Graphesis - Ch. 3-4 Response

In the final chapters of her book, Drucker moves from discussions of historical forms of data visualizations to contemporary ones, exploring the Graphical User Interface as a primary form for the presentation and dissemination of information. She posits that the interface is itself a bridge between forms: neither a map of data nor a set of tasks to perform, but a combination of the two. In relation to the interface, Drucker attempts to reposition the audience for work from the “user” model exemplified by the traditional model to the “subject” identified in post-structuralist academic examinations of literature and media. She states that “we need to theorize interface and its relation to reading as an environment in which varied behaviors of embodied and situated persons will be enabled differently according to its many affordances” (149). The gap between HCI and (her perceptions of) the concerns of the design community on the one hand, and academics investigating subjectivity on the other, can be brought together by her proposition for “interface theory.”

Drucker highlights a few examples of work that she sees as embodying this subject-oriented model: what they share in common are the “production of reading” rather than consumption of media. They provide the audience with the opportunity to move between modes and scales of finding information and drawing connections between works by different authors and in different media.

While I can appreciate Drucker’s concern with creating active rather than passive (consumptive) experiences in the digital sphere, I wonder how she sees this model playing out as it moves beyond the academic-minded examples she provides. Is this actually a desirable state for the majority of people in a majority of contexts? Are there times when a consumptive mode is preferred.