Abstract

It is often taken for granted that personal computers today are designed to hide technical information in order to make software seem easier. While “transparency of interaction” has influenced popular understandings of computer systems, it also shapes our engagement with software as critics. This essay examines the origins of transparent design in different models of usability proposed by IBM and Apple in response to popular concerns over the inaccessibility of personal computers in the early 1980s. By tracing how and why transparency emerged from this period of crisis, we can better interrogate its justifications and imagine alternative relationships to computing.