The Beginning...

By way of a beginning, an ending. This is the last few lines of my book 'The Architecture of Information' which will be published by Routledge in June 2011. Its a starting point for the themes in this blog. It starts by musing on a future collaboration between architecture and computer science:

I believe that the relevance of this potential collaboration is all the more important when we look through the history of computing and the change in our understanding of what constitutes a computer user interface. The study of human interaction with computer systems has moved through three distinct phases, characterised by the emergence of Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) in the 1980s, Tangible User Interfaces (TUis) in the 1990s and 2000s and, most recently, through embedded and spatially distributed computational systems, and through ambient, intelligent and pervasive user interfaces. Each paradigm in human computer interaction is associated with particular technical challenges, cognitive models and design paradigms. For example, GUIs have traditionally been developed with reference to the evolution of computer graphics, gestalt models of visual perception and design paradigms such as direct manipulation. Similarly, the development of TUIs has brought together the technical challenges of sensing and multi-touch interaction, theories on embodied and situated cognition and the design of ergonomic and physically responsive material artefacts.

Whilst the study and development of ambient, intelligent and pervasive user interfaces has been substantial and there has been growing research effort across a range of fields (both in and outside computer science), the core principles which bind the technical development and design to an understanding of their cognitive affects have yet to be fully understood. Where graphic design supported the development of the GUI and product design supported the design of tangible user interface, surely the new century will prize architectural design along with relevant cognitive theories in the development of situated and pervasive computing interfaces. In particular, following the discussion in this book, we can observe that, whilst models of design and cognition in human computer interaction are centred around an allocentric frame of reference, (the manipulation of physical objects) pervasive computing requires an understanding of egocentric frames of reference (involving whole body immersion).

We might even call these new types of interface AUIs (Architectural User Interfaces). It remains to be seen what new artefacts and deign agendas might follow their evolution.