User:Cklokmose/Instrumental Interaction

Instrumental Interaction is a concept from the field of Human-Computer Interaction and is proposed as an alternative interaction model to direct manipulation. The term was coined by the french professor in computer science Michel Beaudouin-Lafon in the late nineties and published in 2000 in a paper at the ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

Instrumental Interaction was introduced based on the observation that interaction with the (physical) world around us rarely is direct (in reference to direct manipulation). While some artist do finger paint, the more common way to create art is with the use of tools or instruments, be it pens or brushes. Beaudouin-Lafon argued that in the light of newer post-WIMP user interfaces, the direct manipulation interaction model needed to be extended and generalized. This was needed e.g. to encompass (at that time) new interaction techniques such as tool glasses or marking menus.

Instrumental interaction is a model of how we interaction with digital objects in interactive systems. While direct manipulation suggests to understand interaction with computers as pulling handles with our bare hands, instrumental interaction suggest to understand our interaction as mediated by instruments. This could be an instrument for moving objects on the screen, or an instrument for drawing on a virtual canvas. Instruments primarily act on domain objects which could be a text document in the case of word processing or vector graphics in the case of graphics editing.

To quote Beaudouin-Lafon: "[D]omain objects form the basis of the interaction as well as its purpose: Users operate on domain objects by editing their attributes. They also manipulate them as whole, e.g. to create, move or delete them." While he defines instruments as: "... a mediator or two-way transducer between the user and domain objects. The user acts on the instrument, which transforms the user’s actions into commands affecting relevant target domain objects."