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21 August 2012
05 January 2012
User and Interface
by Ming Leung, Early May 2010
We need to do most of our job with machine such as computers, mobile phone etc nowadays and we need to communicate with them through their interface, so this is an important media where the communication occur between human and the machine and hence to the human - user, the user experience need to concern in order to place an appropriate instruction to the machine and get the predictable result.
History of Interface
Interface, which is the media to let the user place instruction to machine. For instance, if we need to ask the washing machine run, we need to tell them how long we need to wash the cloths, need extra rinsing, etc. All the communication between human and the machine is thought its interface.
For Human-Computer Interface (HCI), I am back to the day of the typewriters. Since for the computers that we are used today, the interface is basically the same as the typewriters: they both have keyboard, the paper inserted inside the typewriter can be represented by the screen we have today, which both are used to display the output after we have placed the instruction into machine. (I do not choose printers since our eyes in mostly focus on the screen, like we focus on the paper on the typewriters.)
Typewriters are designed with English at the beginning, so its design is directly with sense of the flow of the text, which are output horizontally. And later on, the invention of the Japanese and Chinese typewriter, the operation of the machine basically the same but the orientation of the word is different, they have arrange the text in column, which base on the text flow with the traditional Japanese and Chinese. (Chinese is flow horizontally is from around the beginning of twenties century when they learn the western knowledge and this arrangement can be easier to translate the English materials into Chinese.) (Wikipedia, East Asian Script)
Besides, for the first computer, which is as large as a room with no screen, the user interface is just a keyboard (input) and a printer (output). When the user type in the instruction, the computer will process the instruction and the user need to wait the result output from the printer there.
In nearly the same period, as mentioned by Manovich (Manovich, 2001), the first computer screen is back to the monitor of radar, which can display the real time information detected by the radar to the user, so this is the initial prototype of computer screen.
With keyboard and screen, the user can input the instructions and can get the real time response from computer, so the user and the computer can communicate more directly with the interface provided by OS like DOS. Later on, Graphic-User Interface (GUI) have invented and first successfully adopted by Macintosh, which based on the Xerox PARC, and the GUI is used in nearly all interface in computer system like Microsoft Windows, Apple MAC, Linux, etc. Besides, GUI is also used even in computer firmware like BIOS, or HDTV set top boxes, DVD player, mobile phone, etc.
When User Communicate with Interface
Human-Computer Interface can provide a correct direction to user to do the things appropriately. When the users use the application in the first time, he will perform the prediction of the use of the application according with the first impression in a very short of time. (Tractinsky, 2000) If the users have the right prediction, which means the interface is more easily to be understood by the user and hence the usability is also higher.
To explain this results, Tractinsky have a brief explanation which quote from another work from Hooper about the interface design which compared to architectural design: “… the facade is the introduction to the building: ‘That is what most people experience directly’.” This has the similar situation in typography in graphic design area. (Tractinsky, 2000)
In typography, the fundamental idea is to arrange the text in order to let reader read as easy as possible in the book. In this disciple, typographers need to think how the font is designed which both suitable on printing and need to be read by the reader. And later, they have to consider different font type which have different feeling when the reader read this, for instance, Arial is more modern and Times New Roman are more formal and classical. In the development recently, typography also needs to consider in other media like poster or webpage other than books. Moreover, the typographers need to think about the suitable font they are using, for instance, using some block fonts to provide warning message so that they will get less confusion to think this is another meaning from the text. In this case if the typographer has used some cute font, which is hard to read and the font type also have the mood and feel that like seems not a warning message.
Back to HCI, apart from typography, suitable information arrangement is let the application more useful obviously. For instance, for the library system in university (Figure 1), all the command function is arranged vertically as a simple links, and all put on the top of my records area. In my sense, for the most basic web application so far, the page should separated into 2 frames (although frame is not recommended in modern webpage design but the concept is still apply that divided the page in left and right area on single page) and the command function are display on the left and my record area is placed on the right. If the system is in this arrangement, I need not to scroll back on the top to select the second item, and since the command function is just displayed as simple link and place in default line height, it is hard to separate each function individually. If using button instead then the user will clearly understand each button is represent one command function only and need not to read the text on the link very carefully to place the suitable instruction.
Next, when I using the search function in the system, there are some materials that need to request first and then transfer from another branch. But the Need Request information is place in the column of call number and indicated as “click request”, but the request button is on the top most of the page, so I do not know actually this need request at the beginning and try to find in the local branch. I think “click request” should be “request first” or “click request button” is more appropriated. (Figure 2)
Simulations
To create an interface which communicable with the user (user friendly), the easiest way is to simulate the existing things in physical world. As I said before the interface is back to time of typewriter, but the function of computer is not the same as typewriter actually, computer need to do more jobs more than typewriter like display images, videos, and also perform drawing, etc. There are many command need to let the computer know but we cannot just use a very simple interface, for instance, interface from traditional telephone, which only have 10 numbers, to perform so much instruction to them. Since the keyboard of typewriter can let the user type their language on the paper, so I think the computer firstly simulate the typewriter by direct sense, which seem the user is talking to the computer like we are using IM today, and can get the computer response from the screen. Of course, when the GUI have adopted, the functionality of computer become more complicated and the keyboard cannot just fulfill all the user experience later.
So there are a need of the interface can provide more direct sense for the user to communicate with computer. For instance, for some multimedia software, they need to implement the interface simulated from the physical products, such as Reason. This music application has implemented the real audio set in the real environment and even the tactile of the cable behind the audio set. They need to have such kind of implementation since the physical environment is already run for a long time, when the user transit from physical environment to digital environment, the user can very easy to get use of this if the interface is entire copied the exact things from the physical world, they do not need to learn again since they already have developed the working flow of this. So copy the real environment is fulfill the thinking and working of the user when they use the tools, like the files and folder concept in OS that with the concept from our world that all the things in the world can be classified in tree structure in the biology classification.
Ultimately, if the interfaces need to follow this kind of philosophy, it should simulate all the things as we are using in the real world directly and a 3D virtual environment should be built. This concept make me think about it is the same scenario in the film Matrix, Neo (Keanu Reeves) need to fix the problem in mainframe computer and “login” into the computer world to find the problem and fixed it. His input device, a chair with a cluster of wire plug into his backbone, which used to provide the sense and control interface to his brain directly all the command just “think” in his mind and then can be done, and the computer response is also directly inject to his nerve and make him sense it.
This is an extreme ideal case but what I think is why we need such kind simulations to simulate the physical things we actually have the real object in the physical world, but we need to simulate a fake, not real one called “simulator” in a different media? As mentioned in Remediation (Bolter & Grusin, 2000), this kind of remediation is actually tried to improve or challenge the existing media. I take the electronic books and the printed books as example to illustration this idea. In traditional printed book, all content are static and cannot be updated after it is produced. But for eBooks, they are tried to simulate or upgrade the printed books as we can see in some fiction movie like Minority Report or Harry Potter. When the user reading the newspapers, the image inside is animated and the content is updatable after it have released to the user, which is improved the content quality from the traditional printed books.
This design is now prototyping and I believe it will be in market in near future. As the magazine WIRED, they are “rebirthing” their digital issue with the technology available in the market now: touch wide screen, horizontal flipping interface, static text page insert with videos, or other VR elements like the magnification and 360 degree turn around of the product that let the user see all the details. They have changed the experience to the magazine user.
This “revolution” digital magazines need to pay credit on the multi-touch technology that firstly used in iPhone and the new device type called slate PC – a successor of tablet PC, or in short, iPad. The technologies used by iPad actually let the user perform the motion similar to “flip” the books. This flip motioned is an important experience if reading a book. Even we already have PDF, or text website, we need to imagine very hard if we need to insist reading text as we are reading with printed books. And also it is not as convenience if we read the eBooks on hand since we need to read this from computer in the past, even a netbook computer is still not like the feeling of a book.
Before the slate PCs, Amazon has developed Kindle: a hardware device for reading. This device has used ink-screen, which is simulating a physical paper without the backlight of the LCD screen so that it is more comfortable for eyes if reading for long time. Next, Kindle (2nd Generation) is thin enough and the size is just like a traditional book so the user basically needs not to change the habit for reading book. For the design of control buttons, you can see the buttons is allocated on the left and right, and there are two next page buttons on each side respectively. You can easy to think that if someone is reading on the bed and carry Kindle with one only hand, if he is using left hand to carry the books, then he will use the left hand button to flip the books, and verse vice.
