It might seem like I’m demanding a lot from my software. But it’s not deep magic—no simulations of complex phenomena, no effects on the external world, certainly no sentience or spark of life. I’m asking for software to display a complex set of data in a way that I can understand it and reason about it. This is a well-established problem; it’s the raison d’etre of information graphic design. My demands are perfect examples of graphic design challenges.

# A well-designed information graphic can almost compel the viewer to ask and answer questions, make comparisons, and draw conclusions. It does so by exploiting the capabilities of the human eye: instantaneous and effortless movement, high bandwidth and capacity for parallel processing, intrinsic pattern recognition and correlation, a macro/micro duality that can skim a whole page or focus on the tiniest detail. Meanwhile, a graphic sidesteps human shortcomings: the one-dimensional, uncontrollable auditory system, the relatively sluggish motor system, the mind’s limited capacity to comprehend hidden mechanisms. A graphic presents no mechanisms to comprehend or manipulate—it plugs directly into the mind’s spatial reasoning centers.

Long but rewarding essay on interaction design as context-sensitive graphic design — plugs in neatly to how I've been thinking of interaction design as architecture [ie context-sensitive design]. The architecture of visualization, searching for the monocoque, etc...