SCHINDLER: Summarize the thesis of your book for me.
JOHNSON: The central premise is that the interfaces we use on our computer screens today -- the icons, menu bars, desktops that make up the modern graphic interface ... the field of interface design, which is obviously an important part of the computer world already, is perched on the edge of evolving into a serious, fully realized, artistic cultural form, closer, in a lot of ways, to architecture or the novel, or to painting then to, say, programming.

"In a lot of ways, we're where we were in 1902 with film. The people who made films were largely engineers who were tinkering around. … The idea that it might grow up into something capable of producing Battleship Potemkin or Citizen Kane was still not possible to see."

Part of the problem is that we're at such an early stage in the evolution of this form that it is hard to imagine it taking on as rich or complex a shape as that. In a lot of ways, we're where we were in 1902 with film. The people who made films were largely engineers who were tinkering around with this new thing. People thought it was fun and entertaining, and maybe we'd learn a little about how the body moves, in slow motion, from these new devices. They might show up in an amusement hall somewhere. The idea that it might grow up into something capable of producing "Battleship Potemkin" or "Citizen Kane" was still not possible to see.

The interface is perched at a similar point. As more and more of our computers become attached to the Internet and have to face the incredibly daunting task of representing all the information out on the Net, the tools we use to represent that information, our interfaces, are going to become increasingly important C O N T I N U E D . . . 2 of 3
SCHINDLER: Are the computer desktop and Internet interfaces the same? Should they be?
JOHNSON: At Feed, a reader just wrote in and made this point, which I thought was very smart. The evidence does suggest with the Internet, as it is evolving, that William Gibson's vision of what cyberspace was going to look like, that we'd be flying through these virtual worlds, and information would take the form of buildings and clouds, and we'd just point at different things ... this has kind of been the Holy Grail we've all been searching for.

But that doesn't really seem to be happening, does it? Really, what's happening is that so much of navigating through the massive amounts of information on the Internet takes place through text. We have this strange kind of return to "How can I create a really complicated search? How can I use elaborate pattern matching tools to figure out what information I am looking for. How can I show a search engine one article and say "find me more articles like that?"

"We have an assumption, because of the success of the graphic desktop interface, that anything that is graphic is better by default than things which are text based."

All these things are really the most effective ways to navigate through huge repositories of information. Much more effective than an actual physical map.

The analogy I use for this, trying to explain the importance of text ... we have an assumption, because of the success of the graphic desktop interface, that anything that is graphic is better by default than things which are text based. And that may well be true when dealing with a certain finite amount of information. Once you start getting into huge amounts of things on the Net, text may do it better.

When you walk into a library, you have a wonderful 3-D rendered version of that library's information, which are the stacks of books which you can walk through. But you'd much rather use an electronic card catalog search, with a bunch of keystrokes. That is a much more efficient way to get through that information, even though there's a wonderful 3-D model there you can walk through, and you don't even need the virtual reality goggles to do it. C O N T I N U E D . . . 3 of 3
SCHINDLER: Tell me about your first computer.
JOHNSON: My first computer was, technically, an Apple IIe that my parents got for all the kids in the family. It had an astonishing 32K of RAM, very excessive, made playing asteroids quite easy. I got that when I was 14. What's interesting to me about that whole period, looking back, is that I used that computer for four years, all during high school. I knew how to use it. I wasn't afraid of it. I had done a little BASIC programming. I was perfectly competent with it.

"I would make up these little games where I would spin myself out somewhere and follow links, in an improvisational way, until I found some interesting information."

But I didn't really get interested in the machine itself. In my senior year, I went back to using a souped-up Brother electronic typewriter, because I thought it had better typefaces. I didn't write directly on it [the Apple IIe], I had to draft things by hand. All that really changed when I got to college and got a Mac Plus. I just fell in love with that machine, as so many people did. I just wanted to figure out all the things it could do. I started exploring. It was 1986, Pagemaker just came out. The laser printer just came out. It was that initial interface that got me hooked and started this whole long obsession with the computer.

SCHINDLER: Your first time on the Internet?
JOHNSON: One of my first experiences was going to this Web roulette wheel. It was this great, very early Web page, where you clicked on this little wheel, and it spun you out to this random address from its database. It struck me at the time as this completely magical thing. I would make up these little games where I would spin myself out somewhere and follow links, in an improvisational way, until I found some interesting information I hadn't thought about before. I was testing myself to see how long it would take to get to it.