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Hello.
Most people say the problem
exists between keyboard and chair, but
now
to use it becomes too incomplete,
and Dahlia will tell us all about it, so
give you a warm round of applause.
Yeah. Thank you very much.
I'll try to be loud and
quick.
I'm an artist.
I work on line since nineteen
ninety five and already
since 15 years.
I also teach art and design online
as well as interface design.
I also keep Joe Cetus Archive
and I write about Joe speeches
and in general, about the web
of the nineties.
And more generally, I write
about digital culture, digital art
and digital folklore.
And usually, when I say
digital folklore, people
think that I mean hechos humor.
But this is not at all like this.
What is meant with digital folklore?
Other visual textual
outdoor elements of
cultures that emerged
through emerged from
users engagement with personal
computer application starting from
the last decade of
the last century.
So I mean, user culture
and this time frame, when I say starting
from the nineties,
the life line timeframe
is there to distinguish
user culture from the glorious
home computer culture to distinguish,
but not to completely separate them from
one another.
I am also the coauthor
of the Digital Folklore Rhythm,
and this
book is dedicated to the users,
and it starts with the introduction
that is entitled Do
you believe the Do you believe in users?
Let me please remind to you
where this quote
this question comes from.
It comes from the legendary film Tron
Nineteen Eighty two and
this very important moment.
I hope this
is not a mistake.
I'm just a compound interest program.
I work at a savings and loan.
I can't play these video games.
You can't look like a natural athlete,
a on me.
Are you kidding?
No, I don't. No check on Tebow, right?
I get out of breath.
Hey, look, you guys are going to make my
use of Mr. Henderson very angry.
He's a full branch manager.
Right? Another religious,
let's say. Welcome friend, but not
here. Not like this.
I don't even know what I'm doing here.
Do you believe in the users?
Yeah, sure.
If I don't have a user, then who wrote
me. That's what you're doing.
Was it a bit too wide?
Could you hear the dialog here?
This is the beauty of this moment
is, of course, in the
fact that this app, this program
says user and means both developer
and account manager.
Yeah. And of course, the significance
of the episode is also in the way
the word use is pronounced with a great
respect.
Let's fly now to
2008 and
listen to Don Norman.
Don Norman, the father of Human-Centered
Design, author of
Design of Everyday Things, Design,
The Future of Things, and all other
important text about
how things should be designed.
One of the horrible words we use is
users.
I am on a crusade to get rid
of the word users.
I would prefer to call them people,
people.
Hmm.
You know, we test people.
What a strange thing we designed
for people. We don't design for users.
So don't.
Norman does not believe in users,
and he believes it's a horrible word.
There are 25 years, a quarter of the
century in between the episode and wrong,
and this speech Don
Norman gave in 2008,
and this was really 25
years of this dome being degraded.
And today it's usually
used with with negative
connotations.
If we listen to them, the irritations
of recent years
of true to their words from the recent
years, for example, money which
the
author of the language of the new media,
one of the main irritations of the new
media, he says
in 2011, for example,
how do we call a person who is
interacting with digital media user
no-Good and
another theoretician,
Janet moreI, is the pioneering
interaction designer author of
The Hamlet on the Holodeck.
She writes in 2012,
in the introduction to her new book
Inventing the Medium uses
a convenient but narrow and outdated
like interface in director
is someone who is not using
the device but acting within the system.
A user is seeking to complete immediate
risk. Interact is engaged.
Let's now listen to another
big name, Edward.
Often in some
months ago at the conference,
he said only two industries called
the customers users illegal drugs
and software.
And this is.
I hope I hope you are not agreeing with
Edward off to with your applauses,
because it's absolutely wrong
to say to proclaim things like
this, first of all, because users are not
customers.
And second,
it's in general comparison with
junkies. It's an evil rhetoric,
as well as all other
attempts to explain the word user
go into pre-computer, so to say,
pre-computer, regional history
of the word user.
And I'm
talking about connotations like
somebody who is unimportant, who is just
using the who is
maybe even addicted and passive,
because indeed,
the word user means an active
position.
I was very happy recently to find the
text by Raymond Williams
written actually more than 50
years ago.
Raymond Williams is known for explaining
a lot of terms, and it's a small ledger
of the words to the general public.
His most known book is key words,
where he explains what
six labor technology
and other words mean.
Also, consumers and customers.
And in his previous Book of the Long
Revolution, he also
talks about consumers
and with regret, he
mentions.
If we were not consumers but users,
we might look at society very differently
for the concept of use involves general
human judgments.
We need to know how to use things
and what we are using them for,
and also the effects of particular users
on our general life.
This is a very important explanation
of the word to use.
So somebody who knows how to use
things and what they are used
for.
But the thing is that software industry
and I.T.
industry, the service
providers don't really need users
who know how they use things and what
they're using it for.
