The emphasis on embodiment was particularly interesting I think - at least with 90s tech you generally had to push physical buttons to get a response. There was something kinetic about tech use, it felt more like using LEGOs.
Now user interfaces are an exhausting search exercise- I have to watch the screen to see where the buttons will appear with every interaction. It sucks.
It makes me wonder what a physical-first API would look like. Perhaps that's just what CLIs evolved for: reliable, repeatable key-based interactions.
That's a really interesting point. And I guess related - physical media. Saving up for some vinyl or a cassette, going down the shop and adding it to your [physical] collection had a whole bunch of interactions along the way. Meeting your mates, browsing in the record shop, comparing notes, looking at girls, coming home, making a space on your shelf / floor for the new thing, putting it on...
Nowadays: phone + spotify + search = done. No interaction, no flirting, no saving up, no physical-ness...
Entirely (mostly) unrelated but I remember my mate buying a cassette copy of MBV's Loveless [0] from Camden Market. He took it home, listened, decided it was warped (if you know the record this will make sense...!), took it back, got a replacement, took it home... same warped sound. Eventually realised that was what was what it actually sounded like.. Man, we took the piss... :-)
Expanding on this: It's shocking how quietly we accept that using a smartphone means fighting for and against the presence of an on-screen keyboard. Remember the Motorola Droid with its slide out physical keyboard? That was fantastic.
Back in 2002, I was on the hunt for a copy of Primal Rock Therapy by Blood Circus. I would hit every used record store, book store, CD exchange, and thrift store trying to find a copy (I still had unreliable dial up at home, so getting it off the internet was a pipe dream). I eventually found it in a used bin at a Half-price Books in Cleveland after 4 years of searching.
It was a middling album by a middling band, but the satisfaction I felt I still remember 23 years later. Same with the 4-6 weeks delivery from catalogs of the 90s. We no longer have the anticipation and the wonder we did in an analog/scarcity world when everything is on demand.
Now user interfaces are an exhausting search exercise- I have to watch the screen to see where the buttons will appear with every interaction. It sucks.
It makes me wonder what a physical-first API would look like. Perhaps that's just what CLIs evolved for: reliable, repeatable key-based interactions.