What are interfaces for, really?
Date
2022
Authors
Advisors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Routledge
Type
Book chapter
Peer reviewed
Yes
Abstract
In computing, context is everything. The same pattern of zeroes and ones (binary digits) represents a number in one context, a letter of the alphabet in another context, and an instruction to the processor in another. The computer instructions that create the on-screen “furniture”’ of our human-computer interfaces are, at the lowest level, no different from the texts to which they seem to give shape, enabling our interactions. The best interfaces make apparent this ontological sameness while the worst reify abstract high-level distinctions between form and content, enforcing power relations between the makers of digital content and their consumers.
Description
Keywords
digital humanities, Shakespeare
Citation
Egan, G. (2022) What are interfaces for, really? In: Routledge handbook of Shakespeare and interface, edited by Paul Budra and Clifford Werier, New York: Routledge, pp. 91-104