They need the customers
and consumers.
And so human bots
whom they gently call people.
That's why in the Facebook
office, you can find
notes like this.
It's from the last year Christmas party.
And that's why also a year ago,
Jack Dorsey, the founder
of Twitter and Foursquare,
says, If I ever say the word user
again immediately charge me with
240
dollars.
He didn't say it in this little
text. Of course, I allowed
it to myself to make some fun
or to make.
It may be that the future generations
do remember this
this idea of the
idea and software industry
to see users as consumers and customers.
And it is only half of the story
which explains why
a user is no good.
Another thing is another reason
is a general the mainstream paradigm
of computer technology development,
and that is invisible computer.
Here we can come again to the
to the normal.
His famous prediction from
99 to the computer of the future
should be invisible.
Sorry.
He said it the nine to nine to as an
answer to the question why interfaces
don't work, they don't work because
they are interfaces and they should
vanish and the computer of the future
should be invisible as well.
We know we live in the future.
Yeah, computers are still distinguishable
and marketable, but they are so much, not
something you sit in front of anymore
and forecasts for invisibility.
They are so optimistic
that some companies
already allow themselves to put
this prediction in the present tense
curve, as Apple did it
two years, one and a half years ago,
and applied it to a particular piece
of technology and said We believe the
technology is at its very best when
it's invisible, when you are conscious
only of what you are doing, not the
device you are doing it with
with no, no, no, no, no.
And now the last sentence, it's
a more personal experience with
technology that people have ever hit.
I ask could do now to pay attention
to the last sentence
again, to the word experience,
technology and people.
And what this thing is for.
So these are people, not users.
This is technology, not computer.
And this is experience, but not
interface.
It is because it happens
now everywhere.
If you read announcements
of the conferences in interface design
sphere and in
I.T. in general,
this words, they just
cease to exist.
They're replaced with other ones.
And this happens.
So technology instead of computer
experience instead of interface and
people instead of users and the field
itself are step by step.
We've got renamed.
I mean, the field of interface design
got a new name experience design.
There is another neighboring field,
which is designed
by gamification gamification trend.
Their users are addressed as gamers,
and everything else is just an epic win.
Yeah.
And this is exactly the same
tactic what we see here.
So they're gamers,
customers, consumers are the main
thing, not
users, because because the what
was the word user is
stays on the way of computer
to become completely invisible.
It destroys the illusion of
computer closeness.
But we
we need to take care about this
word because
invisible because invisible user
is more of an issue as an invisible
computer.
Computers can get as tiny as
and invisible as wanted, but the
users should stay visible
because if this, if
they're use this word, then they do.
The existence of two classes of people,
developers and users is
also not there anymore, and this is
how users can lose
their right, their rights and
opportunity to protect this rights
and this rights are the right
to demand the better software,
the right to fail epically.
The right to
get your files back, the right
to delete your files,
and the fundamental right here, the
right to see the computer.
So that's
what in a year ago I
wrote in to say Turing complete user,
where I ask
this question What can be done to
protect the term, the notion and
existence of the user?
What arguments can be found to stop
Adam Norman's crusade?
And how I can dispel
left Manalich skepticism?
What can we how can we
what do we know about the user
beside the opinion that it's no good
to be one?
There are two things to understand
about the users and the
history.
One is that users were invented
before the computers,
not after not parallel
to computers, but really prior
the computers. All the important texts
that you maybe ever read important text
for the history of computing.
They are, in fact, the history
of the user. So the Earth like Vannevar
Bush, league leader
and and Gilbert and
Alan and other authors
at Xerox Parc, they all were
imagined and users, first of all.
And in this interim, complete use
say and also fall in this history
and the picture of user from the
scientists scientists
whose hands are free.
Tudor and Gilbert's ideal
user who is developing together with the
computer or the lady
with the royal typewriter as
it was imagined, and Xerox Parc
or children by Goldberg and Alan
Key.
And then further to the
more and
more modern
views.
And also,
I said, important to know that they were
imagined before.
But maybe these are just sentiments, some
facts that are not so important.
What is really important that the users
were emergent, they are free judgment of
image and imagination.
This picture is always
projected on us and
whatever this imaginations are,
there is a constant and the constant
is that the users
are busy, always busy with something
else. I have here quote from a quite
a good book on interface design,
and this is the advice
to the to the developers
how to think about the users.
Very gentle, yeah.
In fact, to the users.
But the main thing is here that the users
are those who are busy with something
else. So users, the people who
are not going
to spend
any thought on the computer at
all, they are delegating
repetitive tasks to the computer
and also their delegates to draw the
board in between the repetitive
task and mature thought
to the computer.
This.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, this delegation for the U.S.
is the most important thing.
And of course, I understand that there
are many hours a day then
this delegation and automation,
they are required and
enjoyed, but times and all
aspects of our life are
computerized.
