Magic Ink: Information Software and the Graphical Interface

This draft was released March 15, 2006. Please email comments to bret worrydream.com. You can also download the PDF. Information Software and the Graphical Interface by Bret Victor Abstract #The ubiquity of frustrating, unhelpful software interfaces has motivated decades of research into “Human-Computer Interaction.” #Information software design can be seen as the design of context-sensitive information graphics. #Although this paper presents a number of concrete design and engineering ideas, the larger intent is to introduce a “unified theory” of information software design, and provide inspiration and direction for progressive designers who suspect that the world of software isn’t as flat as they’ve been told. Scope and terminology #“Software,” as used here, refers to user-facing personal desktop software, whether on a native or web platform. Of software and sorcery #A computational process is indeed much like a sorcerer’s idea of a spirit. #This is a software crisis, and it isn’t news. Related: