On Demand
Concerns About the Design of Future Things
Friday, December 14, 2007
Designers and marketers are working on new smart technologies like advanced navigation systems, and homes that anticipate residents’ every need. Design consultant and computer science professor Donald A. Norman says that we should be concerned about some of these products. His new book is The Design of Future Things.
The Design of Future Things is available for purchase at amazon.com
Weigh in: Are you concerned about any aspects of smart technology? Would you want to live in a home that anticipated your needs?
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In a course titled Effort, Merit, Privelege" we are currently writing a paper about this issue and how it relates to education. We are reading a chapter from "Supercrunchers" and the professor has posed the question: do we all just become blobs who operate computers? Will college professors be relevant 50 years from now? What is intelligence these days? Didn't Brian do a show about how most people can't use tools these days? I think there is a relationship here!
I can't wait to hear the show!
The guest is a bit of a curmudgeon. these innovations might not be perfect, but unless they get used over generations, they will not get perfected. The guest seems like he wants everything to be perfect. He is a complainer.
My problem is not with the technology; it's with the way the user's manuals are written.
After all these years of consumer complaints, why are they still so poorly written?
Well, the other thing is that while many of these appliances will have certain features... such as the fridge that tells you not to eat that pie, but like anything, it will be able to be shut off. If you want to argue with your fridge, you will have that OPTION.
Your guest mentioned that Metrocards are not able to associate you the individual with the swipes your card makes.
That is only partially true. If you buy your card with a credit card, the ID number of the Metrocard is linked to your credit/debit card. I don't know this for a fact, but I would assume this in not routinely done; but it is entirely possible to reconstruct your travel habits on the subway by linking these two numbers. Buying Metrocards with cash prevents that possible link from being made.
This is one of those losses of privacy in the name of convenience, that no one realizes has already happened.
Hackers can save us.
A possible saving grace will be the increasing ability of of average, non-technical persons to program and configure these smart devices. A key failing in my view has been the gap between programmers/designers and users.
What is the point of this segment?
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