“Light green doesn’t mean hydrology!”: toward a visual–rhetorical framework for interface...

“Light green doesn’t mean hydrology!”: toward a visual–rhetorical framework for interface design

Clay Spinuzzi*

Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX 79409-3091, USA

Abstract

The utility of metaphor as a visual–rhetorical design framework has diminished dramatically, andcontinues to erode. Metaphor has two important limitations as it is commonly applied in interfacedesign: (a) metaphors areindexical, pointing to physical artifacts that they represent, and (b)metaphors arestatic, that is, unwavering in their indexicality. Both assumptions are demonstrablyflawed. In this article, I first critically examine metaphor’s limitations as a visual–rhetorical frameworkfor designing, evaluating, and critiquing user interfaces. Next, I outline an alternate framework forvisual rhetoric, that ofgenre ecologies, and discuss how it avoids some of the limitations of metaphor.Finally, I use an empirical study of computer users to illustrate the genre-ecology framework andcontrast it with metaphor. © 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords:Activity theory; Genre theory; Human–computer interaction; Interface design; Usability; Visualrhetoric

1. Introduction

In 1998, I conducted a series of studies in conjunction with the Iowa Department ofTransportation with the goal of understanding how new users interpret various informationsystems. One of the systems I studied, Geographic Information System-Accident Locationand Analysis System (GIS-ALAS), seemed fairly straightforward. A map window (Figure 1)displays geography, including a roadway system and traffic accident locations. Users (in thiscase, students studying community and regional planning) click on specific accidents to get

* Corresponding author.E-mail address:[email protected] (C. Spinuzzi).

Computers and Composition 18 (2001) 39–53

8755-4615/01/$ – see front matter © 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.PII: S8755-4615(00)00047-5

information about them, including whether the accident involved fatalities or injuries, howmuch property damage was involved, and what the roadway conditions were.

The interface seems intuitive, yet users had difficulty understanding and using it. They hadtrouble understanding the accident data, often failed in attempts to click on accidents, andwere frequently unable to interpret the reports that were generated. Most importantly, theyhad trouble interpreting the central window of the interface, the map window—it showed toomuch information and displayed it in unconventional ways. For instance, map elements—roads, hydrology (bodies of water), railroads, and traffic accidents—were randomlyassigned colors each time the map was opened. This randomness colored the map’s featuresin unconventional ways, leading one user to complain that “Light green doesn’t meanhydrology!”

Such complaints about unconventional map colors can be examined under the rubric ofmetaphor, currently the dominant visual–rhetorical framework for designing, evaluating, andcritiquing graphic user interfaces (GUIs; see Beyer & Holtzblatt, 1998; Erickson, 1990;Hackos & Redish, 1998; Selfe & Selfe, 1994). But metaphor, at least as it has traditionallybeen understood by the interface design community, is not adequate for analyzing thedifficulties that these users encountered. This visual–rhetorical framework is limited in itsfundamental assumptions about how users interpret information on the screen: These as-sumptions—that representations on the screen areindexicalandstatic—are belied by users’behavior.

Figure 1. GIS-ALAS interface, featuring a map window.

40 C. Spinuzzi / Computers and Composition 18 (2001) 39–53

Although this study dealt with a rather technical interface, it has implications for how weunderstand visual rhetoric in any interface, whether it be an accident location system, a MOO(multiuser, object-oriented domain), or a Web site. Below, I spin out these implications.First, I discuss metaphor and its limitations as a visual–rhetorical framework for designing,evaluating, and critiquing user interfaces. Next, I outline an alternate framework for visualrhetoric, that ofgenre ecologies, and discuss how it avoids some of the limitations ofmetaphor. Finally, I return to the empirical study outlined above, using the genre-ecologyframework to analyze the GIS-ALAS interface.

2. Limitations of metaphor

For the last two decades—particularly since the introduction of the first commerciallysuccessful GUI in 1984, that of the Macintosh—metaphor has been the guiding rhetoricalframework for designing, evaluating, and critiquing interfaces (see Beyer & Holtzblatt, 1998;Erickson, 1990; Hackos & Redish, 1998; Selfe & Selfe, 1994; Smith, Irby, Kimball,Verplank, & Harslem, 1982). Metaphor has been a success story in terms of rhetoric-baseddesign: It has provided a way for designers to understand and conceptualize the rhetoricalaspects of interface use and has furnished a grounding for visual design work.

