A Homunculus in the Computer?

Abstract

The 1995 appearance of Microsoft's Bob interface directly poses the question of how anthropomorphic the human computer interface design should be. A historical approach to the question offers three important observations to designers: 1) that the impulse to anthropomorphicize technology has been longstanding and has been employed with artifacts other than computers; 2) that the normal evolution of technologies proceeds through an introductory phase during which a culture becomes acclimatized to the new technology; moreover, one of the methods by which cultures have traditionally become acclimatized to new technologies is through anthropomorphization; and 3) the perception of anthropomorphism in the human computer interface has been complicated by the fact that “computers” were, in fact, first people not machines. An historical approach to answering the interface design question posed by Microsoft's Bob interface suggests that designers productively accommodate the longstanding human impulse to anthropomorphicize new technologies.