[Sigia-l] "Social Interface"

[Dave]

I have to say that I find this topic really interesting in how it is a
form of segmentation that doesn't really seem to be real, IMHO. At
least not at the perceived level of hierarchy that I think I'm reading
into all this.

I know that in the CHI community they have a whole SIG dedicated to
working in groups with computers. Is this any different?

But I would also say that this is a classic case where problem on the
human side is social instead of psychological and in this case the
interface not only has to work on the psychological level but needs to
be systemitized to take into account social and anthropological issues
such as politics, language(s), etiquette, etc. But my experience on
the social side is that there are two outcomes. The software dictates,
or the software is hacked to dictate and then the software evolves to
match. Chat is a perfect example of this. ASCII art is now emoticons.
It wasn't always the case, but the software evolved. But because there
is a balancing act between interface as human to machine and
interfacing between human to human we can only do the good work that
we do today as UCD specialists. Do the research, make the app respond
as best we can based on observation of context of expected use.
Prototype/Build/Release re-observe, make changes. I don't see a lot of
differences here in theory or practice from what we already know and
do.

-- dave