But that success story is coming to an end. The utility of metaphor as a visual–rhetoricaldesign framework has diminished dramatically, and continues to erode. This erosion is dueto the spread of computer literacy: Today’s interfaces, once meant primarily to scaffold userscompletely unfamiliar with computers, now respond to users with nearly two decades ofexperience with GUIs. This shift of focus has exposed two important limitations to metaphoras it is currently understood by those who design, evaluate, and critique interfaces: (a)metaphors areindexical, pointing to physical artifacts that they represent, and (b) metaphorsare static, that is, unwavering in their indexicality and immune to a user’s developingknowledge of interface conventions. These two assumptions underlie metaphoric design,shaping the visual rhetoric developed through it.

To illustrate, let’s examine the modern GUI, what JoAnn Hackos and Janice Redish(1998) called “a mixture of metaphors” (p. 357), as if we were archaeologists of visualrhetoric. If we study these metaphors over the history of human–computer interaction, wefind them deposited in layers representative of visual rhetorics at each point of the GUI’sdevelopment.1 Near the bottom is a substrate of metaphors that predate the GUI: files,directories, and menus. Next is residue left by early GUIs such as those used by Xerox’sALTO (1973) and STAR (1981): the desktop, windows, file folders, scroll bars, and iconsrepresenting devices such as printers (see Smith et al., 1989). In another layer, left by theMACINTOSH OPERATING SYSTEM (MACOS) (1984), we find elements such as the trash can(echoed in the Microsoft WINDOWS recycle bin and in the IBM OS/2 shredder). In the mostrecent layer, we encounter newer operating system innovations (Macintosh’s bubble help,Microsoft’s wizards) and innovations that have spread across applications (the tool palette).

These layers of visual rhetorics comprise a development of the interface that spans threedecades. And, in none of these layers are the metaphors entirely indexical or static forexperienced users. If they were, users would have an exceedingly difficult time navigating

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the Macintosh and Microsoft operating systems, where metaphors are casually, promiscu-ously mixed to such a degree that we cannot understand them as indexical at all. Users donot routinely think of office files or restaurant menus when selecting the “File” menu, forinstance. For some users, then, interface elements cannot be considered to be metaphors. Butif metaphor is not a suitable visual–rhetorical framework for interface design, evaluation, andcritique, then what is?

3. An alternative framework: genre ecologies

Genre can supply the basis of such a visual–rhetorical framework. It avoids metaphor’slimitations: Rather than assuming indexical, static representations, genre assumes relativelystable clusters of habits for producing and interpreting meaningful artifacts. Below, Iillustrate genre’s utility by examining the visual rhetoric(s) of the GIS-ALAS interfacediscussed at the beginning of this article. I examine how 4 workers and 13 studentsinterpreted the latest version of the interface, and demonstrate how some of their difficulties(usability problems) stem from the hybrid nature of the genres they use. In the process, Isuggest that genre has the potential to anchor cultural–historical research that addressesusers’ activities (Bazerman, 1988, 1994; Berkenkotter & Huckin, 1995); to examine thedialogic, coconstructed nature of the interface (see, for example, Bakhtin, 1981, 1984, 1986;Russell, 1995, 1997); and to guide its redesign (Brown & Duguid, 1994; Yates & Orlikowski,1992).

Genre forms the basis for a visual–rhetorical design framework, thegenre ecology(Freedman & Smart, 1997; Nardi & O’Day, 1999; Spinuzzi, 1999a,b; Zachry, 1999; see, fora similar approach, Haas, 1999). A genre ecology is an interrelated, relatively stable groupof genres that comediate their users’ work in a shifting variety of ways. Genre ecologiesallow us to examine how disparate types of artifacts become linked and coevolve, sometimeseven being pulled into the computer interface. Furthermore, genre ecologies help us tounderstand how such groups of artifacts can continue to be relatively stable even afterundergoing radical transformations. Whereas metaphor takes onscreen artifacts to be static,indexical representations of physical artifacts, genre ecologies take them to be continuationsof the original artifacts, offshoots that continue to evolve, develop, and merge in their ownright. Genre ecologies, unlike metaphors, are neither indexical nor static.

Consider the interface in Figure 1. This interface belongs to GIS-ALAS, designed to helpmembers of federal, state, county, and city agencies to locate traffic accidents in Iowa. Theproduct is currently being deployed across the state. GIS-ALAS is meant to help users findand visualize traffic accidents; these results help users transform accident data in varioususeful ways. For instance, using the data, city engineers investigate whether to erectstoplights and signs. Police officers determine what sorts of violations pursue. Legislatorsdecide where they stand on issues such as road improvement and driving laws.

