Principle 5.17: Embody! (We operate more efficiently, satisfyingly when we "feel as one" with the interface we are using!

Virtuoso bassist and singer Esperanza Spalding once said, "technique is nothing more than the ability to get from one place to another." The context of the quote (which I'm admittedly recalling from memory since I can't find it anywhere on the internet) is centered around music practice and instrumental technique -- in the long run, playing fast and showy licks is not as impressive as being able to express ideas and thoughts cogently and freely through your instrument. To have good technique is to have an unbroken link between your thoughts, actions and outputs, and the only thing seen and felt is the human, storytelling, conversating.

A holistic view of an interface should include the techniques used to interact with it. When a musician works on their scales and arpeggios, the mechanics of their plucking or bowing hand, their breath or tone, they are editing and expanding the interface by which they interact with their instrument -- like adding more buttons and handles, and new sounds. Frankly, guitars and saxophones are odd, illogical and counterintuitive interfaces, with sometimes arbitrary designs and dimensions. Designed today, such instruments might be considered to have too high of a difficulty barrier to be reasonable for anyone to play. And yet, they have become the most expressive and embodied tools of the past few centuries. The more practice, the more embodied the interface becomes.

Thinking about technique applies to interfaces as simple as a button. A button can be pressed gently with the pad of a pointed finger; slammed by the fist or palm; elbowed, kneed or headbut; stomped on, or lightly tapped with a toe; double tapped, held, pressed in patterns; half pressed, pushed in slowly; pulled; tapped without pressing; turned and twisted. Even the simplest button can be an incredible embodiment of intention and action. The Staples "easy" button for example, does one thing -- say "that was easy" when you press it. And yet its simplicity feels satisfying and expressionate, whether you gently hit it or slam it.

I think a good interface (or one version of a good interface) has many ways to be used, and is flexibile enough that there are a few wrong ways it can be used. Or, there are no wrong ways, but alternative ways. A good interface lets technique evolve into different schools and categories, depending on what the user wants to express. A violin might not be an intuitive interface, but because of the tight coupling between its sound production and its physicality (because it is a physical instrument), it has many forms of expression and techniques it can be used by -- many nontraditional (knocking, scraping), and many that started out nontraditional and have become traditional (false harmonics, chucking, microtonality). An embodied interface lets users discover ways to shape the interface to their needs, in ways that the designer could never have originally intended.