Sicheii Yazhi

I just finished watching Bruce Sterling’s speech at the “Innovationsforum Interaktionsdesign” conference. Though a science fiction writer by profession, he’s become more and more immersed in the world of design, first as a vehicle into his fiction and eventually as the direct object of his study and thinking.

Primary Point: Reducing Cognitive Load

The main thesis he presents in this speech is that interface design, and the technology that backs it, will move toward reducing cognitive load and expanding the user’s opportunities at less cost per opportunity. This makes sense: more useful and easier to use.

On the one hand, Sterling is talking about the cognitive load required by the interface objects themselves. In his words:

Never thinking about [the object] again: that is the ideal relationship between a human being and an object. It’s the opposite of how designers think and feel.

Half Empty or Half Full?

On the other hand, Sterling’s frequent repetition of the phrase “reducing cognitive load” could be a troubling prediction, depending on whether the glass is half full or half empty. The half-empty perspective can envision a world driven entirely by desires, with the “spimes” acting as wish-fulfillment agents, leading the user mindlessly to his/her desired end. This could almost turn on its head the hope many educators currently place in technology; rather than becoming a means for more awareness, connectivity, and thought, it becomes merely a means for more and easier gratification.

However, the half-full perspective, taking a page from the social evolution of Jared Diamond, might imagine a user freed of having to devote “cognitive space” to the means and methods of acquiring, thereby gaining the ability to devote more “cognitive space” to the things that really deserve and require it.

Education and the Ubiquitous Tech

Either way, the “what and how” of technology will, in Sterling’s view, increasingly become “not the point.” We will marvel less and less over the tools themselves and merely use them to get things done. I think this is evident from our past (who still marvels over the desktop computer?), and our present. For instance, the average user of Internet technologies wants to order movie tickets, research the most fuel-efficient car, be entertained by videos, or stay in touch with “friends.” Only the bloggers and technophiles spend a lot of time discussing the “what and how” of the tools that make this possible.

If we accept Sterling’s claims and predictions, I wonder how this impacts what and how educators teach in relation to technology.¹ A large part of the technology/education discussion seems to center on the what of the interface: how to make it do what you want it to do. I’ve heard claims from some educators that everyone should learn the basics of computer hardware and a few languages of code. Sterling’s view would seem to undermine that approach and even to undermine the concept of “technology literacy” itself: ideally, the technology is merely there and merely useful, not the subject of our attention and learning, but the transparent means.

Secondary Point: Media Convergence

Another point that Sterling raises in this speech, but doesn’t spend much time addressing, is the convergence of media. Again, in his words:

As a creative, one’s choice of a medium used to be absolutely critical [but] that’s just not there anymore … We people who work in media, creatives, we lack a good perspective on this reality … These former hierarchies of the creative disciplines are coming violently apart. [At the same time,] profoundly powerful networks are assembling.

The possibilities this opens are exciting and daunting. I imagine I’ll be spending a lot of time trying to think through the implications here, and trying to find anything else Sterling has said on the conflation of media.

1. I’ve seen Sterling pop up on the blogs of some of the educators I follow, including Doug Noon and Tim Stahmer, who wrote an interesting short piece based on a Sterling quote, where he contrasts viewing computers as creative devices instead of appliances. [back]