Indeed, GIS-ALAS is only the latest in a long line of systems meant to facilitate suchactivities. Its interface has incorporated genres from those previous systems. For instance, theGIS-ALAS interface displays map windows that its designers consider to be metaphors forthe physical maps used in previous eras. Yet, if we look at the GIS-ALAS interface


historically, the stance that these map windows are merely metaphors becomes difficult tosustain. Rather than metaphors, these windows are bona fide maps (i.e., instances of the mapgenre), despite the fact that they are displayed on a screen rather than constructed of ink andpaper. They are members of a larger ecology of genres, an ecology that has been developingsince at least the early 1960s.

As human–computer interaction researcher Susanne Bødker (1997) argued, “artifacts[such as maps] crystallize knowledge so that operations which are developed in the use ofone generation of technology may later be incorporated into the artifact itself in the next” (p.150). Crystallization is present in successive versions of the software: Interpretive habitsassociated with earlier artifacts have been leveraged by the interface designers. For instance,the interface incorporates the map, a genre that most users know how to interpret and use,in hopes that interpretive habits and strategies will carry from the paper map to the newinterface. Like the map, other genres (reports, punch cards, and dialog boxes) used inprevious eras have also become embedded in the GIS-ALAS interface (Figure 2). Thesegenres have shaped its development and guide how readers interpret and use it.

In entering an ecology such as the GIS-ALAS interface, such genres are transformed.Mikhail M. Bakhtin (1986) described this phenomenon as that of primary (simple) genresbeing “digested” into secondary (complex) genres (p. 62; see also Bazerman, 1994, p. 20).These genres enter a larger genre, yet retain something of their own history, addressivity, anddistinctiveness, as well as their interrelations with other genres. When we encounter the

Figure 2. Genres that have been incorporated into the GIS-ALAS interface: the map (back left), the punch card(center), and various reports (other windows).


genre of the personal letter in Dostoyevsky, or the genre of the financial table in an annualreport, we expect them to be quite similar to the same genres outside the genre ecology—although perhaps metamorphosed to fit a niche in the ecology (e.g., tables in reports includeidentifying table numbers).

Such genre transformations impact the entire genre ecology. If a table genre were to entera computer interface, it would have to be displayed using some sort of interface genre—asa graphic in a window or as a collection of spreadsheet cells, for instance. A genre thatmigrates into an interface must be combined with (i.e., become represented or recast in) anexisting interface genre, and their union produces ahybrid genre: a genre shaped by thedistinctive activities of its parents, that retains the interrelationships with other genres itsparents enjoyed, and that users perceive and treat as more or less the “same” genre as itsparents.

To illustrate, in the remainder of this article, I use the genre-ecology framework to critiqueand evaluate GIS-ALAS. First, I take a closer look at the interface, critiquing it in cultural–historical terms. Then, I evaluate it by describing two studies in which users attempted to useGIS-ALAS to complete various tasks. I focus in particular on the interpretive difficulties(usability problems) they faced in using the online map, and discuss how those difficultiesspring from contradictions embedded within the map, contradictions between the mapwindow’s parent genres. The genre-ecology framework helps us to begin to understand howsuch contradictions are the cultural–historical roots of usability issues: that these problemsare not simply the results of poor metaphors. Such an understanding can lead us to considerdesign decisions that we might not have imagined otherwise, decisions that involve harness-ing contradictions rather than treating symptoms.

4. Mapping the territory: a culturalhistorical critique of the GIS-ALAS interface

The framework of genre ecologies can support the work of interface archaeology to whichI alluded earlier. Below, I use this visual–rhetorical framework to explore GIS-ALAS as aninterface, contrasting genre ecologies with metaphor.

4.1. GIS-ALAS’ originating activity systems

I’ve discussed GIS-ALAS origins in accident location and analysis. But the genealogy ofthis interface is more complicated than that. As the name implies, GIS-ALAS has agenealogy2 split between accident location and analysis (ALAS stands for “accident locationand analysis system”) and geographic location (GIS stands for “geographic informationsystem”). Metaphor cannot reflect this split genealogy because it assumes that screenartifacts are indexical and static. Yet the genre-ecology framework is well equipped toexplore split genealogies and the contradictions that can result.