Similar to the WIRED digital magazine, Kindle used similar technologies designed on the slate PC, but without the multi-touch technology that can implement the flipping function, they have used buttons to simulate the flipping function in the device which try to guide the user think they are reading the real books. You may see there is some difference between Kindle and slate PCs, Kindle is a eBook reader which is simulated from printed books basically but the slate PC is a multipurpose device that can perform other jobs rather than just eBook function. So I think these devices is still in the transition period of eBook prototype which become he final products in fiction as mentioned before: need a thinner device, eye-friendly screen, animated content and updatable information.
Media Replacement, in term of User Experience
But for printed books and eBooks, will eBooks replace the printed one?
Since the books have specific language, like the cinema, someone has said the cinema will take over the radio. But the truth is the radio is still exist, in another perspective, we cannot just close the eyes and just listen to a film since there are some specific language that the film have, say montage or long short which is hard to hear only in the film. Although some people may say that there can be a montage of sound, but this actually different things already. So I think that is similar situation for the eBooks, if we cannot bring easily, no flipping hand sense, etc, most people may not think this is a magazine, just a very rich content of a website, or multimedia CD-ROM play on the screen.
Besides, if we just consider both are the interfaces of the text and images from the content creator, these two interfaces actually have different user experience to the user. eBook is just actually simulated some of the experience from printed book like flipping page (or content flow according to the reader speed), the printed text, images etc. But they have not the experience (or you can say have not yet implemented) from the readers of printed books have encounter like the direct contact with hand from the texture of the paper of the books, the smell of different type of papers, the actual feeling when the user using real pen writing on the real paper, etc. Besides, since the history of printed book is much longer than eBook, there are different stories occur already with printed book that eBook have not. For instance, there are many stories we always heard about a couple of lovers have separated in the war but just using the books to store their memories between them. So when the user have pick up a printed book, the books is come with these “bundled” experiences already, no matter the user is necessary or not, hence the experience is different and finally either one cannot replace the other, like the situation of some people like Lomography but the other people like DSLR camera to take photos.
Special Experience
Apart from the functionality, interface simulations can also provide another user experience that we are not easy to feel in our daily life. The situation is similar to we using the video camera to capture footages. We can use camera to capture the real footages to produce travelogue or documentary, but we can also use this to capture footages are not really existed in our physical world, to provide another experience to the user to feel the things they cannot easily contact.
In the old day of TV games, we have the game Mario Bros. by Nintendo. The machine at that time is just support less amount function, so the game environment can just only frame out by the producer with a long static background image. In our normal perspective, if the screen is move, we then think Mario is moving on the screen. But we are actually frame by the screen and the real implementation of the game is Mario is actually stand in a static position and act like walking, but the user is actually control the background moving toward or backward and so let us think in a reversed way relative to the static TV set, that is Mario is moving in the world inside TV. The ideas have explained from the installation called Moving Mario (Lam, 2008). This installation is recreating this TV game in the way that all materials on the screen present to our naked eyes, and the only movement is the screen and Mario.
We can also see the framing in the short film from Rybczyński, he also play with the frame that we just always think this is a static way and all the content inside is live, but actually also a reserved thinking.
For the multimedia games like The 7th Guest mentioned by Manovich (Manovich, 2001), the DVD from Gorillaz or other computer games like Counter Strike, we can see that they are merging different media into a single media - computer. Manvoich has separated them into 3 types: printed word, cinema and HCI representation. There are more possibilities if merging to these media as whole piece present to the user, which is more or less closer to the ideal 3D interface as mentioned before.
Since these games are target to procedure an environment setup by the producer, for instance, a story talking about a long time later in the world. So the cinema materials at the beginning is necessary for this purpose since it is very helpful to guide the audience go into the mood and feel setup in the game. Then the user goes inside the setup story to perform some investigations, or need to complete several task in the game. The control is just using the mouse and then they can look left or right, or walking around by juxtapose with cinema materials in between each action of the user. For the cultural issue, the mouse of the cursor and the menu for the game operation has also design that match with the tone of the game. This approach has also use until the game design at this moment.
But in recent years, use only mouse and keyboard combination control is not fulfilling these special experiences to the user. When we see the film Minority Report, we can see Tom Cruise is so cool that he controls the computer without any direct touch with the computer hardware. This type of control can be done by motion detection with a webcam like the game of Xbox 360. The games can detect the human actual motion without wearing anything on the body. This is more natural in user experience which Wii and VR devices cannot provided since they need the user carrying or wearing the devices on the body, which actually we will not need when we life in our daily life.
Other add-value of Interface
There are some of interface adding the value on its visual. For instance, reacTable have used motion detection with webcam setup on the ceiling to capture the motion with the special blocks on the table, the projector under the table will produce the corresponding graphics layout with response to the motion from the user like change beats, pitch, etc.
You may say why need so complex method to create a digital synthesizer, the old analogy or some software like Reason can also produced these sound directly. I will compare this with the visualizations of the media player. Since the reacTable is control in the dark, the pattern is generated in real time with the related input by user, the pattern generated may not have direct meaning but it can provide some abstract feeling like the visual in media player when we playing song. You can see it have cooperated with Björk in the show (Coachella 2007) that fully matched feeling with the song from her. Similar add-on effects can found in computer applications like transition between each slide in PowerPoint. We can add transition between the slides so that provide different mood and feel to the audience like in the movie. Or in some website included, for instance, a quick fade transition to present with the photos of pop star to establish his images.
But these add-on effects also have the wrong usage in some case. In Windows Vista, the security-prompting screen actually is the most annoying one. They designer want to increase the security level for some action and prompt to ask the user allow the system to perform these execution or not, which Mac OS have also this function inside. But in Vista, the execution is not appropriated since when this screen come out, the screen is sudden turn to black for a short of time at the beginning, and then just slow fade-in a dim black screen to provide the security message to user.
For this sudden black, this make the user think that the system is crush suddenly, or there is something wrong like in the horrible movie. Mac OS have this prompt but they have no this sudden black. And also user in Vista cannot predict this when such effect occur since if any applications touch the security level, this screen will prompt out, not just only from the beginning of the installation of the applications, sometime if the applications not writing well they will also touch this level very often even they just only have check the system update only.
Interface Change Human Mindset
With the improvement of technologies, some new data arrangement has come out and affects the interface and last change the mindset of the human.
The most typical widely discussed example is the hypertext media. This example is important since it takes advance of computer storage which can let the user randomly access any information inside, the user can access the information from a webpage in their own decision. Besides, a search function is also available to let the user find the data.
With this random access concept, the traditional files and folder structure in computer system may not useful sometime since, for instance, the movie. If I just classified the movies according the genre, there are some problems nowadays. For example if some film that mixed with documentary and fiction genre, then I do not know which folder where should I place the DVD under only either one of the genre. So the interface is also change it design concept like iTunes. Although you can create folders inside iTunes in files and folders structure, but it is actually place all the songs under the “Music Library”, no matter which genre. If you just know the name of the song, you can use the search function to locate this. If you need to group some similar items together, you can create a playlist for this. So in this way, I can put my film about in two playlists in the same time.
Besides, for the digital WIRED as discussed before, it is frame out the selected content by the producer. We can see from the video of the demonstration of their prototype, there is an index page with all information of each single page inside which can be slide by the user, this index page is not exist in the traditional magazine before. If the user makes the selection on a specific page, the page is magnified so back to the magazine environment again. But the materials actually existed already and arranged in the index, which may not be the same as the traditional magazine and the user need not to read the magazine from the beginning.
Conclusion
As mentioned at the beginning, the Japanese and Chinese typewriter is arrange the text in vertical, which base on the reading experience at that period of time: natural reading experience if the Japanese or Chinese is read vertically. So in HCI, the effective and usable interface should be used as natural as the user already experience before.
The easiest way is to simulate the read objects in the real world. Take another example like iTunes. When you load the songs in iTunes, you can switch to the cover flow view, which is simulated a real jukebox to select the CD covers horizontally and so the user can use the application with their direct sense.
During the simulation, remediation will occur, which may improve the old media or create a new mindset with the new one and hence the human mindset can also change with the new stuff. And in between the process of remediation, some special user add-on experience can affect the user experience like reacTable.
References
Björk, “Hyperballad + Pluto”, Coachella 2007, <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kd4ef9edpSU>
Bolter, Jay & Grusin, Richard, “Immediacy, Hypermedia, and Remediation”, Remediation, MIT Press, 2000, 20-51
Dam, Andries van, “Post-WIMP User Interfaces”, Communications of the ACM, February 1997, Vol 40, No. 2
Date, Chiiyo & Naito, Takahiko, Design Rules “Moji’, Delight Press, ISBN: 9789866761645.
