Three points and a question

“Dialogue is not just linearized turn-taking in which I say something, you go think about it and then you say something, I go think about it, and so on” (3). Common ground must be created for a conversation to take place. This can be accomplished with “ interruption, questions, utterances, and gestures that indicate whether something is being understood” (4). This concept of “common ground” has changed the idea of human-computer interface – interface is a shared experience where the human and the computer are both “agents.” (4)

Direct manipulation interface must continuously represent the “object of interest,” require physical actions or labeled button presses instead of complex syntax, and include “rapid incremental revisable operations” whose impact is immediately visible (8).

It is important to remember that computers use representation of tools, not concrete tools, in order to notice how that makes them different (“and often better than”) the real thing.

QUESTION: Has anyone else heard the phrase “two handfuls of the same elephant” (8) before reading this article?
REAL QUESTION: Can you think of an example that breaks the “computer interface as theater” metaphor?