4.1.1. Accident location and analysisGIS-ALAS, with its roots in the activity of accident location and analysis in Iowa,

integrates traditional accident-location genres into its interface: the map, the report, and so


forth. Along with those genres, GIS-ALAS incorporates particular ways of representing data,including nodes(discussed below), a particular vocabulary, and assumptions about how tocluster accident data.

4.1.2. Geographic locationGIS-ALAS also has another parentage. GIS-ALAS developers wrote the software by

customizing an existing geographic-information system (GIS). GISs are developed forgeographic location—an activity with aims, practices, tools, and ways of representing datafundamentally different from those of accident location and analysis.

The two activities of accident location and geographic location, then, have basic differ-ences. Yet their genres are united in GIS-ALAS, forming a genre ecology filled with hybridssuch as GIS-ALAS’ map window (a hybrid of the GIS map window with ALAS data). Suchhybrids embody the contradictions between the two activities. Indeed, these contradictionsare embedded in nearly every genre in the GIS-ALAS interface. The genre-ecologiesframework lets us conceptualize and analyze such contradictions. In contrast, the metaphorframework assumes indexicality: Each item is assumed to have a single referent, not multiplecontradictory origins.

How did these contradictions become embedded in GIS-ALAS genres? The GIS-ALASgenre ecology is full of the present incarnations of genres developing since the early 1960s(maps, forms, reports, etc.). But, because GIS-ALAS’ developers based it on an existing GIS,they had to combine older ALAS genres (oriented toward accident location, i.e., a specificexploration of accident data) with the GIS’ existing on-screen genres (oriented towardgeographic location, i.e., a general exploration of geographic data). The resulting genres aredoubly oriented, a change more than skin deep. It is this contradiction between activities thatcreates many user difficulties.

One particular instance of the contradiction that GIS-ALAS embodies is that of its datarepresentation. The previous accident-location systems used complex points of data, toocomplex for the GIS to handle because it was built for analyses using simpler data points. Toget the GIS to work with the old ALAS data, GIS-ALAS developers had to reconfigure theunderlying data structure of ALAS. This reconfiguration has consequences for variousdisplays, especially the central genre of the map window.

4.2. Consequences of contradictions for the map

Up to this point I’ve discussed the notion of contradiction quite abstractly. Yet contra-dictions have concrete repercussions, ones that cannot be explained by metaphor and thatimpact the way users interpret and employ the interface.

For instance, let’s consider the map window shown in Figure 1. The window seems tosimply display the sorts of features one would expect a map to display. Yet, underlying themap window are three competing representations of the data, growing out of the twoactivities of accident location and geographic location (Table 1). These representationsinclude a qualitative representation, a node-link representation (based on landmark loca-tions), and a Cartesian coordinate representation (in which accidents are spatially located on


a grid). These competing representations are embedded in GIS-ALAS’ interface genres,including the map window.

4.2.1. Qualitative (traditional) accident representationThe first representation is thetraditional representation, employed widely during the

preautomation era and still used today. In this system, police officers or drivers recordaccident locations as street addresses on report forms. Before 1974, when workers wanted tovisualize the accidents spatially, they would use colored pins to mark the street addresses onconventional maps. This accident representation, then, grows out of a genre ecology thatincludes accident report forms, paper maps, street addresses, and colored pins.

4.2.2. Node-link accident representationWhen the Iowa Department of Transportation (IDOT) developed an automated accident

location and analysis system in 1974, it had to find a quantitative way to represent spatiallocations of accidents so that the DOT’s mainframe could process them. Yet, at the sametime, the system could not rely on Cartesian coordinates (such as longitude and latitude),because drivers and police officers had no way to divine such coordinates. In thenode-linksystem, certain landmarks were assigned node numbers; accidents were then located byreference to the closest node. For instance, an accident would be recorded as three units (30feet) from node 1560 in the direction of a second node, 1660. No way exists to reconstructthe spatial location of the accident from this information—a human being has to plot it ona node map (a conventional paper map overlaid with node numbers) (Figure 3, left). Thisaccident representation, then, grows out of the evolving activity of accident location,influenced by that era’s computer technology.

4.2.3. Cartesian coordinate representationFinally, GISs use aCartesian coordinate systemsimilar to the latitude and longitude

system with which most map users are familiar. In this system, the computer stores theprecise horizontal and vertical positioning of each data point. Different sorts of data (e.g.,

Table 1Three representations of the data displayed in Figure 1. These representations began to be employed atdifferent points in the history of the activity.

