Staf 's Public Library

Muse - Knights Of Cydonia

Powderfinger - These Days

We talk to each other, exchange money for goods, pat the dog, use the telephone, open doors with doorhandles, open bottles, use cutlery, write with pens.

The mouse turning into a finger and dispensing with buttons may sound incredibly naive today but it actually represents a significant shift in thinking. It is a similar to the development of cinema in which it took about two decades for filmmakers to start cutting the action together rather than filming one long tableaux shot. Audiences from 100 years ago would not understand a film like The Matrix http://whatisthematrix.warnerbros.com in terms of its cinematic construction. It moves too fast and too many strange things happen (such as the freezing of time), they would not be able to piece together the story (which happens to some of us watching it now too). Shared audience understanding is critical to any mass-media form. If audiences either do not understand the conventions and codes or cannot pick them up immediately then there is a real risk that they will not understand what it going on and thus miss the point or idea that the designer or artist is trying to convey. Of course, sometimes that is the point. Filmmakers, games designers, multimedia artists and interactive creators often deliberately confuse their audiences. Deliberate is fine, accidental can more of a problem.