Chapter 17 – New Primitives

Publisher Summary This chapter highlights the primitives that make up the basic language of interaction. If one is building a top platform, some of those primitives may have been defined already, but there is no rule that one must use them. In truth, most of the UI toolkits and platforms designed for touch either contain only a very small set of primitives, or they have the wrong ones. The building blocks of an interaction language are what are referred as primitives. Modern software design is divided up into professions, often distinguished as information architecture, interaction design, and visual design. None of these operate at a sufficiently low level to create designs for new technologies. The vast majority of designers has never considered the fundamental mechanics of a link, or a click. This concept was so ingrained in their understanding of computers that they think of it as axiomatic. Click has become a part of the language spoken by users of interactive technologies.