Since my final project is an archive, I’ve been thinking about archive interfaces a lot lately. We tend to think (at least I do) of this type of interface as one with relatively few “layers”, given that, operationally speaking, the function of an archive is relatively low in terms of interactivity. With that being said, though, working on composing an archive has illustrated to me that the archive interface’s organization is almost as important as the contents it displays. Because interface has high stakes for a project as the “bounded representational system possessed of its own ontological integrity and legitimacy” (Kirschenbaum), an archive project- as a collection of carefully chosen objects- is particularly in need of an interface suited to users’ experience of it.
So with this in mind, I chose an online archive that I use regularly, past episodes of “This American Life”: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives. When I use it, I experience equal parts admiration and frustration. The collection, firstly, is gargantuan, including every weekly episode (both audio and transcript versions) aired since 1995. Second, users can manipulate the organization of the archive by category (date, staff favorites, tags, locations), which enhances the interactivity of the interface to some extent. My frustrations with the interface exist only when I access it on my phone, which issues would be mended by purchasing the app, but…. I’m not gonna do that. My primary frustration- namely, the “back” button leads you to the program’s most recent episodes, regardless of the previously visited page- is a feature that seems (presumably) calculated by the designer to point user focus towards the show’s newer material. I think this is interesting in light of today’s readings: we must assume that digital interfaces like these can’t be “ontologically decoupled from whatever ‘content’ [they] happen to embody” (Kirsch.). Such is true with the interface of an archive: user experience depends on an awareness that the construction of a digital archive (and the motivations therein) is inevitably reflected in the interface’s functionality.
Your point about the importance of interface even to seemingly simple sites (e.g., non-interactive ones, or ones with few “layers”) is key.