[Sigia-l] "Social Interface"

[Boniface Lau]

> From: Eric Scheid
>  
> Joel is using the term "social interface" as an abbreviation of
> "interface for a software mediated social environment" [1], 

Can you quote from Joel's writings for the above interpretation?

Also, what is a "software mediated social environment"? Consider
someone who closed the office door to signal to co-workers that he/she
didn't want to be interrupted. Without anyone beside, the person then
sat in front of a workstation to handle email. Is that a "software
mediated social environment"?

Speaking of mediation, the article did not clearly define what it
meant by "software that mediates between people":

SI> Software in the 1980s, when usability was "invented," was all
SI> about computer-human interaction. A lot of software still is. But
SI> the Internet brings us a new kind of software: software that's
SI> about human-human interaction. 
SI>
SI> Discussion groups. Social networking. Online classifieds. Oh, and,
SI> uh, email. It's all software that mediates between people, not
SI> between the human and the computer. 

According to the above examples, most interactive software fall into
the category of mediating between people. That includes the good old
multi-user operating systems such as Unix. By managing a shared file
system and allowing users to exchange email, Unix "mediates between
people".

But Unix was born in 1969 - long before the Internet which supposedly
"brings us a new kind of software: software that's about human-human
interaction."


Boniface