Notes on misusing interfaces

^➫ I am most familiar with my cursor. It follows my every thought (does it even move before I do?), pauses where I hesitate, and extends my touch into the screen. It's tired from traversing path after path of hyperlinks and dragging things from (x₁, y₁) to (x₂, y₂). It plays a game—it changes its form and becomes a spotlight across the web. It becomes a peephole, a viewport, to look through and reframe text and images.

^❍ Allow microphone access. To hear and speak to others, turn on your microphone. When I read this, I read: Permission to record and log everything you say and utter and maybe someday use it against you? An interface listens through a bubble that now signals your device can hear. The bubble moves and bobs organically as though it's a living creature responding to sound. This bubble asks for permission and listens, but refuses to record or remember. A bubble with no memory.

^☒ I used to play a game where I tried to unfocus my eyes as much as possible until my vision blurred and the world lost focus. I noticed I couldn't replicate this online—if anything, content demands more focus, more attention, and images only respond to likes, shares, and saves. But an image doesn't have to behave. An image can reward inattention. It responds to your stare, coming more and more out of focus the harder you look.

                ❚ I'm constantly selecting text. Words to copy and paste from one place to another, words I want to share with others, words I seem to read better just because I am highlighting them. Select a word here and what you didn't select becomes visible. Highlight another word and mark what's read from unread, turning the page into a trace of only what's seen.

            

^✿ A webpage is a garden, except most of the time it's not: it's readymade, someone else decided what it is, it doesn't grow, it doesn't change. A website doesn't have to come fully loaded. Each element can be collectively tended, cared for, maintained, and grown through a set of specific tools beyond cut, copy, and paste, or edit, export, and save. Grow a div. Sprinkle some styles.

^✳ Every page assumes I'm alone. Every device is "personal." Even on social platforms, we're connected through solitary screens. I'm the sole controller—the "user"—making things happen, tapping on links, typing words, and clicking buttons. Is a button a button if it's never clicked? This one refuses until it feels someone else's presence. This button waits with infinite patience and rounded corners until you're joined by friends/strangers.

Nicci Yin is an interaction designer and artist who runs SHIFT CMD, a research & design practice. Her work defamiliarizes everyday computational behavior and asks what else computing could feel like. She is based between the US and Taipei.