April 17, 2000: Apparently there is room for humor in human-computer interaction (gzipped postscript of all things.. if that sounds like a pain, here's another bit on humor in HCI). I was really thinking more of formal definitions of the comedic form than just of humor when I wondered if there was room for comedy (or tragedy) in interface design. I guess what I'm really wondering is where a narrative arc would fit into an interface, especially a task-oriented interface. I can see the value of a beginning and end, but what about the part in the middle where you're not really sure the hero will succeed? That is a key component of narrative pleasure, but I'm not so sure you want that feeling when you're trying to finish a paper you're writing or tallying up your taxes on April 14th. (Thanks to Vincent O' Keeffe who pointed me to that first link.. I was tempted to keep his excellent interface-related weblog all to myself ;)

On a related note, I really need to read some more of Cliff Nass' research on how people interact with computers just like they interact with other people.