Preface to Digital Ground
April 2003
This book has come from a change
of outlook. It does not presume to be an impetus of such change for the reader,
and is only an invitation to share in the author�s inquiry. In some larger
picture, many of us have been rethinking the relationship of environment and
technology. Although this transformation seems most profound in biological
fields such as ecology or public health, it also affects the disciplines of
building social infrastructure. My own background is there, among people who
work on architecture and computing. A decade ago, some people expected those
fields to converge into something called cyberspace. Today, hardly anyone seems
content with that notion. For me, and not me alone, part of the change has been
a turn from the fast and far-reaching to the close and slow. I sit on stones in
the sun more often, and hunch over screens in dark rooms less. Nevertheless the
net still reaches me, wherever I am. That too has changed.
Few of us topple our viewpoints voluntarily, without a
catalyst. For me, and for this book, that catalyst has been pervasive
computing. This expression represents a paradigm shift from building virtual
worlds toward embedding information technology into the ambient social
complexities of the physical world.
This shift deserves plentiful explanation and considerable skepticism,
for while it has advantages in making technology more intuitive by means of
embodiment, it also obviously has disadvantages in unwanted annoyances and
surveillance. Frankly, to devote years of research
and writing to so questionable a topic has often felt like folly. But this
troublesome topic has merely been my catalyst, and not my position. Although
this book may first appear to be about information technology, it is ultimately
a defense of architecture.
My claims about architecture are indirect because the
design challenge of pervasive computing more immediately becomes a question of
interaction design. This growing field studies of how people deal with
technology�and how people deal with each other, through technology. As a
consequence of pervasive computing, interaction design is poised to become one
of the main liberal arts of the twenty first century. I wrote this book because
I ran into many people who believe that. If you share this belief, or if you
just wonder what interaction design is in the first place, you may find some
substance here in this book.
Although design writing often takes the form of advocacy
or manifesto, that was not the intent for this book. Like the web logs that
became fashionable during the time of this writing, my goal was only to sound
some depths, connect some increasingly related disciplines, and provide some
paths through a complex field. A book provides more enduring form than a
website, of course, and it invites a more thoughtful response. So despite the
many doubts you should have about its topic, I sincerely hope that reading this
book can be enjoyable and worthwhile.