power of altering its volume in a very marked degree in consequence of change of pressure. All liquids and solids are capable of cubical compression or extension, but to a very small extent; thus water is reduced in volume by only .00005 part by the pressure of one atmosphere. Liquid carbonic acid yields to pressure much more than any other fluid, but still the rate is very
- 70. small. Solid substances, with the exception of cork, offer equally obstinate resistance to change of bulk; even India rubber, which most people would suppose capable of very considerable change of volume, we find it really very rigid. Metals, when subjected to pressure which exceed their elastic limits so that they are permanently deformed, as in forging or wire drawing, remain practically unchanged in volume per unit of weight. Not so with cork, its elasticity has not only a very considerable range, but it is very persistent. Thus in the better kind of corks used in bottling champagne and other effervescing wines, you are familiar with the extent to which the corks expand the instant they escape from the bottles. I have measured this expansion and find it to amount to an increase of volume of seventy-five per cent; even after the corks have been kept in a state of compression in the bottles for ten years. [23] When cork is subjected to pressure, either in one direction or from every direction, a certain amount of permanent deformation or permanent set takes place. This property is common to all solid elastic substances when strained beyond their elastic limits, but with cork the limits are comparatively low.” To take advantage of the peculiar properties of cork in mechanical applications it is necessary to determine accurately the law of its resistance to compression, and for this purpose Mr. Anderson instituted a series of experiments of this kind. Into a strong iron vessel of five and one half gallons’ capacity he introduced a quantity of cork and filled the interstices with water, carefully getting out all the air. He then proceeded to pump in water until definite pressures up to one thousand pounds per square inch had been reached, and at every one hundred pounds the weight of the water pumped in was determined. In this way, after many repetitions, he obtained the decrease of volume due to any given increase of pressure. The observations have been plotted into the form of a curve which is discernible on the accompanying diagram.
- 71. The base line represents a cylinder containing one cubic foot of cork divided by the vertical lines into ten parts; the black horizontal lines, according to the scale on the left-hand side, represent the pressures in pounds per square inch which were necessary to compress the cork to the corresponding volume. Thus to reduce the volume to one half, required a pressure of two hundred and fifty pounds per square inch. At sixteen hundred pounds per square inch the volume was reduced to forty-four per cent, the yielding then becoming very little, showing that the solid parts of the cells had come together and formed a solid, compact mass, thus corroborating Mr. Ogston’s determination that the gaseous part of cork constitutes about fifty- three per cent of its bulk. In further study it has been found that no matter what compression is used, providing there is no disintegration, the corkwood will retain just that slight spongy character that so marks its growth. In analyzing this solid matter, Ure found by treating it with nitric acid the yielding was: White fibrous matter (cellulose) 0.18 parts
- 72. Resin 14.72 “ Oxalic acid 16.00 “ Suberic acid 14.4 “ 45.30 parts Chevruel in an analysis of corkwood states that he found the following constitutents, but he does not give percentages: Cerin, a soft fragrant resin. Yellow and red coloring matter. Quercitannic acid. Gallic acid. A brown nitrogenous substance. Salts of vegetable acids. Calcium. Water. Suberic acid. Suberin (cellulose). I am inclined to think that Chevruel selected a poor grade of cork, full of stone cells and Jasperado, as his findings include much that would indicate that was the case. In further defining the various substances which go to make up the body of corkwood the one that is most impressive is that substance that is peculiar to cork itself, the others being readily known, but suberic acid is the one of interest, and this is described by Fownes as a product of the oxidation of cork by nitric acid; is a white crystalline powder, sparingly soluble in cold water, fusible and volatile by heat, the chemical formula given being (C4H14O4). Suberic acid is also described as a dibasic acid which forms small granular crystals very soluble in boiling water, alcohol and ether. It fuses at 300 degrees Fahrenheit and sublimes in acidular crystals. It is also produced when nitric acid acts on stearic, margaric or oleic acid. The chemical analysis is given as (C8H14O4) and I am inclined to believe it is the truer one, as it is much later than Fownes’. This suberic acid has been further broken up to ascertain its fundamental characteristics and it was found to partake of the two compounds suberone and suberate.