This it's not possible
to accept this visit with something
else as a norm, as a default.
That's why I suggest also on
this assay to see
another mode of user
to have another picture, the user
that was formed through three decades
of just in general purpose technology
to the needs to the general purpose
user and general purpose user
can write an article in their email
client client.
They can lay out their business card in
Excel they can like without
Facebook, they can tweet without Twitter.
They can upload images without
flicker.
They can have online affairs outside
of online dating services.
They can make six second videos
without Vine.
They can shave without the web.
They can shave in front of a webcam
without shave
me up.
And they, of course, would be able to
make selfies and to upload the selfies
without nude Justin Bieber's
Shorts Me app.
This this users can be
possibly also used to call universal
users or Turing complete
users as a reference to Universal
Turing's machine.
But whatever name I choose,
the main thing I
o the main thing I mean
is the user who is able to achieve
your goals without
was able to achieve her goals
without
without respect to the primary goal
of the software or the device
that we know about the universal machine.
That there is nothing one computer
can do what another can't given
enough time and memory,
and the same goes to the Turing complete
user. So there is nothing one user
can do what another can't given
enough time and respect.
And in
this is then important to understand
that one of the this being
a general purpose user is
in fact and automate user
experience.
If you want to think in the user
experience terms
and in the terms of the use of the
user experience design field.
But what does it mean that for the
software industry, for the services
that are provided to us?
Does it mean that to provide this
experience, industry
has to deliver and perfect tools
or hold themself from improving existing
tools? Of course not.
The thing is that the
idea of perfection should be
addressed to the general purpose user.
It should value users involvement
and ambiguity in
in software and interface design.
Demands in gender
ambiguous software is only one
of the things that computer users
can do. Only one of the steps
to go further and to think about
the rights that we can
have and how we can protect them.
I made an extension to the Turing
Complete user
is safe and there is a platform
where you and I can demand
rights now.
So this is the form I demand the right
to.
If you made it,
it will appear and your name
will appear in comic songs, which is very
important for me.
As you could see, it's possible
to discuss it, to upvoted, to downvote
it. It's not a perfect discussion
system at this moment that it
has to be improved.
It's in the state of collecting
ideas at this moment, but we have
a beautiful home button
and when you click on it, so
you are at.
Home page
where all this users user
rights are listed at this moment,
and they are quite different there
on the different level of elaboration
at this moment.
So I tried now to group
them at least a little bit, and here you
can see there some something what
could be called fundamental rights.
And of course, for me this to see the
computer difficult to advocate for
it because users are
convinced that good computers and
invisible computer and
I myself, I also don't demand huge
computers and bulky screens or whatever.
But I mean that computers
should be visible. You should see the
computer even if it's invisible.
Yeah, you should know that there is a
computer, and to see it is
a precondition for asking the question
What is this computer doing
to own data?
This I borrowed from
user data manifesto.
The great manifesto that also
deals with the same issue How
to Protect User Rights written
by Frank Khalid Shaikh, the founder
of ownCloud and
there said seven other points.
Read them that elaborate on it.
Then there is, of course, to install
free software on your own computer.
Seen by many, as may be the
only right that one would need,
that free software is the answer to all
the troubles.
It's, of course,
it makes sense. Of course, it would be
different if our world
would be a free software and world users
would be more competent
and more empowered.
But still, there would be users and there
would be developers, so we shouldn't stay
on this level as users.
We should go to another level
of precision and demands.
So, for example, to know wherever
my hardware will run free software
is, one user demanded.
Or I think
this was demanded by Brendan Hurrell,
who was before here to participate
in society without having to use a
particular software device or corporate
website.
I think you see that its next level of
thinking about how I can protect
myself, what I can demand
some demands
are obviously courageous
that come out from bad
experience with software
do not have my system made obsolete to
ignore updates.
Not to be interrupted by program.
My data are not being converted.
You know your uploaded GIF,
but it became a JPEG.
This is what the user
was talking about to disconnect.
This is now from experiences from
the cloud.
The users shout to
disconnect to view offline, to
securely delete my six year history,
to actually delete my account.
To be on Google, Apple and, for
example, to look out.
I think this lock out is a very elegant
demand at this moment, and
it's very meaningful and expressive.
There is so much said about the right
for privacy that humans,
people or citizens
should have.
And of course, as citizens, we should
demand privacy.
But as computer users on another
level. Yeah, you should demand the right
to log out and then
it's where it will.
Then you can talk about the privacy.
On another level, there are some
rights that are
quite discussed, so
a lot of disagreement about it to
get revenue, to get data
stored in text format.
To read source code.
That's what really has to do
with the users and their rights, and not
this is not discussed.
Then something like the right to a web
browser to see the URL, to have a
real keyboard, to use cable
to resume where I left off to have
a real key to.
