The Heckel diagram

In 1991 Paul Heckel, a software developer at Apple Inc, devised a set of 30 rules to guide software designers in their creativity. In short, the software designer had to learn to think like a communicator and to practise an artistic craft as well as an engineering one.

Basically he saw software design as a new discipline in what he calls communication crafts. ‘Communication crafts’ is an overarching term to describe most of the creative disciplines such as writing, painting, film, drama, photography, architecture, music and computers. A table in his book shows these categories of communication crafts on a timeline. (Heckel, 1991).

When looking at the the Heckel diagram we might consider it as incomplete. However, the diagram is somewhat taken out of its context by isolating it from an otherwise excellent book called “The elements of friendly software design”. The intension of the diagram was to show that, what Heckel refers to as communication crafts, started as a technology, as an invention, and then somehow became an art form. The diagram only shows the beginning of the curve up to where these crafts actually became art forms but it does not show what happened after the continuous advancement of the particular invention.

Taking music as an example, the diagram shows the invention of the Egyptian harp as a starting point and then stops at Beethoven. It does not show what happens after that, when other more ‘alien’ influences merged with the concepts of Western music, combined with the technological sophistication of the instruments and recording equipment.

Tab 2: Most communications crafts started as inventions and evolved slowly in the direction of an art form. Software is a newcomer to the world of communications crafts. Figure from Heckel, Paul (1991). Elements of Friendly Software Design, Sybex.

In an attempt to complete Heckel’s diagram, or at least to extend it, Graphic Design has to be inserted as another communication craft. The challenge for Heckel was that Graphic Design underwent a cross domain evolution combining innovations in writing, painting, film, photography, and computer science before it transformed into its digital form – New Media Design.

Graphic Design became a real art form somewhere around the time avant-garde movements like Dadaism and Futurism started to use typography, and combined image and text to reveal powerful messages of social discontent. After that, a continuous tendency toward functionality turned this art form into an industry.

Technology (automation) is aimed almost exclusively at production and consumption with little regard to custom, craft and tradition. People embrace new techniques or innovative tools as a new medium and become artists in a new field. They surpass the initial intention of the tool, by becoming extreme experts with a high level of craftsmanship or operation skill in using the tool. At the same time, in a parallel flow there is OFTEN a mass movement in the use of the tool.

Ill. 11: Page from “The Studio” Magazine, 1920. It shows ads for the popular Camera Lucida or the ‘Periscope Sketcher’.

Ill. 12: A computer operator using Sketchpad in 1963, the first program with a graphical user interface.