- 73. Suberone (C14H24O2) being regarded as the ketone of suberic acid, an aromatic liquid compound obtained when suberic acid is distilled with an excess of lime.[24] Also described as a colorless oil with an odor of peppermint and a boiling point of 179 to 181 degrees Centigrade, chemical formula, Suberone—Cycloheptanone— CH2 . CH2 . CH2 / CO CH2 . CH2 . CH2 Suberate (C8H12M2O4) is known as the salt of suberic acid having a metal cast,[25] and Suberin or cellulose[26]—is that portion remaining after nitration and is chemically expressed by the formula (C6H10O5). Dr. Robert K. Duncan, Prof. of Industrial Chemistry in the University of Kansas, informs us that this material is the commonest of common things[27] and when dry, forms one third of all the vegetable matter in the world. This mysterious substance is the structural basis of the wood, but with all its prominence and use, we know nothing more about it than that which is expressed in the formula. The presence of this cellulose is only a natural fact, as the greater part of plant life is cellulose; nor is the list of elements that go to make up the solid matter so strange and unaccountable, but the quality that makes it a wonderful growth and so popular above its fellows is its lightness—this is its commendable feature and it is light indeed. Ure puts the specific gravity at .24 and this is concurred in by Brisbane. Test of Corkwood for Ascertaining the Possible Presence of an Essential Oil, by Steam Distillation
- 74. Two tests were made on this material to ascertain the presence of an essential oil. The first showed the presence of an oily film, resplendent in colorings, opalescent, variegated and beautiful, but odorless and of such small quantity that it may safely be said “No Oil.” The second proved the same as the first, and although the strong odor of cork or suberic acid was present, no oil appeared. The results of these tests indicate that there is no essential oil in corkwood obtainable by steam distillation. Test No. 1 4-4-1913. A copper still, supported on two trunnions, fitted with a dome and goose-neck, which terminated in a tin coil (water cooled), and with a perforated bottom through which the steam passed, was used. This measured two inches in diameter and two inches high, from the perforated plate to the top of the pot, the dome being about one foot higher. Into this still was placed 41 pounds of corkwood, as it comes from the cutters and punchers (scrap pieces), no preliminary washing or preparing being done; this 41 pounds filled the pot or the still. All things made tight, using an asbestos packing, the steam was turned on at 70 pounds and run for one hour. Test No. 2 4-15-1913. Same still used as in Test No. 1, thirty pounds of a clean, good grade Granulated Cork, of a fineness to pass a 1⁄16″ mesh, was put into the still—this half filling same. Steam turned on at 70 pounds and run for one hour.
- 75. Tests made at A. J. Crombie & Co., Brooklyn, N. Y. Anderson, Ure, Chevruel, Fownes, Watts, Brisbane, men of science; to these we are indebted for the little that is known of corkwood, and although perhaps much more could be said by elaboration, it will suffice to record the facts in this monograph for the purpose involved. But to the data assembled may be added much in commentation, for the material becomes more interesting the more it is studied, and most naturally excites comparison with other materials and substitutes, as well as calling forth a discussion as to the dangers involved by its presence in the places where, by skill of hand and machinery, it is transformed into the many commercial forms, noted in this article. We comment upon its growth, which is truly wonderful and all-absorbing in its many interesting phases; it takes us to the romance of the East and the enchantment of the Moorish occupation; through which these forests of cork-producing trees passed and yet remain to furnish the present generation. We comment upon its lightness and buoyancy, due to the presence of air and excess of hydrogen, known to be lighter than air; and the small percentage of other matter which, being of less importance, make its other quality so renowned as to make it the most wonderful growth of its kind. Its imperviousness to water and other liquids have given us moments of reflection, upon this phenomenon, but now known to be because of the cellulose composing the cell walls and which, when the substance is under compression, practically is all that remains, except for the small quantity of resin, etc., to resist the passage of liquids or gases. But heretofore when these commentations have reached the burning point, its physical nature was entirely eliminated from the conjecturing and the important part neglected, that as the cork contained fifty-three per cent of air, heat of 450 degrees expands to the point of explosion, the contents of those cells nearest the surface, which giving up their oxygen feed the flames and in their passage help to disintegrate the cell walls and make them more easily ignited. Thus causing a rapid burning,
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