Lam, Keith, Moving Mario, <http://www.the-demos.com/movingmario/>
Manovich, Lev, “Chapter 2, The Interface”, The language of New Media, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. p62-115, 2001
Microsoft, E3 2009: Project Natal Xbox 360 Announcement, <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2qlHoxPioM>
reacTable System, reacTable, <http://www.reactable.com/>
Schaik, Paul van and Ling, Jonathan, “The role of context in perception of the aesthetics of web pages over time”, Int. J. Human-Computer Studies 67, 2009, 79-89
Sorrel, Charlie. “How it Works: The Chinese Typewriter”, WIRED, Feb, 2009, <http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/02/how-it-works-ch/>
Trctinsky, N. et al., “What is beautiful is usable”, Interacting with Computers, Vol13, 2000, 127-145
Wikipedia, Horizontal and vertical writing in East Asian scripts, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_and_vertical_writing_in_East_Asian_scripts>
Wikipedia, History of GUI, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_GUI>
Wikipedia, History of typewriter, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typewriter>
WIRED, Adobe and WIRED Magazine, <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0D4avXwMmM>
We need to do most of our job with machine such as computers, mobile phone etc nowadays and we need to communicate with them through their interface, so this is an important media where the communication occur between human and the machine and hence to the human - user, the user experience need to concern in order to place an appropriate instruction to the machine and get the predictable result.
History of Interface
Interface, which is the media to let the user place instruction to machine. For instance, if we need to ask the washing machine run, we need to tell them how long we need to wash the cloths, need extra rinsing, etc. All the communication between human and the machine is thought its interface.
For Human-Computer Interface (HCI), I am back to the day of the typewriters. Since for the computers that we are used today, the interface is basically the same as the typewriters: they both have keyboard, the paper inserted inside the typewriter can be represented by the screen we have today, which both are used to display the output after we have placed the instruction into machine. (I do not choose printers since our eyes in mostly focus on the screen, like we focus on the paper on the typewriters.)
Typewriters are designed with English at the beginning, so its design is directly with sense of the flow of the text, which are output horizontally. And later on, the invention of the Japanese and Chinese typewriter, the operation of the machine basically the same but the orientation of the word is different, they have arrange the text in column, which base on the text flow with the traditional Japanese and Chinese. (Chinese is flow horizontally is from around the beginning of twenties century when they learn the western knowledge and this arrangement can be easier to translate the English materials into Chinese.) (Wikipedia, East Asian Script)
Besides, for the first computer, which is as large as a room with no screen, the user interface is just a keyboard (input) and a printer (output). When the user type in the instruction, the computer will process the instruction and the user need to wait the result output from the printer there.
In nearly the same period, as mentioned by Manovich (Manovich, 2001), the first computer screen is back to the monitor of radar, which can display the real time information detected by the radar to the user, so this is the initial prototype of computer screen.
With keyboard and screen, the user can input the instructions and can get the real time response from computer, so the user and the computer can communicate more directly with the interface provided by OS like DOS. Later on, Graphic-User Interface (GUI) have invented and first successfully adopted by Macintosh, which based on the Xerox PARC, and the GUI is used in nearly all interface in computer system like Microsoft Windows, Apple MAC, Linux, etc. Besides, GUI is also used even in computer firmware like BIOS, or HDTV set top boxes, DVD player, mobile phone, etc.
When User Communicate with Interface
Human-Computer Interface can provide a correct direction to user to do the things appropriately. When the users use the application in the first time, he will perform the prediction of the use of the application according with the first impression in a very short of time. (Tractinsky, 2000) If the users have the right prediction, which means the interface is more easily to be understood by the user and hence the usability is also higher.
To explain this results, Tractinsky have a brief explanation which quote from another work from Hooper about the interface design which compared to architectural design: “… the facade is the introduction to the building: ‘That is what most people experience directly’.” This has the similar situation in typography in graphic design area. (Tractinsky, 2000)
In typography, the fundamental idea is to arrange the text in order to let reader read as easy as possible in the book. In this disciple, typographers need to think how the font is designed which both suitable on printing and need to be read by the reader. And later, they have to consider different font type which have different feeling when the reader read this, for instance, Arial is more modern and Times New Roman are more formal and classical. In the development recently, typography also needs to consider in other media like poster or webpage other than books. Moreover, the typographers need to think about the suitable font they are using, for instance, using some block fonts to provide warning message so that they will get less confusion to think this is another meaning from the text. In this case if the typographer has used some cute font, which is hard to read and the font type also have the mood and feel that like seems not a warning message.
Back to HCI, apart from typography, suitable information arrangement is let the application more useful obviously. For instance, for the library system in university (Figure 1), all the command function is arranged vertically as a simple links, and all put on the top of my records area. In my sense, for the most basic web application so far, the page should separated into 2 frames (although frame is not recommended in modern webpage design but the concept is still apply that divided the page in left and right area on single page) and the command function are display on the left and my record area is placed on the right. If the system is in this arrangement, I need not to scroll back on the top to select the second item, and since the command function is just displayed as simple link and place in default line height, it is hard to separate each function individually. If using button instead then the user will clearly understand each button is represent one command function only and need not to read the text on the link very carefully to place the suitable instruction.
Next, when I using the search function in the system, there are some materials that need to request first and then transfer from another branch. But the Need Request information is place in the column of call number and indicated as “click request”, but the request button is on the top most of the page, so I do not know actually this need request at the beginning and try to find in the local branch. I think “click request” should be “request first” or “click request button” is more appropriated. (Figure 2)
To create an interface which communicable with the user (user friendly), the easiest way is to simulate the existing things in physical world. As I said before the interface is back to time of typewriter, but the function of computer is not the same as typewriter actually, computer need to do more jobs more than typewriter like display images, videos, and also perform drawing, etc. There are many command need to let the computer know but we cannot just use a very simple interface, for instance, interface from traditional telephone, which only have 10 numbers, to perform so much instruction to them. Since the keyboard of typewriter can let the user type their language on the paper, so I think the computer firstly simulate the typewriter by direct sense, which seem the user is talking to the computer like we are using IM today, and can get the computer response from the screen. Of course, when the GUI have adopted, the functionality of computer become more complicated and the keyboard cannot just fulfill all the user experience later.
So there are a need of the interface can provide more direct sense for the user to communicate with computer. For instance, for some multimedia software, they need to implement the interface simulated from the physical products, such as Reason. This music application has implemented the real audio set in the real environment and even the tactile of the cable behind the audio set. They need to have such kind of implementation since the physical environment is already run for a long time, when the user transit from physical environment to digital environment, the user can very easy to get use of this if the interface is entire copied the exact things from the physical world, they do not need to learn again since they already have developed the working flow of this. So copy the real environment is fulfill the thinking and working of the user when they use the tools, like the files and folder concept in OS that with the concept from our world that all the things in the world can be classified in tree structure in the biology classification.
Ultimately, if the interfaces need to follow this kind of philosophy, it should simulate all the things as we are using in the real world directly and a 3D virtual environment should be built. This concept make me think about it is the same scenario in the film Matrix, Neo (Keanu Reeves) need to fix the problem in mainframe computer and “login” into the computer world to find the problem and fixed it. His input device, a chair with a cluster of wire plug into his backbone, which used to provide the sense and control interface to his brain directly all the command just “think” in his mind and then can be done, and the computer response is also directly inject to his nerve and make him sense it.
This is an extreme ideal case but what I think is why we need such kind simulations to simulate the physical things we actually have the real object in the physical world, but we need to simulate a fake, not real one called “simulator” in a different media? As mentioned in Remediation (Bolter & Grusin, 2000), this kind of remediation is actually tried to improve or challenge the existing media. I take the electronic books and the printed books as example to illustration this idea. In traditional printed book, all content are static and cannot be updated after it is produced. But for eBooks, they are tried to simulate or upgrade the printed books as we can see in some fiction movie like Minority Report or Harry Potter. When the user reading the newspapers, the image inside is animated and the content is updatable after it have released to the user, which is improved the content quality from the traditional printed books.
This design is now prototyping and I believe it will be in market in near future. As the magazine WIRED, they are “rebirthing” their digital issue with the technology available in the market now: touch wide screen, horizontal flipping interface, static text page insert with videos, or other VR elements like the magnification and 360 degree turn around of the product that let the user see all the details. They have changed the experience to the magazine user.
This “revolution” digital magazines need to pay credit on the multi-touch technology that firstly used in iPhone and the new device type called slate PC – a successor of tablet PC, or in short, iPad. The technologies used by iPad actually let the user perform the motion similar to “flip” the books. This flip motioned is an important experience if reading a book. Even we already have PDF, or text website, we need to imagine very hard if we need to insist reading text as we are reading with printed books. And also it is not as convenience if we read the eBooks on hand since we need to read this from computer in the past, even a netbook computer is still not like the feeling of a book.