Representation Characteristics

Qualitative (traditional) accidentrepresentation (Before 1974)

Street addresses(3417 Coy Street),descriptive locations(theintersection of Franklin Avenue and Coy Street), andmap locations(often marked with colored pins or pens).

Node-link accident representation(1974)

Accidents are described in relation tonodes, six-digit numbers thatrepresent landmarks. The database stores these numbers; users have tospatially locate accidents with a paper node map.

Cartesian coordinate representation(1996)

Each point in the map window is stored using Cartesian (horizontal andvertical) coordinates. Points are located precisely rather than in relationto nodes. A point exists for each record, meaning that a single accidentcan be associated with multiple points.


accident locations, roads, and hydrology) are represented inthemes, layers of visual data thatoverlay each other on the screen like layers of acetate. This accident representation grows outof the activity of geographic location, an activity whose data are always, fundamentallyrelated spatially. Geographic location has traditionally used Cartesian coordinates to locategeographic features, and acetate to overlay maps with additional hand-drawn data (see Figure1, in which the left column shows the available layers. Only the checked layers are displayedon the map).

To translate the older node-link data into the Cartesian coordinates used by the GIS,GIS-ALAS developers created a simple program that combined node-link data with nodes’coordinates. This system works quite well when an accident is located at a particular node(e.g., in an intersection). But, when the accident is at a link between nodes—for example, 30feet from node 1560 in the direction of node 1660—the program plots a straight line betweenthe two nodes rather than following the road, as a user would (Figure 3, right). What resultsis a display of accidents that sometimes appear to be located off the road.

The contradiction between accident location and geographic location, then, is embeddedin the central genre of the map window (Figure 1), a hybrid of the node map and the GIS’online map. A metaphor-based analysis might tell us that the accident depicted in Figure 3(right) is plotted incorrectly, because it appears to have taken place in a cornfield rather thanon a road. But metaphor does not help us to understand why the accident is plotted in thisway—it does not point to the underlying contradiction between activities (and between theirdata representations). It focuses on the symptoms rather than the underlying cause.

5. Where the rubber meets the road: evaluating usability issues withthe interface

Through the genre-ecology framework, I’ve critiqued the central genre of the GIS-ALASinterface (the map window) and noted contradictions that have been embedded in it,contradictions that cannot be easily critiqued via the framework of metaphor. These contra-

Figure 3. (Left) The1 represents an accident plotted by hand; the user has followed the road 30 feet from node1560 toward node 1660. (Right) The same accident plotted by GIS-ALAS. Because the accident is plotted on aninvisible line between the two nodes, the accident appears to have taken place off the road.


dictions have ramifications for the sorts of usability issues users encounter as they use theinterface. To better understand these ramifications, I observed two groups of users as theyattempted to use the interface:

Y Experienced ALAS workers. One group was composed of four individuals whosejobs involved locating and analyzing accidents. All four had used PC-ALAS in thepast; all were beta testers for GIS-ALAS, but only one had considerable experienceusing a GIS. These workers were familiar with the ALAS parentage of GIS-ALAS.

Y Students experienced with GISs. The other group was composed of students at alarge midwestern university enrolled in a class on geographic information systems, butwho had no experience with accident location and analysis. These students werefamiliar with the GIS parentage of GIS-ALAS.

Methodological details are included in earlier work (Spinuzzi, 1999a). Below, I discusshow each group interacted with the map window. I found that interpretive breakdowns wereassociated with hybrid genres such as the map: genres that embedded contradictions betweenactivities. Whereas the metaphor framework works well to analyze these surface-levelbreakdowns, it provides little guidance in understanding the contradictions underlying them.The genre-ecology framework, on the other hand, is geared toward understanding break-downs as symptoms of deeper contradictions.

5.1. Experienced ALAS workers using the map window

I observed the four ALAS workers as they used GIS-ALAS in actual projects, theninterviewed them about their work sessions. I found that experienced users combined themap window with knowledge of the locality and their familiarity with the genre of the nodemap.

Workers did not simply rely on the map window—and in fact, relying solely on the mapwindow would have made their jobs far more difficult because of its limitations. Theselimitations have to do with the contradiction between accident location and geographiclocation, and their correspondingly different ways of representing map data. In one incident,Sam3 and I were looking at a street displayed in the map window. The street’s terminusapproached but did not appear to touch a perpendicular state road. As we attempted tointerpret the themes (the layers of mapped data), it became clear that the map could not beinterpreted as a paper map might:

Researcher: Well, let’s start with how you were looking for results at this particular node.Um, this is—it looks like a node at the end of a street?