So yeah,
to have a real keyboard.
The copy and paste to
pull. To reply all so
are these are just caprices
of the users or this
essential freedoms.
This is something what is discussed now
at our platform.
But the main thing here that the thought
is provoked.
Yeah, then what you think, what
I can do and what computer can
do. What was delivered to
me as a usability feature
and what I do not want to
to give away and let me
finish with the
last one with the right to
undo it was the first one
in the system and
it's now it still stays up there
on the top. And I think we should really
fight for it because of three reasons.
First of all, the undo
is one of not many generic.
Comments and genetic cross
application comments that are so
important for design of ambiguous
applications.
Second, undo is a clear
border in between the virtual
and the real world, and soon
you will want to find one and then
remember that in real life, you
can't undo.
Yeah, it's easy.
And the third is maybe
a sentimental one is its historical
significance.
Undo was
conceptualized in 1976.
It marks the period then
computers started to be used by people
who didn't program them.
So is the arrival of the
real user and so-called naive
user, and that was given to
them users not
to scare them away, to give them
the right to make mistake.
And yet, because there was an
understanding that there is nothing
one user can do
what another country if they can
undo.
So please contribute
and thank you for your attention.
OK, thank you.
There are two mikes lined up, Mike
one, Mike two, Mike, three
other questions.
Number two,
I wanted to really recommend your
essay during complete user to the
audience here.
I read it, I think when Cory Doctorow
recommended it, and
Cory is also someone who's very concerned
about the language that we use to talk
about the people who interact with
systems.
And he's also concerned about the use of
the word consumer, and
he often likes to talk about an audience
or about readers rather than a consumer.
Also trying to put in the foreground
the person who's
actively dealing with the system.
So I thought your essay was very exciting
and raised many of the same
exciting concepts about human creativity
and intelligence.
I wanted to ask if you were familiar with
a site called Revealing Errors,
which was created by my friend Marco
Hill.
And he's also concerned with making
computers visible to people
as a matter of showing
power, relationships and technology.
So he looks at errors that occur
in computer systems as a way
of getting people to think about who
created the system.
What does the system do?
How can the system fail?
What decisions and values are embodied
in the system?
Have you seen the review?
No, but I know I
memorized.
But
thanks. Yeah, thank you.
Questions from the internets.
Yes. No.
Then number two?
Yeah. And I think
that
I think that
user interface and security are to
a two parts of
the same spectrum how people
deal with machines and and
you're talking about two incomplete user
and that presupposes two incomplete
interfaces. So and I think
if you have stateful interfaces,
a lot of the problems that you listed
do not come up. For example, the right to
lock out is only
a that's only a problem because
we have what interfaces I didn't
stateful like.
And if you have state transitions that
are explicit, but you do not have a
Turing complete interface that can do
anything, yeah, you are right.
You need state machine, for example,
several screens and you can only switch
between them.
And the right to lock out is only an
issue because people use, for example,
cookies and do not
build stateful interfaces.
So and I think
maybe the maybe
there can be an explicit mathematical
model of interfaces.
And do you think that's possible like
of interfaces that are usable without
being too incomplete user, they are not
confusing and that do not allow
specific errors.
I really don't see this contradiction
of what you are trying to
negotiate.
I'm talking about ambiguity
and the power of user
and the user's
involvement and
the end making decisions console small
decisions, big decisions all the time you
are talking about now the right.
I think that this ambiguity
can only come up if the computer
provides sufficient and powerful
language to have
ambiguity. For example, if you have
a simple interface, a push button, there
is no ambiguity. It's either to be
pressed or not to be pressed.
So you don't have a complete
user in that case, and you do not have
confusion and you do not need
any exclusive rights
in regards to that button.
But why should we now imagine this
buttons if
we are in the book
where you can still have a useful
interface while reducing its expressive
power? You can have software that
only allows to
do user useful things without
having, for example, contradictory
states that
so you could build a library that
user interface widgets that don't confuse
users.
I think
maybe let's talk about this later.
Yeah, because.
OK, number two.
Thank you very much.
I wanted to ask,
what do you think about the relation
between interfaces and using
interfaces and
the way human beings perceive
the world and the
way they work, the way they they
perceive the world and the development
of knowledge and relationship to
objects in the world and reality in
general?
You mean the the what
what do they have, what the effect they
have on users?
The interfaces, how the how they form
the picture of the world?
Yeah, they are.
Oh, this
is huge.
The impact of the interface
you know you've seen there.
If you open the Justin Bieber
app and see the picture of the
world through this app,
yeah, it is a it is a very small
and beautiful world.
Yeah, it is. But it's
it's just the answer is huge.
That's why there should be a lot of
the look of conscious
ness involved into creating
software.
OK. Thanks again, Olga, and thank you
all.