Uncomfortable Ideas: How Close Are They?

"It is not too early to think about the future difficulties that intelligent and emotional machines may give rise to. There are numerous practical, moral, legal, and ethical issues to think about. Most are still far in the future, but that is a good reason to start now – so that when problems arrive, we will be ready."

This is how a cognitive scientist named Donald A. Norman, in his 2004 book Emotional Design, briefly touches upon different dimensions to consider about possible scientific developments in the future. A very similar hypothetical question was raised by Magnus Lindkvist (the head of our course "Trendspotting and Future Thinking" at Konstfack) when he told us not to "be afraid of uncomfortable ideas", to which he provided an example by naming a possible future debate as "sex robots in the shape of children".


Personally, I can't say this debate would be much to my surprise. Ethics are not at the top of many people's lists even today, and this creates even more controversy if those people are in a powerful position in the society. And I'm not even talking about child pornography here—at least not in the traditional sense.

Take the marketing and advertisement business, for instance. In Turkey, there are, apparently, no rules whatsoever regulating the abuse of children as a marketing tool. Therefore most of the largest brands are free to develop marketing strategies that are mainly based on children (e.g. using them as main characters). And if those brands were ones that sell diapers, infant food or toys, etc. I maybe might have had more sympathy for them. However, one of those brands is in the business of providing mobile communications services. That's a bit out of context, huh?

One cannot find a good reason behind such abuse—other than breeding fresh new generations of greedy consumers. It could very well be argued that this is as valid an ethical debate as "sex robots in the shape of children"—or, at least, that such "uncomfortable ideas" are closer to us than we think they would be.

Read more!

Avoiding the Risk of Ritualization

In some parts of the world, Sunday, the 21st of September, was "exhaustless"—namely 'World Car Free Day'. For instance, Brusselleers enjoyed a day of bicycle-riding as an area of 160 km2 in the Belgian capital was closed to motor transport from 9AM to 7PM. In Hungary, people could ride on trains for free just by showing their automobile licenses.

As the current debate around sustainability gets hotter, we witness more and more initiatives being taken to raise awareness. Besides the 'Car Free Day' mentioned above, we have a 'Buy Nothing' day, an 'Earth Hour', and who knows what else? (You're welcome to add what you know under Comments)

However, it is always a valid question whether all these 'holy' days of sustainability do any concrete good. Do they really help change our traits? Or are they just about doing the 'in' thing nowadays, when none of us wants to be left behind in the trendy game of being green? These were some issues touched upon also by a research project named "Energy Futures", carried out by a trio of interns at Interactive Institute.

The outcomes of this research were several scenarios with which the interns foresaw a future where sustainability and being green had totally translated itself into a religion. One could see the obvious link between those scenarios and today's designated-days of being green.

To provide an example, one of those scenarios included a day of covering your electronic devices with tape; in another one people would send a red smoke out to the sky as an almost-tribal ritual. They might look too-fictitious to you, but looking at the facts above, this kind of a future could be much closer than we think. It is up to us who claim to be working towards a positive future, to avoid the risk of ritualization—by aiming for deeper change in traits, instead of trying to affect moods/even behaviours for the short term.

Read more!

A review on Don Norman's book "Emotional Design"

The first book we had to read as students of the Experience Design MA course at Konstfack, was Emotional Design, written by the cognitive scientist Donald A. Norman. As an interdisciplinarian he has been working both as a professor at Northwestern, and consultant to many design-oriented businesses (e.g. Apple) where he brought a new approach that emphasizes usability and user-centered design.

In his book, Norman provides us with three levels of design: Visceral (related to appearance and first impressions) behavioral (about usability and user experience) and reflective (about our memories, previous experiences, stories and narratives we could tell). Then he goes on further to advocate his theory that a good design has to “excel on all three levels”.

Given the contemporary hype about sustainable/socially-responsible design, it is possible to see this book as a reminder for designers to the idea that using sustainable materials and processes does not always make designs qualify as 'good.' In other words, one shouldn't take human factors and psychology for granted while giving great importance to minimizing his/her impact on the environment. Norman's theories provide an interesting perspective in that sense.

However, I would like to give some thoughts on the coherence of the examples Norman gives to substantiate his theory. Unfortunately, most of the products he talks about do not perform even at a mediocre degree, and surely not an excellent one, on those three levels. Take Starck’s Squeezer, which illustrates the book's cover, for example. Norman argues that this is an extremely successful product, although he confesses that some parts wear out because of acid; although he has really used it once and displays it on his window; and, although, even the designer of this product has said that it is not meant to squeeze lemons. It is possible to ask many questions to contradict this perspective: If the product is not being used, or not even meant to be used, how is one going to taste the pleasure? If its usability is not high, or its parts wear out, does that still mean the design excels on all three levels? In summary, if it is so pleasurable only to look at and display on one’s window, is this an art object (e.g. sculpture) or a designed product?

Another argument Norman makes is could be defined as ‘love vs. hate’ during our experiences with products. He gives the Mini Cooper as an example for the ‘love’ side, claiming the flaws of this product might be ignored because it is so cute and fun. However, on the ‘hate’ side, he talks about how people hate computers and can even get physical with them when their usability is low. I believe this argument is not strong enough since the substantiation of its two sides are not equally coherent. On the ‘love’ side, the determining factor is cuteness and fun, whereas on the ‘hate’ side it is usability and functionality. The former are much more subjective and abstract whereas the latter are more scientific and concrete. Had Norman said that we love products because it is such a pleasure to use them; or as another option, had he claimed that we hate them when they are ugly and not fun to use, his argument would have been much stronger in its own sense.

Of course, this is not to underestimate the whole book. For instance, one of Norman's arguments that is much stronger and more convincing was about the notion of kitsch. In his own words: “Kitschy objects ... do not pretend to be art—they are aids to memory.” This is a unique perspective compared to that of an artist’s or an aestheticist’s, one that perceives souvenir objects as ‘product’s and evaluating them mainly by their function, rather than their looks.

It would not be unfair to say that the book is one of a strictly material-oriented nature. However, it is quite impossible to interpret the material world solely on the design level. Given the interdisciplinarian Norman is, one would expect from him to indicate several more paragraphs on matters related to sister disciplines, for example one sub-section could be about: the influence of marketing and advertisement on our visceral level. Similar to this neglect, in the last chapter, he makes a strong distinction between technology, and political&social sciences; saying that technology is not the one that creates problems—with the argument that our world’s problems should be solved by politics and social sciences. One would have a right to expect a much more holistic approach from him. As a result of all these, the book runs the risk of being perceived as the 'bible of materialism', a cure for the post-modern consumer society's guilt of having bought too many useless things.

In the last chapters, Norman does a great job of informing us about the latest developments in the field of robotics and raises a few ethical questions worth thinking about. There's a lot of 'stuff' to give designers an urge to do further individual research about the topics mentioned. To sum up—without losing the critical eye—it is a very useful read for any designer that would like to see beyond the conventional approach.

Read more!