From Graphical User Interface Design to the Configuration of a Digital Object. Materiality and Digital Ontology

Abstract

This article addresses the graphical interface as an array of digital objects that are structured in a matrix. This matrix is characterized by a particular materiality, not necessarily technical or symbolic, but one that stresses the condition of the natural and the technical objects, generating digital objects, which have long been problematized in the literature on digital ontology. The progression of the arguments, supported by literature on digital materiality, will depart from the problematization of the digital objects to locate the ways in which the matrix enables these objects in a process of flow and transformation. The intention is to stay apart from the conception of the interface as a surface for mediation in order to understand it as a 'matrix of digital objects'. However, this article does not seek to refute the idea of the graphical interface as a mediation surface; instead, the intention is to address it as an arrangement of objects that can be configured under the consideration of a digital materiality. This is achieved by commenting on two assumptions that I understand as depicts: the metaphorical trap, that is, the idea that designing interfaces implies configuring metaphors; and the behavioral trap, that is, the idea that to know the behavior of the user is sufficient to carry out the design of graphical interfaces.