Before the slate PCs, Amazon has developed Kindle: a hardware device for reading. This device has used ink-screen, which is simulating a physical paper without the backlight of the LCD screen so that it is more comfortable for eyes if reading for long time. Next, Kindle (2nd Generation) is thin enough and the size is just like a traditional book so the user basically needs not to change the habit for reading book. For the design of control buttons, you can see the buttons is allocated on the left and right, and there are two next page buttons on each side respectively. You can easy to think that if someone is reading on the bed and carry Kindle with one only hand, if he is using left hand to carry the books, then he will use the left hand button to flip the books, and verse vice.
Similar to the WIRED digital magazine, Kindle used similar technologies designed on the slate PC, but without the multi-touch technology that can implement the flipping function, they have used buttons to simulate the flipping function in the device which try to guide the user think they are reading the real books. You may see there is some difference between Kindle and slate PCs, Kindle is a eBook reader which is simulated from printed books basically but the slate PC is a multipurpose device that can perform other jobs rather than just eBook function. So I think these devices is still in the transition period of eBook prototype which become he final products in fiction as mentioned before: need a thinner device, eye-friendly screen, animated content and updatable information.
Media Replacement, in term of User Experience
But for printed books and eBooks, will eBooks replace the printed one?
Since the books have specific language, like the cinema, someone has said the cinema will take over the radio. But the truth is the radio is still exist, in another perspective, we cannot just close the eyes and just listen to a film since there are some specific language that the film have, say montage or long short which is hard to hear only in the film. Although some people may say that there can be a montage of sound, but this actually different things already. So I think that is similar situation for the eBooks, if we cannot bring easily, no flipping hand sense, etc, most people may not think this is a magazine, just a very rich content of a website, or multimedia CD-ROM play on the screen.
Besides, if we just consider both are the interfaces of the text and images from the content creator, these two interfaces actually have different user experience to the user. eBook is just actually simulated some of the experience from printed book like flipping page (or content flow according to the reader speed), the printed text, images etc. But they have not the experience (or you can say have not yet implemented) from the readers of printed books have encounter like the direct contact with hand from the texture of the paper of the books, the smell of different type of papers, the actual feeling when the user using real pen writing on the real paper, etc. Besides, since the history of printed book is much longer than eBook, there are different stories occur already with printed book that eBook have not. For instance, there are many stories we always heard about a couple of lovers have separated in the war but just using the books to store their memories between them. So when the user have pick up a printed book, the books is come with these “bundled” experiences already, no matter the user is necessary or not, hence the experience is different and finally either one cannot replace the other, like the situation of some people like Lomography but the other people like DSLR camera to take photos.
Special Experience
Apart from the functionality, interface simulations can also provide another user experience that we are not easy to feel in our daily life. The situation is similar to we using the video camera to capture footages. We can use camera to capture the real footages to produce travelogue or documentary, but we can also use this to capture footages are not really existed in our physical world, to provide another experience to the user to feel the things they cannot easily contact.
In the old day of TV games, we have the game Mario Bros. by Nintendo. The machine at that time is just support less amount function, so the game environment can just only frame out by the producer with a long static background image. In our normal perspective, if the screen is move, we then think Mario is moving on the screen. But we are actually frame by the screen and the real implementation of the game is Mario is actually stand in a static position and act like walking, but the user is actually control the background moving toward or backward and so let us think in a reversed way relative to the static TV set, that is Mario is moving in the world inside TV. The ideas have explained from the installation called Moving Mario (Lam, 2008). This installation is recreating this TV game in the way that all materials on the screen present to our naked eyes, and the only movement is the screen and Mario.
We can also see the framing in the short film from Rybczyński, he also play with the frame that we just always think this is a static way and all the content inside is live, but actually also a reserved thinking.
For the multimedia games like The 7th Guest mentioned by Manovich (Manovich, 2001), the DVD from Gorillaz or other computer games like Counter Strike, we can see that they are merging different media into a single media - computer. Manvoich has separated them into 3 types: printed word, cinema and HCI representation. There are more possibilities if merging to these media as whole piece present to the user, which is more or less closer to the ideal 3D interface as mentioned before.
Since these games are target to procedure an environment setup by the producer, for instance, a story talking about a long time later in the world. So the cinema materials at the beginning is necessary for this purpose since it is very helpful to guide the audience go into the mood and feel setup in the game. Then the user goes inside the setup story to perform some investigations, or need to complete several task in the game. The control is just using the mouse and then they can look left or right, or walking around by juxtapose with cinema materials in between each action of the user. For the cultural issue, the mouse of the cursor and the menu for the game operation has also design that match with the tone of the game. This approach has also use until the game design at this moment.
But in recent years, use only mouse and keyboard combination control is not fulfilling these special experiences to the user. When we see the film Minority Report, we can see Tom Cruise is so cool that he controls the computer without any direct touch with the computer hardware. This type of control can be done by motion detection with a webcam like the game of Xbox 360. The games can detect the human actual motion without wearing anything on the body. This is more natural in user experience which Wii and VR devices cannot provided since they need the user carrying or wearing the devices on the body, which actually we will not need when we life in our daily life.
Other add-value of Interface
There are some of interface adding the value on its visual. For instance, reacTable have used motion detection with webcam setup on the ceiling to capture the motion with the special blocks on the table, the projector under the table will produce the corresponding graphics layout with response to the motion from the user like change beats, pitch, etc.
You may say why need so complex method to create a digital synthesizer, the old analogy or some software like Reason can also produced these sound directly. I will compare this with the visualizations of the media player. Since the reacTable is control in the dark, the pattern is generated in real time with the related input by user, the pattern generated may not have direct meaning but it can provide some abstract feeling like the visual in media player when we playing song. You can see it have cooperated with Björk in the show (Coachella 2007) that fully matched feeling with the song from her. Similar add-on effects can found in computer applications like transition between each slide in PowerPoint. We can add transition between the slides so that provide different mood and feel to the audience like in the movie. Or in some website included, for instance, a quick fade transition to present with the photos of pop star to establish his images.
But these add-on effects also have the wrong usage in some case. In Windows Vista, the security-prompting screen actually is the most annoying one. They designer want to increase the security level for some action and prompt to ask the user allow the system to perform these execution or not, which Mac OS have also this function inside. But in Vista, the execution is not appropriated since when this screen come out, the screen is sudden turn to black for a short of time at the beginning, and then just slow fade-in a dim black screen to provide the security message to user.
For this sudden black, this make the user think that the system is crush suddenly, or there is something wrong like in the horrible movie. Mac OS have this prompt but they have no this sudden black. And also user in Vista cannot predict this when such effect occur since if any applications touch the security level, this screen will prompt out, not just only from the beginning of the installation of the applications, sometime if the applications not writing well they will also touch this level very often even they just only have check the system update only.
Interface Change Human Mindset
With the improvement of technologies, some new data arrangement has come out and affects the interface and last change the mindset of the human.
The most typical widely discussed example is the hypertext media. This example is important since it takes advance of computer storage which can let the user randomly access any information inside, the user can access the information from a webpage in their own decision. Besides, a search function is also available to let the user find the data.
With this random access concept, the traditional files and folder structure in computer system may not useful sometime since, for instance, the movie. If I just classified the movies according the genre, there are some problems nowadays. For example if some film that mixed with documentary and fiction genre, then I do not know which folder where should I place the DVD under only either one of the genre. So the interface is also change it design concept like iTunes. Although you can create folders inside iTunes in files and folders structure, but it is actually place all the songs under the “Music Library”, no matter which genre. If you just know the name of the song, you can use the search function to locate this. If you need to group some similar items together, you can create a playlist for this. So in this way, I can put my film about in two playlists in the same time.
Besides, for the digital WIRED as discussed before, it is frame out the selected content by the producer. We can see from the video of the demonstration of their prototype, there is an index page with all information of each single page inside which can be slide by the user, this index page is not exist in the traditional magazine before. If the user makes the selection on a specific page, the page is magnified so back to the magazine environment again. But the materials actually existed already and arranged in the index, which may not be the same as the traditional magazine and the user need not to read the magazine from the beginning.
Conclusion
As mentioned at the beginning, the Japanese and Chinese typewriter is arrange the text in vertical, which base on the reading experience at that period of time: natural reading experience if the Japanese or Chinese is read vertically. So in HCI, the effective and usable interface should be used as natural as the user already experience before.
The easiest way is to simulate the read objects in the real world. Take another example like iTunes. When you load the songs in iTunes, you can switch to the cover flow view, which is simulated a real jukebox to select the CD covers horizontally and so the user can use the application with their direct sense.
During the simulation, remediation will occur, which may improve the old media or create a new mindset with the new one and hence the human mindset can also change with the new stuff. And in between the process of remediation, some special user add-on experience can affect the user experience like reacTable.
