Introduction
Various interface styles suggest paradigms for understanding interaction. Direct manipulation (OM) suggests the interface as a passive entity, providing tools for the user to control. Intelligent interfaces suggest instead an active interface, a colleague which (or even who) cooperates with the user on the task in hand. Each of these paradigms seems useful in different contexts. Matters become more complex when we consider systems with multiple applications or multiple users. We can no longer see the interface as part of a two-participant dialogue, involving human and computer. Instead, we look towards an environment where several active participants - some human, some automatic - cooperate.
In this chapter we propose that viewing the interface as a medium allows us to make sense of the interplay between passive and active components of an interface, and, indeed, of that between human users. Within an interface we will distinguish the objects, the passive elements; the agents, the active; and, most importantly, the medium, the environment within which agents act upon the objects and communicate with one another. We consider how this model can support our understanding of the interaction, taking examples from intelligent interface design and Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). Consequently, we must design the interface as a medium of communication: an environment in which both human and artificial agents can cooperate effectively
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