Interaction design

Almost every company that produces consumer products has this tension and internal fight between the ‘marketing’ and ‘design’ department. They speak different languages and they are continuously talking about different things.

Marketeers talk about positioning a new product in the portfolio for the high end segment for this specific customer group. And that is were marketeers are invaluable, they discover new markets and keep in contact with customers to define costumer needs and the proposition of the product. They are responsible, especially product managers, for pricing, how the product is distributed and sometimes for logistics.

As it is hard to admit, in most companies marketeers and product managers decide if a new product has to be added to the portfolio or not. Designers have to develop a product that meets the costumer needs and value proposition defined by the marketeers. And it is this handover where most problems occur. [Continue reading...]

Philip has been working for some time on the Icat, a robot that mimics facial expressions and talks to its users. It is an indication of how future products will look like and what their capabilities are. At this moment the Icat is still under development and can only do simple tasks such as setting your alarm clock or give information about television programs.

Why a cat?

So why did Philips choose for a cat and not a human face? Most of use know the theory of the uncanny valley. It proposes that people feel uncomfortable or even afraid if robots look to similar to humans, both visually but also in the way they behave. So they chose an animal that is fairly innocent, but it could have been a dog as well, but then the Aibo was already on the market.

Limitations

Existing limitations of the cat as with many other products is the speech recognition. To convert everything from speech correctly is still not possible, although improvements are continuously made. People differ a lot in the way the pronounce words, pitch, volume and speed. This can be clearly seen in the videos of the Icat with user tests. The Icat and subject seem to communicate well, but this is only because the subject is using short answers like ‘yes’ and her ‘name’. [Continue reading...]

In the field of ‘interaction design’ it is common to to define the interaction between user and product. This can be done in all kinds of qualifications; gentle, subtle, complex, straightforward etc. Taking the user as a starting point the product gets defined and questions like ‘which functions will the user need’ and ‘how to they fit in the life of the user’ are answered. In the end the designer knows exactly how the user will operate, use and understand the product. We would like to add another dimension to this spectrum called ‘design for politeness’ adopted from software design.

What is design for politeness?

Design for politeness is bringing societal norms and agreements back into product design. It is a norm to shake hands when we meet new people and we consider it normal if someone informs us if he can’t make it to an appointment. Standards are part of our culture and helps us know how to behave amongst other. Now consider some examples of products;

“A printer who just stopped printing has a red flashing light next to a paper icon”

“A computer saying ‘please wait’ when installing a program”

“A copier giving a blinking error light”

“A blinking ’service’ light of the car dashboard”

“Internet explorer asking if you want to remember the password for this site, every time you use it!”

Al examples seem perfectly normal, they inform the user that ’something’ is wrong or that the user has to take a ‘certain’ action. But it does not specify this at all, it leaves users in the dark in a rude way. How would we react if such things would happen with other people. Nor does it anticipate us, the car, copier could have known service is in order in a few days. The same goes for internet explorer, it should remember that I (me, this particular user) does not want to store passwords.

If I ask someone to do a task but he just stops halfway and does not inform me why he stopped. Normal? No, we consider it normal that he tells he is sick, has too many projects or that he has a problem.In case of the printer, it could have known that there was not enough paper to execute this print job. Also if the computer has software on it the program says ‘please fill paper’ or ‘out of paper’. And there we get at the fundamental core why most products / services are impolite. Most engineers / designers think that adding ‘thank you’ and ‘please’ is polite but in fact it is a way of saying, sorry no can do and good luck with that, is that polite? No. A polite answer would be; ‘your print job has started but to complete it you might want to refill the paper supply as there is not enough paper to complete it’.

How to design for politeness

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One of the awarded concepts for the Microsoft / IDSA PC design competition is the Slice concept. The concept is different in the way that it does not use a file hierarchy but a flat, linear file system. Instead of having to look for folders that are a few levels deep this concepts relies on slices. Each slice represents a category of files, like music, videos or my documents.

Secondly this system can be used throughout the house while existing computers have limited possibilities. Yes there are media centers that control radio, video and television but not with the same capabilities as this concept.
How does it work?

The bowl is the central processing unit, while the spheres contain all the information. Since this is a family concept each family members has one sphere. To use the files also on remote places the concept also has small processing units that can be attached to third party devices. When the sphere, or slices are connected to the smaller unit communication between the smaller unit and central processing unit can take place. This can turn the television into a media center or fully functioning computer. [Continue reading...]

I ran across a nice video of the school of art and design called ‘Ecal’ in Lausanne, Switzerland. It has some interesting concepts and prototypes about interaction design. [Continue reading...]