Data as Script: A Critical Lens for Interface Production

As a means of understanding interface design as a creative practice this paper explores the concept of data as script through a comparative analysis of a range of interface designs for a social networking service. The analysis reveals much about the nature of the data script, which is shown to be defined by its structures and data types rather than its fleeting user content. In representing the script, it is demonstrated that interface designers, like the producers of a theatre or cinema production, treat the script as a source to be interpreted and adapted for particular contexts. The conspicuous interfaces celebrate poetic representation and challenge conventional interface aims of ease and invisibility, offering instead novel adaptations and critical perspectives of a familiar source. More than a convenient metaphor, the script analogy redefines interface design as a creative process and connects it with established fields of creative production and critical evaluation.