Great Discussion on writing as information technology. I think in this world of computers and digital mediums it is easy to forget the importance of the role of writing as one of the early communication/information technologies.

For what it’s worth, you might also consider an even older (the original, in fact) communication technology, oral tradition. Just like the literacay that needs to be developed to read an inscription or navigate the interweb, there is a literacy among the oral cultures in which the primary means of communication is oral.

John Miles Foley explores the intersection of oral tradition and the Internet on his blog: Oral Tradition and the Internet.

Also, as part of the Center for Studies in Oral Tradition, we just launched the first installment of 20 years of content from the journal Oral Tradition.

I hope this is helpful.

Best,
Jamie

Personally I feel we should be cautious about generalising terms to make a point. I’m a stickler for detail and definition. I write a lot of specifications for engineers who do not hold English as their first language, I’m sure you appreciate how the vaguarities of a few keywords can alter the direction of a design.

I would to thank you both for a very thought provoking dialogue, its certainly expanded my view of what it means to create a design.

An author needs to sell his book, he may use text to sway the user to meet his goals. Therefore I view the action of payment as a seller’s goal.

And on this point, ‘marketing’ is functional blurb accompanying the expressive text. ‘Also by this author’ & ‘Best seller list’ is functional text in my view. The user does use functional text to allocate his attention, which is very similar to making a buying decision but outside the control of the seller, i.e. reading Amazon reviews to make a purchase on eBay.

I’m not familiar with the two authors you cited, would this not be an example of interacting with art, not so much functional interaction?

However, I do appreciate what you are saying so let me be a bit more specific, and for my own benefit lets put purchasing examples aside as I do not deal with consumption in my designs.

There are two components to bokardo.com. The (traditional) interface and the creative content contained within. Arguments have been put forward that the creative content has been designed. It is a given that something ‘designed’ can be interacted with at a functional level. With a view on Josh’s writings can you give me an example of expressive content that is functionally interacted with?

What I like to think of here are instances of “use” that generally fall outside the assumed interaction known as sustained, silent reading. These tend to be things that folks other than the “author” are designing for, if they are considered at all. They can also be quite important to users.

Example: buying a paperback novel. What affordances are designed into the document to facilitate this? Review blurbs on the cover and in the front matter, “also by this author” lists, author photos…

All of these things are likely to accompany the expressive text that is the “content.” But they serve an important mediational role during the task of making a purchase decision.

Now…that’s kind of a slippery answer to your question. So let me offer a more direct one. Are there also times when the writer’s own design choices within “the content” are meant to guide interaction? Absolutely…Mark Danielewski’s experimental fiction (see House of Leaves) is a striking example. David Foster Wallace’s work Infinite Jest is too. Both use the convention of footnotes to facilitate layered storytelling in an otherwise linear medium – the print novel.

Are there things that best-selling novelists do to design their content to aid users in making a buy decision? Sure. Make the first line memorable…leave folks wondering what happens next. That’s a design choice, I’d say, meant to encourage “page turning.”

I am thinking more about texts that do work in the world. So…airline safety cards in the seatback pocket, tax forms, welcome brochures by the convention and visitor’s bureau, blog posts…

And as for Josh’s choice of terms, I think he was trying to build a little suspense before the jump. That is, he “designed” the post to try and get folks to click through to read the whole thing. (an anticipation of interaction, and an attempt to manipulate it). Your comment is a critique of that design choice, yes? Essentially you are saying that rather than tantalize readers, he might have confused them instead.

I do agree with the perspective, I disagree with the practicalities of those statements.
You said: “documents are locations for future interaction…not only records of past action”, I like this and it works on many levels. I think documents age as the readership’s experience grows past the knowledge held at that time. Interfaces age as users learn new interface paradigms or when new control technologies arrive on the scène. And, we can look back at both, A life on Walden Pond or Windows 3.1, and see a historical marker in the document or interface.

Now, forgive the rather crude metaphor… A Dylan song about politics from the 60s, a ‘document’, may have been an interface between the song/content writer and his listeners/users. And yes, we can now look back at that reference and ‘interface’ in to the views at that point in time. This does not mean Dylan was or is viewed as a political analyst. In the same way, a creative writer is not a UI/UX designer. They can be the same person as in Josh’s case, but that does not mean I’m missing a skill as a pure UI/UX head. It’s a slippery slope to saying Burt Bacharach was a poor songwriter because he was a little light on meaningful content.

I would say Documents are -like- Interfaces, creating content is -like- designing it, a creative writer is -like- a UI designer. A lot of the processes are similar, that does not mean they are the same thing or can be completed by the same person in our context.

I’ll make an assumption that Josh’s readership is familiar with UI/UX design, web development etc. Why then, based on both your writings, is he using terminology that will confuse the users of his Interface Content/Document? State the assumption at the start or come up with a new name but, josh, your ‘interface’ is broken if you start repurposing the users language.

(guest blogger Bill here)

I would say tailoring words is a UX question, and sometimes a UI question. Another assertion this book makes (it’s the title of a chapter, in fact) goes likes this:

Documents are Interfaces.

That is, locations where people (and sometimes people and machines) come together. In this way, documents are locations for future interaction…not only records of past action.

Does that give context for your question?

Are you suggesting that tailoring your words to your target users (to use UI terminology) then, in short, its part of the UI design field?

If yes, I have a follow up question.