References
Björk, “Hyperballad + Pluto”, Coachella 2007, <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kd4ef9edpSU>
Bolter, Jay & Grusin, Richard, “Immediacy, Hypermedia, and Remediation”, Remediation, MIT Press, 2000, 20-51
Dam, Andries van, “Post-WIMP User Interfaces”, Communications of the ACM, February 1997, Vol 40, No. 2
Date, Chiiyo & Naito, Takahiko, Design Rules “Moji’, Delight Press, ISBN: 9789866761645.
Lam, Keith, Moving Mario, <http://www.the-demos.com/movingmario/>
Manovich, Lev, “Chapter 2, The Interface”, The language of New Media, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. p62-115, 2001
Microsoft, E3 2009: Project Natal Xbox 360 Announcement, <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2qlHoxPioM>
reacTable System, reacTable, <http://www.reactable.com/>
Schaik, Paul van and Ling, Jonathan, “The role of context in perception of the aesthetics of web pages over time”, Int. J. Human-Computer Studies 67, 2009, 79-89
Sorrel, Charlie. “How it Works: The Chinese Typewriter”, WIRED, Feb, 2009, <http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/02/how-it-works-ch/>
Trctinsky, N. et al., “What is beautiful is usable”, Interacting with Computers, Vol13, 2000, 127-145
Wikipedia, Horizontal and vertical writing in East Asian scripts, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_and_vertical_writing_in_East_Asian_scripts>
Wikipedia, History of GUI, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_GUI>
Wikipedia, History of typewriter, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typewriter>
WIRED, Adobe and WIRED Magazine, <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0D4avXwMmM>
Hong Kong Popular Music (Part 5)
by Ming Leung, May 2011
05/ Conclusion
As we go into the mobile‐Interneted age, media need to change to fit for this new environment. The popular music, need to distributed through the media, we see that in the past, there is only one radio in the herbal tea shop, which is already share to the whole district already. Later, when the TV has appeared, the distribution has scale down to one TV for each family. And now, in the mobile era, we properly have 3‐4 physical screen for each person to obtain different content, and inside the computer, there should provide unlimited screen by opening unlimited windows, which depend on the computer power, so the media will not have a single mainstream one can push the content to the public. So to make the song popular, it needs to plan on the content that can fit for most of people in the market. And it should need to competitive with the old media which already existed, since this is easy to retrieve now. As Ma Kar‐fai said, these generations have education already and should have their mind to choose the content that fit for their own environment. So hope that for the Hong Kong pop music can meet with this media change, as the pervious success cases for the media change from radio to TV. Yes, the pop music industry is collapsing, but there are still hopes for the new generation since, if the society has no popular music, which can reflect there will no hope for that place.
05/ Conclusion
As we go into the mobile‐Interneted age, media need to change to fit for this new environment. The popular music, need to distributed through the media, we see that in the past, there is only one radio in the herbal tea shop, which is already share to the whole district already. Later, when the TV has appeared, the distribution has scale down to one TV for each family. And now, in the mobile era, we properly have 3‐4 physical screen for each person to obtain different content, and inside the computer, there should provide unlimited screen by opening unlimited windows, which depend on the computer power, so the media will not have a single mainstream one can push the content to the public. So to make the song popular, it needs to plan on the content that can fit for most of people in the market. And it should need to competitive with the old media which already existed, since this is easy to retrieve now. As Ma Kar‐fai said, these generations have education already and should have their mind to choose the content that fit for their own environment. So hope that for the Hong Kong pop music can meet with this media change, as the pervious success cases for the media change from radio to TV. Yes, the pop music industry is collapsing, but there are still hopes for the new generation since, if the society has no popular music, which can reflect there will no hope for that place.
Hong Kong Popular Music (Part 4)
by Ming Leung, May 2011
04/ Pop Music and Society
As the development of Hong Kong, which from a small village, then in the later time that many Mainland China immigrate come to Hong Kong. With the stable development from 60s, Li Ka‐shing work from plastic flower to the top 11 richest person in the world. Hong Kong pop songs have also such kind of development and changed.
The initial pop music as mentioned from Cecil Clementi are mostly related to some simple song, and basically have no very serious production which similar just speak from mouth, this is matched to the people at that time, they don’t know what is music production, basically the topic is just related to work and love, and the melody is just produce from their inborn music talent.
With the immigrate from mainland China around 60s, since they have already adopt the production from the western, so when they bring these songs to Hong Kong, they automatically also required the full set environment, such as the theater and dance hall in order to provide the suitable environment for the audience and the performers.
Later on, the Hong Kong governor want to make Hong Kong is more suitable for live in 60s, they have do many things for the Hongkonger at that time (as I mentioned previously), Hongkonger have found the way to claim up to have a better living environment. In order to achieve this, people who are in lower education background, they just know do and do no matter what job they are, so Cantonese popular songs will have talk about their feeling. For the people who have a higher education background, they know that English is the tool that for them to claim up higher due to the big company and the government are use English for communication, so in order to learn better English, English pop song have become more popular in the field of the students at that time, which meet with the bomb of The Beatles, Don McLean, etc, the students then fierce in learning English, which indicate they look smart. Besides, with a classical Guitar, it is the icon of what is cool at that time and the boys are likely to learn this for all reason, included increase the smart image in front of the girls.
In 70s, pop music meet with TV drama, as with Hong Kong manufacturing claim up, Hong Kong become the Asian tigers at that time. Most people are working in the factories, so the TV drama are related to these topic. Besides, the HongKonger have realized the woman position in the society can be updated, with the Western mind learn from other countries. Woman are not just only the housewife at home and can work nearly as capable as man, the most icon for this is Lisa Wong, she have produced the strong woman image in front of TV and become an idol. But since the TV is just the only screen at home, or even some home still have no TV, the popular songs have not produced with this wave to have the strong woman feeling. The reason is since each TV drama have just only one theme songs can become popular, and in case the TV drama is popular, the songs must also popular and so the songs need to fit for most audience of the TV drama and hence the producer have less chance to write so specific topic for the strong woman at that time, mostly related to the change of family such as Frenzy, Home Change, etc.
In 80s, Hong Kong needs to face the problem of the further, as Hong Kong need to handover to Mainland China from British government. Many people have immigrated to other Western countries like United State, Canada or United Kingdom. So the HongKonger have the “doomsday” mentality that need to earn as much money as they can so they can escape the rule from the China Communist Party. Then what so call “Era” have created. The songs at that time then follow the “Era” ideology. From the production perspective the music companies is just brought the license from other countries and fill in the Cantonese lyrics. This is the fastest method for this which they are using the success cases in other countries that they will have less chance to loss. Besides this way, band sound has discussed this “Era” also in term they are discussing with this by using metaphor (like Beyond and Tat Ming Pair as I mentioned before). And the song for TV drama, since there are several drama about the huge local company earn money, so that songs will most likely have such manner like You Shock My Spirit (by Andy Lau).
These operation methods run until 90s, when many of the singers are claimed to retired.
After 1997, Hong Kong have honey moon for the first several years after handover. Hong Kong people need not to hurry to earn money that needs to go to other countries. They seem no need so scare about Hong Kong after 1997 and hence seem no target for them to fight for. Pop music then have lost such main stream context to discuss, love song then naturally be the main stream then. There is one kind of love song that has not appeared before which discussing about the weak side on the feeling from male. Which discussed they are also very week in the relationship, the most famous is The Most Hurt of Man (by Andy Hui).
In the tradition, man should need to have a strong image in front of any kind of things, especially in term of ideology. Yes, the male have the right that cry for this weak side and this was hit to the market with such kind of this songs. But if this song becomes famous, which means the society has structurally changed. From around 60s and before handover, Hong Kong basically moving upward, most of the people basically have a steady living at that time, most people can use their power to earn their living. In such environment they have built up their confident unconsciously. This generation has created legend of Hong Kong. But for their next generation, mostly likely have not such tough like their parent. When they growth up to the age of youth, which meet this male sad song and agree with this. Yes, you can buy this song to express the personal feeling from these songs, or even can sing this song in the karaoke. But they have not the mindset of male identity inside, and have not thought about the responsibility of man when they become mature. So they just want to sing this song like crying like a baby in front of the mother, so that is why the current 70s and 80s generation male is not so man enough, and there is a stupid and naive though that “male is very simple, they just want cry in front of mother when young, and just want to cry in front of girlfriend/wife when they are growth up”.
Since Hong Kong basically is a patriarchal society, even there is a strong woman concept from Lisa Wong in 70s, the pop music is still not straight to discuss the strong woman. When the sad man wave have come to the popular music, for the song of female is also need to follow this wave and so there is some extreme song come out started from (You Don’t Have) Good Result, Knife into Your Heart. And then these concepts carry forward to a current pop female singer Joey Yung. Her lost love style is basically having different way similar to the punishments of China in the past. Her famous songs Pain Love, which have the lyrics “Love you that let me sink, Love you that let me cry/Love you that to be fickle, Love you that you’re callous” [9].
