Transparent Immediacy

“Virtual reality, three dimensional graphics, and graphical interface design are all seeking to make digital technology transparent.” (Bolter, J. 2000. P23)

Immediacy refers to the phenomenon that where something is happening in front of us in an immersive environment makes it seem more important to us as users.  This has lest New Media historians like Bolter to reference this in their work, of course referring to technological advances in computing.  These advances can be minor, such as the ability to create high quality digital images, to more advanced programming, such as the designing of operating systems or the realness of a computer game.  Computer interfaces are becoming more immersive and responsive, images can be completely edited in minutes, and films can be entirely animated and will star voice actors.  One of the main struggles of computer designers is making the experience more enjoyable for the user, make computing processes feel more natural than clicking on buttons to do what they want.

“What designers often say they want is an “interfaceless” interface, in which there will be no recognizable electronic tools…” (Bolter, J. 2000. P23)

An example of this “Interfaceless” interface beginning to be implemented, could be illustrated by the changes in windows operating systems over the years.  We all know what windows 98 looks like, its boxy, pixelated, but its initial layout was so efficient that it became the norm for windows OS’s up until windows 8.  Windows 8 is created for touch screen, it visually looks brilliant, however users have gotten accustomed to the layout and style of windows 98 through to windows 7, and many find windows 8 very confusing to work, and there is a steep learning curve to switch from windows 7 to a touch screen windows 8.  Never the less, designers are clearly making efforts to further their software in accordance to Bolters theory of Transparent Immediacy.

Bibliography

Bolter, J.D., (2000). Remediation: Understanding New Media New Ed., MIT Press. (P.20-50)