Stories are everywhere. Everyone has stories, and everything has stories. Storytelling is important because everything that is happening is a story, and everything that is imaginative is a story. It takes form through literature, poets, songs, etc,. Nowadays, with the rapid advancement of technology, new media adds more dimensions to the process of storytelling, creating immersive experience for the audience, and making the story even more powerful in delivering the information. As a student in Design and Technology, and what was brought up in the lecture is exactly what I am looking for. I hope I can learn how to use the right technology for my own art/design practice or get inspiration from various precedents and use of technologies.

• After reading Chapter 1 of Computers as Theatre, how would you define ‘interface’ for yourself? Does it always have to be defined in relation to a human and a machine? If not, please elaborate.

Interface could be anything that is representational and engages with at least one of human senses so people can learn how to interact with it to serve their needs. It does not have to always be defined in relation to human-computer-interaction. The core action here is interaction so the notion of interface for human-computer-interaction can also apply to other objects. As mentioned in Computer as Theatre, ‘interface’ ,’folder’, ‘Finder’ and ‘Web pages’ alike are all using concrete things as metaphors for people to easily understand the functionalities of thing happened inside the computer. On a computer interface, there are icons, which are representation of each application, so users can easily know which application can do what she wants to do. As a result, interface should be designed to serve functions that help users navigate and achieve their goals. This idea of interface can also be applied to other everyday objects. For example, shoe ties can be identified as a part of the interface of a shoe but not every shoe has shoe ties. But everyone knows what to do with a pair of shoes with shoe ties.

• Elaborate on an example of an objection to the theatrical approach of designing a human-computer activity. Which side are you leaning more towards, and why?

One objection is that theatre has the nature of fuzziness. As explained in the book, applications of computers requires clarity and precision while drams’s characteristic of subjective experience, which is one of the reason why the theatrical approach of designing a human-computer activity is objected. I agree that programming an application does need precision and clarity. However, it differs from what users will experience with the application in terms of human-computer interaction. The back end of the application should be done with precision, which guarantee the functionality.  The presentation of the application is different. How the interface guides a user through a user journey is party depends on the user’s action which is subjective. A interface designer would not predict what a user would do with the program precisely, and there is more that one way to present and also handle failures. Then it comes to a fuzzy and dramatic representation to enhance what users will experience.