AMO - the interface as medium. Poster sessions, HCI International'89, . This paper describes a development in the latter category. Various interface styles suggest paradigms for understanding interaction.
Direct manipulation suggests the interface as a passive entity, tools for the user to control.
User interface management systems typically have a paradigm between the two where the interface is seen primarily as a translator, or mediator between the user and the application. Each of these paradigms seem useful in different contexts, but mixing them runs the risk of getting the worst, rather than the best, of all worlds. Viewing the interface as a medium allows us to make sense of the interplay between passive and active components of an interface. In particular it is not limited to the information theoretic concept of a channel or the physical characteristics of a device, although these will both be facets of the media. The motivating example for this approach is of course mail and conferencing systems.