Sam: Uh, T-intersection. . . . I’ve noticed that some of them [themes] don’t line up justexact, but when I,I’m familiar enough with the communitythat I know that it’s, they’re offa little bit, but I—

Researcher: That’s really odd. . . . But at least you knew where the node was, youidentified it, and you spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to get the information outof it. What did you try first?

Sam: Basically, I was trying to have it show—I’ve found in some of the different places,different nodes I’ve looked at, they’ll list the accidents one through however many. AndI


know that this had, this is only showing me one accident. And I’m pretty sure there wereprobably more than just one accident[at this intersection in 1994]. . .

In this dialogue, Sam drew upon his knowledge of the county’s roads to interpret the map,despite the irregularities in the map’s display (e.g., the T-intersection being displayed as twounconnected roads). Sam did not see the map window as a stand-in for the paper map, butas a redundant display system with its own strengths and limitations.

In fact, Sam did not know what to make of one of the map window’s limitations: Whenit depicts multiple accidents at the same spot—as it did here—the symbols overlap each otherand appear to be one accident. For instance, if six accidents happened at the same intersec-tion, the map window shows only one dot at that intersection. This display conventionmystified Sam, who was used to older ways of marking accident locations—using pins orpens—in which multiple accidents could be marked at the same location.

Why does the map window display locations this way? The answer lies in the contradic-tion between accident location and geographic location (Table 2). In geographic location,precision is everything: Features are displayed in absolute locations. But in accident location,precision is secondary to spatial relationships: The object is to see where accidents cluster,not the exact spot where they occur. The contradiction between the two activities results ina breakdown because Sam interprets the map window (which shows accidents in absolutepositions) as a map used in accident location (whose object is to show spatial relationships).

Sam’s difficulties with the map would be hard to explain within the framework ofmetaphor. Certainly we could claim that the problem lies in the map window’s lack of fidelityto the paper map (i.e., the map is insufficiently indexical). But, that explanation does notexplain why that lack of fidelity occurs (the contradictions among representations) or whySam can struggle on despite the lack of fidelity (through alternate representations of theroadway system). The interface does not account for how Sam can transform the map intoa useful artifact (i.e., it assumes the map is static). Finally, it does not address the issue ofthe overlapping traffic accidents, an issue seen as a problem by traffic locators, but probablynot seen as a problem by geographic locators. Unlike metaphor, the genre-ecology frame-work provides us with the conceptual tools for addressing each of these issues.

5.2. GIS students using the map window

Students in the GIS class had quite different experiences using GIS-ALAS. Recall that themap window is a hybridized genre, one embodying a contradiction among three roadway

Table 2The two activities have different objects that affect their display characteristics

Activity Object Display Characteristics

Accident location Spatial relationships Can offset accidents because the object is to see how theycluster and count how many have occurred.

Geographic location Absolute positioning Cannot offset accidents because the object is to display theabsolute position—even if it covers up other accidentsdisplayed in the same spot.


representations (and the activities in which those representations originated). This contra-diction was the root of 17 breakdowns (usability problems) that students encountered whileusing this window. In particular, students encountered breakdowns related tothemes, thelayers of map data describing accidents and map features. These breakdowns reflect thedifferences between the complex GIS-ALAS themes (oriented toward accident location) andthe simpler themes used in school activities (oriented towards learning). Breakdowns canalert us to these differences and can thus help us to identify hard-to-learn aspects of the genre.

Students’ school activities involve learning to use a GIS through relatively simpleapplications. Thus, students are used to dealing with perhaps half a dozen themes with simplenames such as “hydrology” and “rail.” The GIS assigns a distinct color to each theme so thatstudents can easily differentiate the themes in the map window. For instance, it might displayall railways in red and all bodies of water in light green.

But the activity of accident location and analysis involves far more complicated data, datarequiring users to learn different coordination strategies if they are to make sense of the data.In the task that I gave the students (a simple task, in ALAS terms), they had to deal with21–36 themes. Because these themes were so numerous, coordination became far morecomplex. Themes could not all be listed in the themes pane at once; they required longer,more complicated names to distinguish between them; and they were often assigned similarcolor shades because the themes outnumbered the distinct colors the computer could display.The sheer number of themes led to breakdowns: Students could not tell how many themesthere were, what each theme represented, or which themes were associated with which mapfeatures.

