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Technology, Literacy and Culture website
Tonya Browning's Personal Site (not up at the moment)

Interfaces can be unpacked like a text, even "read" in a sense. How do we learn to read and write interface? The methodologies for both are similar, but the environment is not. Designing an interface takes place in multiple spaces, on paper and on the virtual screen and has often undergone numerous iterations through various kinds of drawing and programming software. Like text, interface can contain or direct a narrative. Interfaces may possess a distinctive style, but the design of an interface is less like writing then designing conceptual relationships. Such relationships correspond to the language of design, as theorized by prominent architects like Christopher Alexander. Why architecture? User interface author Theo Mandel claims “the main purpose of the user interface designer is to act like an architect. Building a software product is like building a house. The designer (architect) takes the ideas, wishes, desires, and needs of the user (homeowner), merges that with the skills and materials available to the programmer (builder), and designs a software product (house) that can be built and the user can enjoy” (32). Design transcends discipline.