This situation is still until around 2003‐04. In this SARS period most of songs are then related to society start with Internal Affairs (無間道) as I mentioned before.
Then starting from Lisa Wong, the position of male and female position have changed slowly and now seems have inverse position in Hong Kong compare to 60s. Female positions have upper in term of education background, job position, etc. This very specific phenomenon in the generation of 80s, which is the generation listen to such sad male song. After 2003‐04, this situation have become more obviously, for instance there is higher proposition of female student in university which hence that naturally female will be easier to find a high pay job. So the real living standard of female is not such bad to the male in Hong Kong, and so which is the main issue of the problem between KongMale and KongGal[10]. And so, man sad song have disappeared at this moment but just let the position feeling female song, for instance The Letter for Myself by Sherman Chung.
Besides in the relation between different genders, pop song is also having topic about homosexual love. This topic basically is to be avoid in the past, the first discuss should be from Tak Ming Pair, there is a song call Forbidden Porn, which just talk in the way using metaphor. Later on, when Leslie Cheung back to the stage after his retirement, he have very clear to state that he is gay and so there is some song for this relationship and example like Left and Right Hand, which discussed about the change of his sexual orientation, lyrics like “I don’t care where is front or back, I have mess with left or right, from that day”[11], and for Great Heat, he even have the outlook that mixed with the sexual identity.
Starting from Leslie Cheung, similar songs have become popular. And even the lyrist Wyman Wong and said not sure the reason that these songs will become popular, his work like Roll‐Royce, The Boy like You is totally straightly talk about homosexual love.
04/ Pop Music and Society
As the development of Hong Kong, which from a small village, then in the later time that many Mainland China immigrate come to Hong Kong. With the stable development from 60s, Li Ka‐shing work from plastic flower to the top 11 richest person in the world. Hong Kong pop songs have also such kind of development and changed.
The initial pop music as mentioned from Cecil Clementi are mostly related to some simple song, and basically have no very serious production which similar just speak from mouth, this is matched to the people at that time, they don’t know what is music production, basically the topic is just related to work and love, and the melody is just produce from their inborn music talent.
With the immigrate from mainland China around 60s, since they have already adopt the production from the western, so when they bring these songs to Hong Kong, they automatically also required the full set environment, such as the theater and dance hall in order to provide the suitable environment for the audience and the performers.
Later on, the Hong Kong governor want to make Hong Kong is more suitable for live in 60s, they have do many things for the Hongkonger at that time (as I mentioned previously), Hongkonger have found the way to claim up to have a better living environment. In order to achieve this, people who are in lower education background, they just know do and do no matter what job they are, so Cantonese popular songs will have talk about their feeling. For the people who have a higher education background, they know that English is the tool that for them to claim up higher due to the big company and the government are use English for communication, so in order to learn better English, English pop song have become more popular in the field of the students at that time, which meet with the bomb of The Beatles, Don McLean, etc, the students then fierce in learning English, which indicate they look smart. Besides, with a classical Guitar, it is the icon of what is cool at that time and the boys are likely to learn this for all reason, included increase the smart image in front of the girls.
In 70s, pop music meet with TV drama, as with Hong Kong manufacturing claim up, Hong Kong become the Asian tigers at that time. Most people are working in the factories, so the TV drama are related to these topic. Besides, the HongKonger have realized the woman position in the society can be updated, with the Western mind learn from other countries. Woman are not just only the housewife at home and can work nearly as capable as man, the most icon for this is Lisa Wong, she have produced the strong woman image in front of TV and become an idol. But since the TV is just the only screen at home, or even some home still have no TV, the popular songs have not produced with this wave to have the strong woman feeling. The reason is since each TV drama have just only one theme songs can become popular, and in case the TV drama is popular, the songs must also popular and so the songs need to fit for most audience of the TV drama and hence the producer have less chance to write so specific topic for the strong woman at that time, mostly related to the change of family such as Frenzy, Home Change, etc.
In 80s, Hong Kong needs to face the problem of the further, as Hong Kong need to handover to Mainland China from British government. Many people have immigrated to other Western countries like United State, Canada or United Kingdom. So the HongKonger have the “doomsday” mentality that need to earn as much money as they can so they can escape the rule from the China Communist Party. Then what so call “Era” have created. The songs at that time then follow the “Era” ideology. From the production perspective the music companies is just brought the license from other countries and fill in the Cantonese lyrics. This is the fastest method for this which they are using the success cases in other countries that they will have less chance to loss. Besides this way, band sound has discussed this “Era” also in term they are discussing with this by using metaphor (like Beyond and Tat Ming Pair as I mentioned before). And the song for TV drama, since there are several drama about the huge local company earn money, so that songs will most likely have such manner like You Shock My Spirit (by Andy Lau).
These operation methods run until 90s, when many of the singers are claimed to retired.
After 1997, Hong Kong have honey moon for the first several years after handover. Hong Kong people need not to hurry to earn money that needs to go to other countries. They seem no need so scare about Hong Kong after 1997 and hence seem no target for them to fight for. Pop music then have lost such main stream context to discuss, love song then naturally be the main stream then. There is one kind of love song that has not appeared before which discussing about the weak side on the feeling from male. Which discussed they are also very week in the relationship, the most famous is The Most Hurt of Man (by Andy Hui).
In the tradition, man should need to have a strong image in front of any kind of things, especially in term of ideology. Yes, the male have the right that cry for this weak side and this was hit to the market with such kind of this songs. But if this song becomes famous, which means the society has structurally changed. From around 60s and before handover, Hong Kong basically moving upward, most of the people basically have a steady living at that time, most people can use their power to earn their living. In such environment they have built up their confident unconsciously. This generation has created legend of Hong Kong. But for their next generation, mostly likely have not such tough like their parent. When they growth up to the age of youth, which meet this male sad song and agree with this. Yes, you can buy this song to express the personal feeling from these songs, or even can sing this song in the karaoke. But they have not the mindset of male identity inside, and have not thought about the responsibility of man when they become mature. So they just want to sing this song like crying like a baby in front of the mother, so that is why the current 70s and 80s generation male is not so man enough, and there is a stupid and naive though that “male is very simple, they just want cry in front of mother when young, and just want to cry in front of girlfriend/wife when they are growth up”.
Since Hong Kong basically is a patriarchal society, even there is a strong woman concept from Lisa Wong in 70s, the pop music is still not straight to discuss the strong woman. When the sad man wave have come to the popular music, for the song of female is also need to follow this wave and so there is some extreme song come out started from (You Don’t Have) Good Result, Knife into Your Heart. And then these concepts carry forward to a current pop female singer Joey Yung. Her lost love style is basically having different way similar to the punishments of China in the past. Her famous songs Pain Love, which have the lyrics “Love you that let me sink, Love you that let me cry/Love you that to be fickle, Love you that you’re callous” [9].
This situation is still until around 2003‐04. In this SARS period most of songs are then related to society start with Internal Affairs (無間道) as I mentioned before.
Then starting from Lisa Wong, the position of male and female position have changed slowly and now seems have inverse position in Hong Kong compare to 60s. Female positions have upper in term of education background, job position, etc. This very specific phenomenon in the generation of 80s, which is the generation listen to such sad male song. After 2003‐04, this situation have become more obviously, for instance there is higher proposition of female student in university which hence that naturally female will be easier to find a high pay job. So the real living standard of female is not such bad to the male in Hong Kong, and so which is the main issue of the problem between KongMale and KongGal[10]. And so, man sad song have disappeared at this moment but just let the position feeling female song, for instance The Letter for Myself by Sherman Chung.
Besides in the relation between different genders, pop song is also having topic about homosexual love. This topic basically is to be avoid in the past, the first discuss should be from Tak Ming Pair, there is a song call Forbidden Porn, which just talk in the way using metaphor. Later on, when Leslie Cheung back to the stage after his retirement, he have very clear to state that he is gay and so there is some song for this relationship and example like Left and Right Hand, which discussed about the change of his sexual orientation, lyrics like “I don’t care where is front or back, I have mess with left or right, from that day”[11], and for Great Heat, he even have the outlook that mixed with the sexual identity.
Starting from Leslie Cheung, similar songs have become popular. And even the lyrist Wyman Wong and said not sure the reason that these songs will become popular, his work like Roll‐Royce, The Boy like You is totally straightly talk about homosexual love.
Hong Kong Popular Music (Part 3)
by Ming Leung, May 2011
03/ Pop Music Characteristic
With the definition of pop music is easy to listen, as a product to sell. Hence their properties should be structural and easy to remember, and need to very easy to catch the listener attention so that this will easily to have a good result in the selling.
