Peter Cochrane

Peter Cochrane's Hard Drive 1996
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Emotional Icons
Just as the PC has made the transition to the iconic world, it is plain to see that such a world has a limited future. For over 15 years icons have become well established as a rapid means of navigating computer environments. But they are flat, static, and only able to convey limited information. Moreover, icons now clutter the desk top to the point where they hide from view. This is compounded by the layering of pages and applications. It is often impossible to simultaneously see your work and your icons. Is this then the end of the line for icons?

Perhaps icons could have meaningful shapes, and be dynamic and interactive, changing colour and shape with use and status. With a modest amount of artificial intelligence they could mimic many of our human traits to seek our attention and help us, or hide away until a more appropriate time. Giving them personality, contextual reactions, and perhaps facial expressions, would increase their ability to communicate with us. The addition of a voice, the spoken word, or at least indicative noises would not go amiss either.

The next obvious feature would be to put them into a 3D rather than 2D world so we could realise the additional freedom of position and movement. We could then be guided in decision making and information navigation in new and novel ways. All of this is possible on the PC platform today - so perhaps the iconic world has not had it?s day, perhaps it is only just beginning.

How many times have you mouse clicked a bad decision, or a finger has slipped and you have lost valuable information? How many times have you been unable find that part of a pull-down menu you require? How many times have you filled your screen, or a window, with multiple developments of the same entity? How many times have you had difficulty navigating a mass of files and applications? Probably too many.

Reactive, emotional and intelligent icons can help avoid such problems. Personality features responding to our actions, material content, sensitivity, security, decisions, and state of development, give humanised clues to steer us. Human communication is full of subtlety and non-obvious responses that add significant depth to our words and gestures. The raising of an eyebrow, curl of the lip, tilting of the head, slight change in posture, all convey thousands of bits of information. In contrast, computers are dead and unresponsive.

What other features might we give our emotional icons? Probably as many human ones as possible. A friendly icon could respond by moving toward us as we reach out into the information space. A nervous icon might shiver at a potentially risky action, whilst a defensive icon might erect a barrier and increase it?s height as we approach. An unsure icon might retreat and become elusive. Only when we force this icon into a corner, when it cannot escape, can it be activated. A message icon might have the senders face and be animated to flag urgency.

Realising the full potential of such an iconic world, we might ultimately envisage reaching out to touch and feel substance. This would add another powerful dimension that would parallel us shaking hands. Icons could then pull or push us, guide and be guided within a virtual data world.

Among the AI community it has been suggested that we should not anthropomorphise computers because they might not like it. I?m not so sure. What I do know is, I have been silicomorphised for over 20 years, and I don?t like it either. And now I want a humanised machine.
Peter Cochrane holds the Collier Chair for the Public Understanding of Science & Technology at the University of Bristol. His home page is:
http://cochrane.org.uk