PARSONS SCHOOL OF DESIGN SCHOOL OF DESIGN STRATEGIES
HUMANNESS REBUILDING & MFA TRANSDISCIPLINARY DESIGN
TECHNOLOGY REENVISIONING
THESIS 2016 MEI-LING LU
TECHNOLOGY REENVISIONING & HUMANNESS REBUILDING A system guideline for reenvisioning digital technology design to help technology addicted users to stay healthy
CONTENTS 1.0 ABSTRACT
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2.0 TECHNOLOGY & ADDICTION
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3.0 ADDICTIVE TECHNOLOGY &
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NATURAL HUMANNESS 4.0 INDUSTRY & TECHNOLOGY DESIGN
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5.0 PRECEDENT: INSUFFICIENCY
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5.1 PRECEDENT: ASIMOV’S THREE LAWS
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6.0 CONTEXT: SOCIAL MEDIA
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7.0 DESIGN PROCESS
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7.1 POLICY: LAWS
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7.2 DESIGN: UXs
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7.3 BUSINESS: BUSINESS MODELS
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8.0 SYSTEM: SYSTEM MAP
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9.0 CONCLUSION
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10.0 FUTURE SCENARIO
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11.0 APPENDIXES
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12.0 BIBLIOGRAPHY
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13.0 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
85
1.0 ABSTRACT
The development of technology brings not only convenience but also dehumanization to us. Today, pervasive and ubiquitous technologies are increasingly taking over our life, which addresses the debate of how much humanness we are retaining when using technology products. Except for a few people who have a high level of self-control, most people nowadays are more or less surrendering themselves to technologies and letting technologies negatively impact their life. This is considered as “technology addiction”. Technology addiction is not a new term in today’s world. In this project, “technology” refers to digital technology products that can easily cause addictive behaviors in people, such as social media, games and mobile devices. Even though the companies that are building these products clearly understand this problematic issue, no one is taking it seriously and trying to respond to it. How can we change the conversation in a technology company in order to treat technology addiction as an issue that needs to be solved? How can we encourage a technology company to design the experience of being alive as human beings rather than being controlled by technologies? This project investigates the possibility of bringing back humanness into contemporary technologies and projects a future where negative impacts derived from technologies can be spotted early on and limited. / 01
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2.0 TECHNOLOGY & ADDICTION
“I have traveled 36 hours to a conference on robotic technology in central Japan. The grand ballroom is Wi-Fi enabled, and the speaker is using the Web for his presentation. Laptops are open, fingers are flying. But the audience is not listening. Most seem to be doing their e-mail, downloading files, surfing the Web or looking for a cartoon to illustrate an upcoming presentation. Every once in a while audience members give the speaker some attention, lowering their laptop screens in a kind of digital curtsy.” 1 “I am glad to have such a great and ‘concentrated’ conversation today. On the last reunion with my high school’s classmates, everyone was checking their phones after finishing the meal. It’s amazing that no one is doing this today!”
1
Sherry Turkle, “Can You Hear Me Now?” Forbes, last modified April 21, 2007, http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2007/0507/176.html.
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“I personally can no longer concentrate on a single task for more than 10 minutes, even watching a drama, a show or a movie. The news media sell smartphone by illustrating it as a productivity-and-effectiveness-enhancing device that transforms users into multi-taskers. However, what I found is that it draws my attention away from the things that really require me to stay focused on.” “These systems have made it so easy to post these bits and pieces of your life online that if you stumble upon anything worthy of posting, you’d drop everything and do it. See a car accident, it goes online, see a dog begging for food with its master, shared, see someone trying to jump off a building, posted. Suddenly, even in the real world, you’re a surfer. You don’t stop to help the victim get out of the car, actually drop some coins into the beggar’s cup, or call the police to come stop the hapless jumper. Nope, it’s all about accommodating these urges to have the post of the day.” 2 Today, people are familiar with the scenarios described above and can definitely make more examples of negative impacts of technology. Pervasive and ubiquitous technologies are increasingly pervading our life. “While technology is supposed to serve to us, it does sometimes feel as if we serve technology.” 3 We create technology, but we are letting it take us to the place that we don’t want to go.
Singyin Lee, “5 Ways ‘Tech Addiction’ Is Changing Human Behaviour,” HONGKIAT, http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/tech-addiction/. 3 Koert van Mensvoort, “Innovative Nastalgia,” Dutch Design (nai010 publishers, 2013). 2
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Everything starts from a routine behavior, which becomes a habit when it is repeated regularly and occurs unconsciously. A habit can become an addiction when it starts to interfere with one’s normal functioning. People may have habits such as playing mobile games for 30 minutes everyday. It’s called a habit because it doesn’t cause harm and it provides us with pleasure and energy. However, if we play mobile games for 10 hours a day, it’s likely that this action is harming our lives since we may not be able to complete our works successfully, have enough time to sleep or pay attention to people around us. This habit’s interference with our daily lives leads us to define it as an addiction. 4
4
Jason Hreha, “Applied Psychology in Silicon Valley,” Medium, last modified November 29, 2013, https://medium.com/@jhreha/applied-psychology-in-siliconvalley-81d001f0e172#.6teghhpmc.