As mentioned by Adorno, he used one word to summarize the characteristic pop music: standardization. Standardization included short time interval with just only 32 bars and the range is limited to one octave and one note, pattern is easy to understood, content is also limited, mostly about mother songs, nonsense or “novelty” songs, or laments for a lost girl, etc which not like the serious music have more variety, more details can be present since the length is not limited. (Adorno, 1990) But this standardization is actually let the pop music is easy to distribute and sell, basically this is the one of the main requirement to become pop music.
With this standardization, actually one Hong Kong indie singer has reconstructed the Hong Kong pop song called The Elegy for Hong Kong. The content is re‐construct the existing pop songs, each pop song just cut some segment and combined it together to become a another one, which actually apply the theory of standardization from Adorno, but actually is really look like a new pop song also. Besides, Jan Lam, he have a song which called Pop Music directly to discuss the formal pattern of the pop songs after 2000.
Standardization, if the popular songs need to be selling as product, this actually just like the manufacturing in factory, so shot of standardization is necessary to be preform. Yes, this is not like the serious music, but this actually not the serious music, which just similar to the food type, some people like to have a full set dinner, but some people just like to have a cup noddle for dinner, depending on the mood or the job of that day. We know cup noodle is not health, but in case we have over time work until 10 at night and just one person at home, cup noodle is the most suitable choice instead of the full set dinner.
And serious music actually need have play in a pleasure environment, for instance a room or listen in the auditorium, which have not such flexible and portable as pop music. In this Internet era, all the things are need to be fast, make it instantly and so serious songs will have less chance to contact to the public in this mobile internet era, music can be play in many location like playing in iPod when walking on the street, or playing gym, etc.
Standardization
If the standardization is the reason that make all the songs become the same, and which the listener is just have only got the same materials and the same feeling, this is just fall into the production concept of similar to factory, all toy product is identically the same with no characters.
But the listener of the pop music is actually human.
Listening to pop music, this is similar the scenario of a group of students attending the lecture from professor, professor is just only one, the teaching materials is also only one set, but how come different student have different responses: some will have questions, some will not know what the professor talking, etc. Besides the interpretation of the materials is different for each student, their interpretation is based on their knowledge, past experience and their environment where they growth up.
If the listener have not well listen and understand the pop music, it is not the fault of the pop music. There is the problem of the listener actually when we see there is a collection what called Mozart Effect[8], they are the collection of Mozart’s music, but actually it is just collect a part of this, since the producer know their target listener have not practice to listen such long whole completed music piece, so they package similar in the pop music way and let them feel it is worth to buy it. Moreover, the customer of this Mozart Effect, yes this time is not for entertainment, but they buy as a tool for them, to train their baby to become “smarter” or just make them have a “clear mind” for their work. Actually even they will not know what is about from Mozart music, just listen it to have some noise and think they will become better like taking the medicine from doctor.
On the other side, pop music in Hong Kong has much variation. About 80s, since there is the band sound movement and the Hongkonger need to face the problem of 1997, apart love song from boy and girls, political related songs have released like Tat Ming Pair or Beyond, their songs like Ten Youth for Fire Fighting or Tai Dei, which using metaphor to discuss the local Hongkonger have leave Hong Kong or about the unfamiliar country that need to facing at that time.
In recent year, the type is much more different way, like talking about the current Hong Kong situation, the disc Hacken Lee Auditorium II from Hacken Lee related to Hong Kong actually, especially the first songs Tin Shiu‐Wai Sing, which directly talk from the point of view of Tin Shiu Wai to Hong Kong whole situation, which main idea is if want to alive, need to claim out from the wall of the weal. Besides, there are also other types: Great Article Reason by Siu‐Fei which about the stupid adjustment from The Obscene Articles Tribunal, about environment protection like Snow in June (by Eason Chan) & Where Should the Flower Go (by Hacken Lee), about prostitution of young girl (24 City by Hacken Lee), about hope and dream like If I am Eason Chan (by Mr.), etc.
Yes, the content is still love song driven, as Lin‐Xi said if he fill the lyric which is love unrelated, he need to fill the form to apply from his boss (Wong chi‐wah, 2010). But there is many kind of love in the world actually, not just fall in love deep, lost love, there is also forbidden love like loving the other’s wife, or telling leaving a relation is how pain, just similar to the film Love Actually or Paris, je t'aime, which can have many different perspective to describe it. For instance, fall in love with the wife have Unhindered (by Eason Chan), Sinner (by Hacken Lee), etc. Teach to break the relationships like Eyes Cannot without Tears (by Leo Koo). Or some is directly talk about the philosophy of love like Difficult to Love, When the Grapes Matured, etc.
So if it is said the pop song have narrow the choice for the listener, I think this is not very fair for the pop music in Hong Kong. Yes, there is still love song driven. Since the pop song is the product for sell, which actually the market is driven by the customer, the producer and the company is provide the songs for the market depending what is the market need. For instance, there is a song from the movie Internal Affairs (無間道), this is very popular at that time, the content which is talk about how to leave the hell in term of working hard and preform many things when still living in the hell, which meet the economic environment at Hong Kong at that moment, Internet bubble have crushed, the flat price dropped and there the start of SARS under the rule by Tung, the CE of HKSAR at that time.
So this song is hit naturally at that moment, together with the promotion with the films. This song is not love songs, actually the content is tailor made for the movie, but in other interpretation, which have the spirit of the Hongkonger at that time, which hard to fight for this bad situation.
But why love songs is still the major one. Since love is a good things which actually not very clear to define, no smell, no color physically and also when start to fall in love, you cannot very clear to tell the situation, so when the song topic is about love is try to help the people to understand more if they are in the situation of love.
In case the topics of popular music have narrowed in the society, it is not the responsibility of the popular music. As some people (Hong Kong Policy Viewers, 1994) said the popular songs need to have some responsibility to teach the public or encourage to the public to preform upward. This actually is the responsibility of the parents, teachers in secondary school and the government. They have some mistake in their mind that popular songs should take some responsibility. Popular songs are the market driven product. If the market need some music have a positive mind, then the popular songs will naturally create this, as the examples of Internal Affairs (無間道) previously, Pound of You, etc. And since this is market driven, this will also very naturally adopt to the most people in the public.
They are some people have made the mistake in another way that want to enforce some false concept to the public by using popular music, as have done before by HKSAR government when they try to use Under the Lion Rock. As they see the popular music are well adopt from the public and it look like a good tools that can be used to brainwash the public. But actually they are told the wrong things: first, the Hongkonger will not trust you for their bad policy. Also the background of this song is about 70s Hong Kong. With some history knowledge of Hong Kong we know there were many people come from Mainland China to escape the Communist, and Hong Kong has affected by the Communist in the late 60s and there is riot that let the Hong Kong out of control. So the governor at that time has done many things like the public housing, establish ICAC and free education for children, etc. The HongKonger then have a mind that cannot back to the mainland, so long stay in Hong Kong is much better that back to home town and even the situation is not so good like this moment but still can work together under the lion rock hill. But this story cannot be repeat again, at least the flat under the Lion Rock is already HKD$9800 per square feet (already under the market price), even if the Hongkonger want to under the lion rock with you, but where can they get such kind of money?
So this is a very wrong interpretation of the functionality of the pop music can group of people to doing something. There should be a market that fit the people need and the popular song to serve this. If the content of pop music is really have problem, it is the problem of the market, which is means it is the problem of the society. This just like the scenario that a person is just listen specific one songs to learn love, which is just similar to the case the just watch only the movies Titanic, there only DiCaprio as the boyfriend in the world and jump to sea together to indicate the true love, but do not think about why four days will have such a deep love that need to “You jump, I jump”. This is just a primary school student behavior.
More Portable
Popular music is easier portable then the serious music in term of the entertainment environment. For instance, it can be played as a theme song for movies, or listen in iPod in a short time during the travel to work, as content for karaoke, for the game playing, etc. This will also have the reaction with the environment that they play. For instance, karaoke is the place that need to consume the pop music, but karaoke is also an entertainment place that maybe celebrate birthday, farewell people etc, so people here is not just singing, most of them are play and drunk instead. So if a person just want to more serious to sing songs inside, there will have some bad feeling so that there is a song called King of Karaoke‐Song (by Eason Chan), Favorite song (by Twins), which is totally matched with such kind of situation.
Also, for Big Incident in a Small City (by Miriam Yeung), this song is just derive from only one part of background music of movie sound track. The produce is just listen this part and ask the compose to use this segment to produce a song, which is very success in the public as the producer Paco Wong said he can hear the market from this segment form the sound track.
