Physical Computing – Page 5

On Choosing Tools

Don Norman, The Design of Everyday Things

Don Norman, Emotion and Design: Attractive Things Work Better

Much of Norman’s writing discusses techniques for designing tools* (things) to be understood, effective and usable. Through an explanation of affordances and signifiers, he advocates that tools should indicate what actions are possible and where and how these actions should be done.

*I’ve chosen to use the word “tool” rather than “thing”. In the context of Norman’s arguments, the things are used and are not solely aesthetic creations (although they can also be aesthetically pleasing!)

Fundamentally the tools we use shape the output we produce. The resulting product—whether explicitly or not—has traces of the process by which it was created. Physical objects can have physical evidence of their process, such as seeing the layers of filament from a 3D print. However, a digital process may be less visually apparent in its final product. Where was the mouse clicked? Was the cursor movement controlled by a single finger on a trackpad, multiple fingers, a mouse, a joystick?

In his book “Software Takes Command”, Lev Manovich writes about how artistic software such as Photoshop, Final Cut, and Illustrator have shaped the visual aesthetic of current media and design. He explores how these visual language “tools” within a software platform often recreate the effect achieved by physical tools, such as brushes in Photoshop, and debates what this means to the “medium”.

Interestingly, there is an abundance of tool recommendations on the Internet. The Setup is an interview blog in which people purely talk about the tools they use to complete their work. Yet the answers are brand-based, not generic descriptions. One interviewee states she uses Google Drive rather than describing a cloud-based file storage platform as part of her workflow. In naming brands rather than devices, we are not discussing how a tool achieves a particular outcome but rather associating our identity with the identity of a company. I would be interesting in reading someone’s tool recommendations described through its affordances and signifiers. (Future blog post!) By taking the recommendation of someone else, are we uncritically removing ourselves from part of the design process? Should conceptualizing an idea be consciously coupled with the selection of tools, the means by which an idea is manifested?

When we make things—physically or digitally—it is important to be critical of the tools we are using to do so. Do we need to make new tools to accomplish our goals? Are we (adversely or positively) modifying a design in order to be achieved a tool’s capability? What exploratory opportunities are enabled by a tool? Being cognizant of the degree to which tools inhibit or prescribe an outcome is fundamental to a critical tool selection process. Bethany Nowviskie, Research Associate Professor of Digital Humanities at the University of Virginia, reinterprets William Morris’ common refrain—“You can’t have art without resistance in the material”—to be understood as a resistance within a tool, or perhaps “process”.

Morris’s final, throwaway complaint is not about that positive, inherent resistance—the friction that makes art—which we happily seek within the humanities material we practice upon. It’s about resistance unhealthily and inaccessibly located in a toolset. 20th century pop psychology would see this as a disturbance in “flow.” 21st century interaction design seeks to avoid or repair such UX (or user experience) flaws…Evidence of friction in the means, rather than the materials, of digital humanities inquiry is everywhere evident in the program of this MLA convention.

While this resistance can be frustrating and unintentionally affect the product, it also provides opportunity to exploit the intended operation of tools. This remixing of how a tool operates can be eye-opening and engages a new form of knowledge. For example, it took Destin Sandlin eight months to learn how to ride a bicycle that steers in the opposite way as expected (left turns right and right turns left). *Sidenote: it only took his son a few weeks! Perhaps the thing to do is keep learning, using and manipulating new tools in an attempt to prevent them becoming so ingrained in the creative process.

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Further References

Lev Manovich, Software Takes Command

Bethany Nowviskie, Resistance in the Materials

Dieter Rams, 10 Principles for Good Design

Timo Arnall, No to No-UI

On Tools

Glossary, Physical Computing

In his blog post, “A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design,” Bret Victor asserts that a tool “addresses human needs by amplifying human capabilities” and “converts what we can do into what we want to do”.

