Press On: Controlled by machines?
By Gary Dickson
I have lost track of the times I have gone from sink to sink in an airport restroom to attempt to trigger a sensor on just one faucet to wash my hands. When I”ve been lucky enough to get one to work, next I usually struggle to make the automatic paper towel dispenser advance another section of towel so I can dry them. Sometimes it gets so bad that I think I must be on Candid Camera or an episode of Punk”d. I suppose these hands-free systems do accomplish the goal of reducing the spread of germs, but they do little for one”s mental health.
A friend was complaining recently that many of the advances that have been designed and engineered into our everyday life have actually taken away personal control and the freedom to choose. Among his complaints were the automatic door locks on his car, the fact that his car decides for him when it is time to turn on the headlights and how he can no longer open his car doors and play his car radio while parked because of the incessant dinging.
Here at the office we just replaced the telephone voice message system. The controlling factor on the old system was the user mailbox number. The new and improved system keys on the user”s password and is smart enough to remember each employee”s assigned phone. Most people would consider the upgrades to be logical. But, when put into use, we found that we can”t check our messages unless we are at our own phone and a manager can”t check, say, an absent employee”s messages from her phone. She has to physically go to the employee”s phone.
There was a time when the machines we depended upon were more simply designed and easier to use. A current IBM television commercial announces that 66 percent of newly designed products utilize some degree of built-in intelligence. But, why is it that so many product designers make their products so complicated and frustrating to use? Consider hotel alarm clocks, for example. I”ve checked into my room after being shuttled from the airport, where I struggled with the restroom facilities, to discover at 11 p.m. that it would take a master”s degree in engineering to set the alarm for the morning meeting I had to attend.
Apparently, I am not the only one who thought hotel alarm clocks were too much of a hassle. The Hilton hotel chain decided to have its own, easy-to-use alarm clocks designed and the company ordered 200,000 for its hotel rooms.
Doctor Donald Norman, a professor at Northwestern University, has been helping companies improve the design of their products for decades. Ever since his 1988 book “The Design of Everyday Things” opened many eyes, he has been in demand as a product consultant. The book was harshly critical of several products, but mostly of VCRs, which at the time could not be programmed by many intelligent adults.
One issue that Dr. Norman talks about is something he calls “featuritis.” Designers build products that do so many things that the usage of the product becomes overwhelmingly complicated. Mode buttons are used to save space on products that are small in size. The problem is that many people can”t remember which mode to be in to activate a particular function?
Prepare yourself for a future in which our relationship with machines will only become more challenging. Dr. Norman has a new book out called “The Design of Future Things.” According to Dr. Norman, the relationship between most humans and the machines that we rely upon will get rockier as abilities are built into the machines to take over more tasks that we have been able to decide upon in the past. It”s strange that these choice-limiting products are being forced upon us when most people don”t appear to want a reduction in their freedom of choice.