03/ Pop Music Characteristic
With the definition of pop music is easy to listen, as a product to sell. Hence their properties should be structural and easy to remember, and need to very easy to catch the listener attention so that this will easily to have a good result in the selling.
As mentioned by Adorno, he used one word to summarize the characteristic pop music: standardization. Standardization included short time interval with just only 32 bars and the range is limited to one octave and one note, pattern is easy to understood, content is also limited, mostly about mother songs, nonsense or “novelty” songs, or laments for a lost girl, etc which not like the serious music have more variety, more details can be present since the length is not limited. (Adorno, 1990) But this standardization is actually let the pop music is easy to distribute and sell, basically this is the one of the main requirement to become pop music.
With this standardization, actually one Hong Kong indie singer has reconstructed the Hong Kong pop song called The Elegy for Hong Kong. The content is re‐construct the existing pop songs, each pop song just cut some segment and combined it together to become a another one, which actually apply the theory of standardization from Adorno, but actually is really look like a new pop song also. Besides, Jan Lam, he have a song which called Pop Music directly to discuss the formal pattern of the pop songs after 2000.
Standardization, if the popular songs need to be selling as product, this actually just like the manufacturing in factory, so shot of standardization is necessary to be preform. Yes, this is not like the serious music, but this actually not the serious music, which just similar to the food type, some people like to have a full set dinner, but some people just like to have a cup noddle for dinner, depending on the mood or the job of that day. We know cup noodle is not health, but in case we have over time work until 10 at night and just one person at home, cup noodle is the most suitable choice instead of the full set dinner.
And serious music actually need have play in a pleasure environment, for instance a room or listen in the auditorium, which have not such flexible and portable as pop music. In this Internet era, all the things are need to be fast, make it instantly and so serious songs will have less chance to contact to the public in this mobile internet era, music can be play in many location like playing in iPod when walking on the street, or playing gym, etc.
Standardization
If the standardization is the reason that make all the songs become the same, and which the listener is just have only got the same materials and the same feeling, this is just fall into the production concept of similar to factory, all toy product is identically the same with no characters.
But the listener of the pop music is actually human.
Listening to pop music, this is similar the scenario of a group of students attending the lecture from professor, professor is just only one, the teaching materials is also only one set, but how come different student have different responses: some will have questions, some will not know what the professor talking, etc. Besides the interpretation of the materials is different for each student, their interpretation is based on their knowledge, past experience and their environment where they growth up.
If the listener have not well listen and understand the pop music, it is not the fault of the pop music. There is the problem of the listener actually when we see there is a collection what called Mozart Effect[8], they are the collection of Mozart’s music, but actually it is just collect a part of this, since the producer know their target listener have not practice to listen such long whole completed music piece, so they package similar in the pop music way and let them feel it is worth to buy it. Moreover, the customer of this Mozart Effect, yes this time is not for entertainment, but they buy as a tool for them, to train their baby to become “smarter” or just make them have a “clear mind” for their work. Actually even they will not know what is about from Mozart music, just listen it to have some noise and think they will become better like taking the medicine from doctor.
On the other side, pop music in Hong Kong has much variation. About 80s, since there is the band sound movement and the Hongkonger need to face the problem of 1997, apart love song from boy and girls, political related songs have released like Tat Ming Pair or Beyond, their songs like Ten Youth for Fire Fighting or Tai Dei, which using metaphor to discuss the local Hongkonger have leave Hong Kong or about the unfamiliar country that need to facing at that time.
In recent year, the type is much more different way, like talking about the current Hong Kong situation, the disc Hacken Lee Auditorium II from Hacken Lee related to Hong Kong actually, especially the first songs Tin Shiu‐Wai Sing, which directly talk from the point of view of Tin Shiu Wai to Hong Kong whole situation, which main idea is if want to alive, need to claim out from the wall of the weal. Besides, there are also other types: Great Article Reason by Siu‐Fei which about the stupid adjustment from The Obscene Articles Tribunal, about environment protection like Snow in June (by Eason Chan) & Where Should the Flower Go (by Hacken Lee), about prostitution of young girl (24 City by Hacken Lee), about hope and dream like If I am Eason Chan (by Mr.), etc.
Yes, the content is still love song driven, as Lin‐Xi said if he fill the lyric which is love unrelated, he need to fill the form to apply from his boss (Wong chi‐wah, 2010). But there is many kind of love in the world actually, not just fall in love deep, lost love, there is also forbidden love like loving the other’s wife, or telling leaving a relation is how pain, just similar to the film Love Actually or Paris, je t'aime, which can have many different perspective to describe it. For instance, fall in love with the wife have Unhindered (by Eason Chan), Sinner (by Hacken Lee), etc. Teach to break the relationships like Eyes Cannot without Tears (by Leo Koo). Or some is directly talk about the philosophy of love like Difficult to Love, When the Grapes Matured, etc.
So if it is said the pop song have narrow the choice for the listener, I think this is not very fair for the pop music in Hong Kong. Yes, there is still love song driven. Since the pop song is the product for sell, which actually the market is driven by the customer, the producer and the company is provide the songs for the market depending what is the market need. For instance, there is a song from the movie Internal Affairs (無間道), this is very popular at that time, the content which is talk about how to leave the hell in term of working hard and preform many things when still living in the hell, which meet the economic environment at Hong Kong at that moment, Internet bubble have crushed, the flat price dropped and there the start of SARS under the rule by Tung, the CE of HKSAR at that time.
So this song is hit naturally at that moment, together with the promotion with the films. This song is not love songs, actually the content is tailor made for the movie, but in other interpretation, which have the spirit of the Hongkonger at that time, which hard to fight for this bad situation.
But why love songs is still the major one. Since love is a good things which actually not very clear to define, no smell, no color physically and also when start to fall in love, you cannot very clear to tell the situation, so when the song topic is about love is try to help the people to understand more if they are in the situation of love.
In case the topics of popular music have narrowed in the society, it is not the responsibility of the popular music. As some people (Hong Kong Policy Viewers, 1994) said the popular songs need to have some responsibility to teach the public or encourage to the public to preform upward. This actually is the responsibility of the parents, teachers in secondary school and the government. They have some mistake in their mind that popular songs should take some responsibility. Popular songs are the market driven product. If the market need some music have a positive mind, then the popular songs will naturally create this, as the examples of Internal Affairs (無間道) previously, Pound of You, etc. And since this is market driven, this will also very naturally adopt to the most people in the public.
They are some people have made the mistake in another way that want to enforce some false concept to the public by using popular music, as have done before by HKSAR government when they try to use Under the Lion Rock. As they see the popular music are well adopt from the public and it look like a good tools that can be used to brainwash the public. But actually they are told the wrong things: first, the Hongkonger will not trust you for their bad policy. Also the background of this song is about 70s Hong Kong. With some history knowledge of Hong Kong we know there were many people come from Mainland China to escape the Communist, and Hong Kong has affected by the Communist in the late 60s and there is riot that let the Hong Kong out of control. So the governor at that time has done many things like the public housing, establish ICAC and free education for children, etc. The HongKonger then have a mind that cannot back to the mainland, so long stay in Hong Kong is much better that back to home town and even the situation is not so good like this moment but still can work together under the lion rock hill. But this story cannot be repeat again, at least the flat under the Lion Rock is already HKD$9800 per square feet (already under the market price), even if the Hongkonger want to under the lion rock with you, but where can they get such kind of money?
So this is a very wrong interpretation of the functionality of the pop music can group of people to doing something. There should be a market that fit the people need and the popular song to serve this. If the content of pop music is really have problem, it is the problem of the market, which is means it is the problem of the society. This just like the scenario that a person is just listen specific one songs to learn love, which is just similar to the case the just watch only the movies Titanic, there only DiCaprio as the boyfriend in the world and jump to sea together to indicate the true love, but do not think about why four days will have such a deep love that need to “You jump, I jump”. This is just a primary school student behavior.
More Portable
Popular music is easier portable then the serious music in term of the entertainment environment. For instance, it can be played as a theme song for movies, or listen in iPod in a short time during the travel to work, as content for karaoke, for the game playing, etc. This will also have the reaction with the environment that they play. For instance, karaoke is the place that need to consume the pop music, but karaoke is also an entertainment place that maybe celebrate birthday, farewell people etc, so people here is not just singing, most of them are play and drunk instead. So if a person just want to more serious to sing songs inside, there will have some bad feeling so that there is a song called King of Karaoke‐Song (by Eason Chan), Favorite song (by Twins), which is totally matched with such kind of situation.
Also, for Big Incident in a Small City (by Miriam Yeung), this song is just derive from only one part of background music of movie sound track. The produce is just listen this part and ask the compose to use this segment to produce a song, which is very success in the public as the producer Paco Wong said he can hear the market from this segment form the sound track.
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