Increasingly, the devices in our lives have behaviors that we do not, and
cannot, fully control, based on technologies that are difficult to
understand. This situation can be frustrating. For us nerds, these
frustrations may drive our desire to hack technology or they may create a
nostalgia for technologies whose power is easier to understand (or at
least touch). However, many people have to live with this tech and make it
do what it's supposed to (or at least what we expect of it), but few will
have the time to delve into how it works.
How can we explain the functionality of new technologies in a useful way
when their actual functionality is highly complex and interrelated?
The desktop metaphor was useful for twenty years as a way to structure and
explain information-processing technology. I propose using "magic" as a
replacement metaphor when creating technology, instead of the desktop
metaphor. Not pretending that technology is magic so as to avoid
explaining how it works, but as a framework for communicating how devices
work and interact with each other and with us.
http://dorkbot.org/dorkbotsf/archive/200610
