Jack, This is a very very nice paper!
I've seen this kind of thinking many times. One thing Horton doesn't
explicitly say is that when you mimic some apsect of the physical world in
an information appliance instead of creating a true metaphore you also run
the risk of bringing all the constraints from the physical world into the
computer. An example I've seen many times is a PC based phone/answering
machine that has a redial button but doesn't allow you to edit the phone
number. Virtual buildings where you have to take the stairs or an elevator
to go from one floor to the other instead of instantaniously jumping to it.
I believe, however, that we hit a very basic human limitation here. This
limitation prevents most of us most of the time from imagining truely new
ways of doing things. Otherwise, we would know immediately how to bypass
horseless-carriage thinking. How about creating a tool to overcome this?
Gil
-----Original Message-----
From: Jack Park [mailto:jackpark@verticalnet.com]
Sent: vendredi, 9. fevrier 2001 18:04
To: unrev-II@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [unrev-II] A very timely paper
http://www.asis.org/Conferences/Summit2000/horton/Horton.pdf
<http://www.asis.org/Conferences/Summit2000/horton/Horton.pdf>
It's a pdf so I cannot cut and paste. A brief summary goes like this:
He talks of the history of ideas, including humorous grand faux pas, like
Gates' famous "640k ought to be..."
He talks of metaphors in information appliances.
He talks about games rather than lectures.
He talks about discussion rather than publications.
The title of his paper is "Horseless Carriage Thinking."
I strongly recommend reading this publication :-)
Jack
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