People who get hooked on computers
Bob represents the domestication of the personal computer, in the pejorative sense of the word, turning the miraculous shape-shifting capacities of these machines into a dulled repetition of everyday, household reality.
The real magic of graphic computers derives from the fact that they’re not tied to the old, analog world of objects. They can mimic much of that world of course, but they’re also capable of adopting new identities and performing new tasks that have no real-world equivalent whatsoever. People who get hooked on computers get hooked for this reason. They don’t become high-tech junkies because their machines remind them of their Rolodexes; they’re junkies because their machines do things they never thought possible. Interface design should reflect this newness, this range of possibility.
Amen.
Good ole Tetris is a wonderful example of those possibilities, of that unreality, and so is Photoshop. For a more recent, fascinating example look no further than the Namekuji game (but be warned, by clicking this link you therewith relinquish the next couple of hours).
