[Sigia-l] "Social Interface"

[Eric Scheid]

On 10/9/04 12:18 PM, "Boniface Lau" <boniface_lau at compuserve.com> wrote:

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/NotJustUsability.html

>> 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?

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/NotJustUsability.html

   "But the Internet brings us a new kind of software: software that's
    about human-human interaction"

   "Discussion groups. Social networking. Online classifieds. Oh, and, uh,
    email. It's all software that mediates between people, not between the
    human and the computer."

   "When you're writing software that mediates between people, after you get
    the usability right, you have to get the social interface right. And the
    social interface is more important. The best UI in the world won't save
    software with an awkward social interface."

Seems fair to say he's talking about the HCI of software which mediates
between people who wish to interact on a social basis (ie. person to
person).

> 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's what happens when you cherry pick your examples and attempt to
extrapolate a premise. There is a vast library of interactive software which
isn't in that list of examples and which are also not mediating between
people. Solitaire shipped with every version of windows, I believe.

> 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".

email is already in the list of examples, and I agree that unix email falls
into that broad category. I wouldn't argue though that the larger package of
which that one item is a member of would therefore also fall into that
category. That's like saying that since dogs are mammals, and dogs are also
in the animal kingdom, thus the entire animal kingdom are mammals.

Which is wrong, of course.

e.

[1] or words to that effect, ie. not an exact quote
[2] individually addressed messages which are transported in a coded form
across a store and forward distribution system existed well before unix came
along. telegrams in morse code, for example.