With this in mind, I’ve been thinking about the self-watering ceramic spikes we use in the plants around our apartment. A long narrow plastic tube is connected to a hollow ceramic cone with a plastic lid. The plastic tube sits in a water bottle and through capillary action, water is pulled up through the tube into the ceramic spike, placed in the soil. The porosity of the ceramic allows water to leach out into the soil as needed. The only maintenance I provide is periodically refilling the water bottles.

So the question is: are the self-watering plant spikes tools?

Analyzing Bret Victor’s definition, it breaks down into two parts:

a goal (what we want to do)
a capability (what we can do)

By using the self-watering spikes, my goal is watering the plants. But what human capability am I amplifying? Perhaps my laziness and inattention to plants…but it’s more likely that the spikes are compensating for that weakness. So I wonder: does a tool continually have to be engaged and operated by a person? For example, a fan can achieve the goal of cooling a room but it is not operated by a person with the exception of turning it on and off. The idea of amplifying human capabilities infers that a tool requires constant and continuous human action throughout the tool’s use. People use things as tools—a spoon to carry soup from a bowl to our mouth, a magnifying glass to engage small print.

Sorry plant spikes, seems like you didn’t make the tool-ing cut.

Other words to investigate: instrument, appliance, apparatus, implement, device

On Interaction

Glossary, Physical Computing

This post was prompted by Cris Crawford’s Chapters 1 and 2 from “The Art of Interactive Design” and Bret Victor’s “A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design” blog post.

In The Art of Interactive Design, Chris Crawford defines interactivity as “a cyclic process in which two actors alternately listen, think, and speak.“ Alternatively, he suggests that these terms can be replaced with “input, process, and output”.

To a large degree, I agree with this definition — particularly when using the alternative terms. Interaction designers establish the context in which these targeted inputs and resulting outputs are brought into relation, through a specific process. Critical to interactivity is the transformation of “information” in which the process is a constant negotiation. Both the inputs and outputs are reformed through the encounter. Designers establish this relationship: how, why and when does an input produce an output? What is conditional or generative or static in the relationship? Crawford somewhat acknowledges this idea of transformation by identifying interactivity as a cyclically process. Input, process, output, process, input, process, output, process. This reforming of inputs and outputs differentiates interaction from “responsive” communication tools.

There tends to be a prevailing uncritical assumption that all forms of digital technology are interactive. But the future presented in the Microsoft “Future Vision” video uses transformations in the mathematical sense: “move this picture here, rotate this graph, shrink this text.” The actions are completed often with a single finger, but maybe two or three (similarly acting in one gesture) if we’re lucky. The user nor the interface of the fridge, tablet, or hotel key card produce unique responses to the input or output they receive. The interface responds to gesture, but the relationship between input and output is static. These are not bad tools, they are just boring from an interaction standpoint in the same way a printing book is boring.

What encourages a good physical interaction?

It is continuously reforming.
It acknowledges* the physical context of the interaction.
It utilizes the full capabilities of the human body and our range of senses.
It negotiates prescriptiveness and flexibility.
It is learn-able .
It is transformative and transforming.
It presents familiar ideas, objects, in unfamiliar contexts.
It produces an output that would otherwise not be possible without the device.

*What is really meant by acknowledges?

Do all interactions with technology need to make life easier? In the video, all interactions between different people are modulated via technology. There’s no dialogue or conversation between people; it’s all cards and swipes and immediate answers. It’s all too easy. Strangely enough, it presents a future in which everything is quite literally at our fingertips — as if this is something new! But haven’t we always been able to know what’s in the fridge? Rather than tap the front of the fridge to reveal graphic representation of what’s inside, these days I simply open the door and look around. This is value in negotiating relationships between people, with our surroundings, in uncomfortable or unfamiliar contexts. It is how we learn. If the screens and swipes provide all forms of information immediately, how will we react when meeting someone who doesn’t intimately and immediately know our preferences, desires and next calendar appointment? We are curious beings, eager to learn about and experience the world around us — technology should not inhibit that curiosity, but celebrate and encourage it.