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Untangling Interactive Systems

Philip Tchernavskij, Université Paris-Sud

Abstract:

It is a near-dogmatic fact of interaction design that design does not end before use:

People and communities fit tools and materials to their particular uses by selecting, composing, and altering them.

By contrast, our consensus model of interactive systems, applications, produces static and closed systems that actively resist being combined and modified.

Based on the notions of instrumental interaction and information substrates, I am working towards a model of software where input devices, interaction techniques and commands are all 'stuff' whose particular constellations can be untangled and remade.

I will present and discuss my ongoing work on an interaction infrastructure based on this principle.