Tap, Type, Write was created by MIT Media Lab professor John Maeda in 1998 as part of his Reactive Books series. On a black screen the letters of the alphabet sit waiting for you to type. When you press a key the appropriate letter reacts by growing, spinning or otherwise changing. Typing a number switches among ten different thematic modes. I was particularly delighted by a mode in which holding a key keeps inflating a letter until it floated away like a balloon.

The program runs on a Macintosh and is available through the MIT bookstore. You can see Quicktime demos of Maeda's Responsive Books on his web site. Oddly, the movie is a bigger file than the program itself.

I find Maeda's work challenging and inspiring. His work is both minimal and humane, a balance struck by Maeda's graphic design hero Paul Rand. Maeda keeps finding new ways to exploit the algorithmic power of the computer medium. He believes that artists who work with computers should know how to program. When I first met him five years ago at the Media Lab he seemed bothered that more artists were not pursuing this direction. By now he seems to have attracted quite a following. For more about his, see maeda@media, a new book that surveys Maeda's work.

Maeda's work has the rare quality of appealing to both high-minded art connoisseurs and young children. Another of his works, The Reactive Square, was designed for a baby who couldn't use a keyboard or mouse -- you control the square by singing into a microphone.

Tap, Type, Write reminds me of one of my favorite toddler toys, called Music Blocks. Created by children's toy company Neurosmith, Music Blocks looks like a simplified boom box, with five depressions that hold five cubical blocks. Each block is a different color, with a different geometric shape on each face.

Depressing a cube triggers a short 2-3 second musical sample. Different faces trigger different samples. There is a button for playing all five buttons in sequence, and a slot that lets you plug in different sets of musical samples. The unit comes with a cartridge based on Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.

When I first saw Music Blocks it seemed like a limited version of MIT professor Jean Bamberger's melodic blocks, which she first created many years ago. Five blocks seemed too limited to have much depth.

But then I gave Music Blocks to my infant son. He immediately started playing with the blocks. Then he started triggering sounds. I learned that Music Blocks is not primarily a toy for composing melodies and playing them back, but a flexible drum pad that lets you play samples like notes of a keyboard. Over the years it keeps revealing new layers of play.

Here are the qualities I like in both Tap, Type, Write and Music Blocks.

1. Open anywhere (a phrase I heard from user interface guru Bruce Tognazini). No introductory screens, no long manuals. Just start playing. Wherever you start it makes immediate sense.

2. Nonmodal. Most electronic kid's toys create depth through modes. Slide the mode switch and everything changes. But modes tend to be confusing, and allow younger kids to get into advanced material too quickly. Both Tap, Type, Write and Music Blocks avoid modes by offering richly recombinable elements that become more rewarding as you discover more sophisticated things to do with them. The modes are in your mind, not the machine. Actually both toys do have modes, but they are clearly marked and easy to understand: type a number key in Tap, Type, Write, or change cartridges in Music Blocks.

3. Behavior fits the physical form. The physical form of Music Blocks is tactilely satisfying, and strongly suggests what can be done with it. I consulted briefly with Neurosmith on a project to put Music Blocks behavior into a different physical form. Although kids found the new form compelling, it encouraged a different pattern of play that did not suit Music Blocks content. Tap, Type, Write uses an existing physical form -- the computer keyboard and monitor -- but with a freshness that makes you look at computers anew.

WHAT’S NEW JULY 2001

Inversion of the Month: John Maeda — digital artist

Discover Magazine Boggler
July: Child's Play: Ship Shapes (based on Battleship), Trick-Tac-Toe, Blocked In (based on Dots and Boxes)
August: Circular Reasoning (variations on classic rolling puzzles): Rolling Around (roll a quarter around another quarter), Round Trip (walk south, east and north, and return to the same place), Around the World (tie a string around the equator)

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