"Our lives are increasingly lived on screens and mediated by interfaces whose design qualities run the gamut from buggy and incomprehensible to smooth, inviting, and immediately accessible. As often happens with essential and ubiquitous quotidian tools, these interfaces are seldom recognized as objects of design, and even less, of interaction design.
[...]
But with video games, where "play" is an instrumental feature, users become acutely aware of the ways in which their interaction with the software and hardware yields a specific effect and result. This makes video games particularly compelling examples of interaction design that increasingly permeates our lives. Published in conjunction with an exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, Never Alone: Video Games as Interactive Design presents 36 video games created between 1972 and 2018-from Space Invaders (1978) and Pac-Man (1980) to The Sims (2000) and Minecraft (2011)-that are notable examples of interaction design. These games were selected for their insightful analysis of human behavior; formal elegance, where form is seen as a means of communication; attention to how the digital space is designed, flows, and morphs, and to the architecture of the code; an ability to receive and convey instructions and information via screens and input devices according to set goals; and the way in which a person interacts with them, whether digitally or physically. An essay by curator Paola Antonelli examines MoMA's pioneering criteria for including video games in a design collection as well as protocols for their acquisition, display, and conservation. The lavishly illustrated plate section is divided into three categories-Input, Designer, and Player-and each game is accompanied by a short text illuminating its significance" [Fonte: editore]
