From: cyberoid@milton.u.washington.edu (Bob Jacobson)
Subject: Re: Low end VR
Date: Sat, 5 Oct 1991 17:24:34 GMT
Organization: HIT Lab, Seattle WA.



The marginal capabilities of "low-end" VR should provide a useful framework
within which to develop basic understandings of inhabitant experience.  The
"primitive" nature of these representations tests the ability of the inha-
bitant to carry out tasks or communicate ideas in ways different from, and
perhaps more easily observed, than the more gorgeous representations of the
bigger systems.  As Tufte and others have told us, simplicity is often its
own reward.  Charcoal pencils, in a way, define what is most essential about
art.

But this brings us back to the fact that the designers of systems are only
infrequently discussing, in a systematic way, what is needed technologically
with the designers of worlds.  Maybe because we've presumed that these groups
are one and the same (unlike almost every other field of creative endeavor, 
in which relatively few persons are both makers and wielders of tools). 
Perhaps there should be some delineation between the two practices.  Or does 
the unification of tool building and using in the VR field provide a hidden 
strength -- an intuitive incorporation of world-design needs in technology 
systems -- which is worth giving up something in terms of acute theory?

In short, should the people using the tools also be the makers of the tools,
or shall we have we two essentially different populations each of whom will
contribute unique insights to the field?  And how shall synthesis be achieved?

Bob Jacobson