The themes were numerous partly because of how designers implemented the underlyingdata structure, using fragmented rather than unified representations of accidents: Accidentdata were so complex that they had to be handled in separate data structures, differentthemes. For instance, data on injuries and data on property damage were stored in differentthemes, even though they referred to the results of the very same accident. These fragmentedrepresentations reflect the contradiction between accident location and geographic location.But they also have repercussions for learning GIS-ALAS, because the interface involves acontradiction between accident location (an exceedingly complex activity involving a host ofmediating genres) and students’ activities (typically a set of problem-solving tasks involvingsimpler problems, simpler applications, and simpler, closely bounded sets of genres).

The metaphor framework is inadequate for addressing this particular difficulty: Althoughit might give us an idea of why students have trouble with light green representing hydrology,it does not explain why the disjuncture in color schemes occurs. Furthermore, metaphor doesnot shed light on nonmetaphorical issues that impinge on the map metaphor—for instance,why students who easily use a small number of themes have such difficulty using a largernumber. Finally, it does not account for the interface’s multiple histories. Consequently, themetaphor framework might lead to superficial interface changes (such as making sure thathydrology is always blue) while leaving the contradictions between activities unaddressed.And, if these deeper contradictions are not addressed, they may give rise to other break-downs.

In the examples above, metaphor has proven to be adequate in helping us find the grosssymptoms (breakdowns) that typify interaction with the GIS-ALAS interface. But the


metaphor framework is less successful in helping us diagnose the contradictions underlyingthese breakdowns. In the conclusion, I discuss the implications of abandoning the metaphorframework for the genre-ecology framework.

6. Conclusion

Throughout this article I’ve argued for an understanding of interfaces not simply as static,indexical metaphors representing physical artifacts, but as ecologies teeming with develop-ing, mutable genres. Such genres have significance in their own right, take form through theirown developmental histories, and address their own sets of activities. A genre-ecologyframework can help us to push beyond metaphor’s limitations by focusing on these genresas interlinked cultural–historical artifacts. Such artifacts reflect the activities in which theyare used and can embed contradictions among these activities.

The genre-ecology framework, then, complicates the acts of critiquing, evaluating, anddesigning interfaces. In terms of critique, the genre-ecology framework encourages us tounderstand interface elements as complexly interconnected artifacts. The framework remindsus that users have encountered these artifacts before, have developed rich practices for usingthem, and have evolved complex ways to relate them to the objects of their work. Yet, at thesame time, the framework reminds us that the on-screen genres are not simply copies ofoff-screen genres. Rather, they are hybrid genres with complicated genealogies. As we sawwith GIS-ALAS, such hybrid genres can reflect multiple activities—and embed contradic-tions among these activities.

Such contradictions can lead to usability issues. In terms of evaluation, the genre-ecologyframework helps us to begin to understand the cultural–historical roots of usability issues.These problems are not simply the results of poor metaphors, but, rather, they spring fromdeeper contradictions among activities. Such an understanding can lead us to consider designdecisions that we might not have imagined otherwise, decisions that involve harnessingcontradictions rather than treating symptoms.

I have not yet discussed how the genre-ecology framework might impact interface design;such a topic would require a far longer article (but see Spinuzzi, 1999a). However, theessence of genre ecology guided interface design would involve mapping out the activitiesinvolved and the contradictions among those activities, then finding ways to maintain aproductive tension among them. The goal of such design work would not be to eliminatebreakdowns we commonly call usability problems (for such a task would be futile), butinstead to manage them and the contradictions that underlie them, to turn breakdowns intoopportunities for learning about the intersecting activities, and to find ways to better align theactivities and the genre ecology through which they are enacted.

Notes

1. See the Graphical User Interface Timeline (Lineback, 1999) for a more complete visualpicture of these layers.


2. Indeed, its genealogy is more complex than might be indicated here. We can imaginehow GIS-ALAS is also shaped by the screen genres of WINDOWS and by other genres.But to avoid getting bogged down in analysis, I attempt to keep the story simple.

3. Participants’ names are pseudonyms.

Clay Spinuzzi is an assistant professor of technical communication at Texas TechUniversity, where he teaches in the Ph.D. program in technical communication andrhetoric. His interests include information systems design and evaluation, activitytheory, and genre theory.

References

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