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3.0 ADDICTIVE TECHNOLOGY & NATURAL HUMANNESS
“Technology is anything that wasn’t around when you were born,” said Alan Kay, a renowned American computer scientist. In other words, technology is anything that was invented after we were born. In order to define the term of “technology” used in this project, a clarification is needed.
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Alan Kay, Hong Kong press conference, late 1980s.
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“Technology” in the broad sense can include many things, but not every kind of technology has potential to make us addicted. The most noticeable characteristic of addiction is that people can’t stop using or doing something and this uncontrollable situation can cause negative impacts on them. Papermaking is technology, but none of us would have strong dependence on paper and have any “syndrome” by using it. Fitness equipments are technologies. Some people may feel uncomfortable if they don’t go to gym every day, but it’s not called addiction because working out benefit us on healthy and social relationships. The term of “technology addiction” emerged from digital age. Video games (1980s), personal computer (1980s), laptop (1990s), World Wide Web (1990s), wireless network (late 1990s), cell phone (2000s), digital camera (2000s), digital television (2000s), social media (mid 2000s), smartphone (late 2000s), tablet (2010s) are all considered the products of digital age. When these digital technologies started to get into our life, we suffered technology addiction for the first time. In other words, digital technologies have higher potential to cause people to be addicted, compared to other types of technology. Main criteria of addictive technology: 1. Can make people use it constantly without resting. 2. Can dominate people’s thinking, feelings and behaviors. 3. Can weaken people’s ability of completing tasks. 4. Can cause people to view the virtual world as the real world.
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The second part of the title (Humanness Rebuilding) indicates the goal of this project: rebuilding our humanness by reenvisioning the way we are designing technology products, but what does it mean to be human? How do we differentiate ourselves from machines? In this project, the idea of humanness is simple: brain first, technology second. Definitions of “humanness� based on the main criteria of addictive technology listed above: 1. We know when we need (physically or emotionally need) to use technology, and when we don’t. 2. We can control ourselves not to be too dependent on technology. (For example, before asking Siri or Google, we try to figure out questions by ourselves.) 3. We can recognize what is important at the moment and face it without letting technology distract us or give us the feeling of escape. 4. We understand the importance of real social engagement.
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4.0 INDUSTRY & TECHNOLOGY DESIGN
“I’m a technologist that works almost exclusively on mobile. I’ve had the opportunity to build some really neat things alongside very talented people. So my telling you to put your phone down is a little bit like a girl scout telling you only to buy 2 boxes. We (as app makers) want them to be addicting. Like a potato chip manufacturer, we try to put just the right crunch and the perfect amount of salt so you can’t help but have just one more. We want you to get addicted. It puts the potato chips on our table.” 6
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Jeremy Vandehey, “This is your brain on mobile,” Medium, last modified April 10, 2014, https://medium.com/@jgvandehey/this-is-your-brain-on-mobile15308056cfae#.toc39y5ci.
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With the emergence of smartphones and social media platforms, there is a trend of building addictive products currently in technology industry. The frequency and the length of use are the main concerns for companies when they are designing products. Making users continuously interact with their products becomes the barometer of success in this case. However, not every technology company uses this metric as their goal. For example, companies developing web search engines aim to assist users finding needed information as soon as possible. For this kind of technology company, minimizing time is the main design criterion. The functions of search engines and social media platforms are certainly different, but it doesn’t mean that “unreasonable user engagement” is a necessary evil for social media companies to let people use their products. The original goal of every technology company definitely is not making people be addicted. Technology addiction was originally a side effect derived from inappropriate use. However, many companies now harness it as a design criterion in order to make profit. How can we change the conversation in a technology company in order to treat technology addiction as an issue that needs to be solved rather than an “advantage” that can be utilized for making profit? How can we encourage a technology company to design the experience of being alive as human beings rather than being controlled by technologies?
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“We are human beings first and designers second. No amount of professionalism can substitute for our being personally involved. Our deep-rooted human qualities are what brings the greatest vitality and relevance to our work. What is vital, I have discovered, is our humanness: who we are and the ways in which we express our fundamental human qualities in our work. When these qualities are included as an integral and natural part of the design process, everyone benefits: those for whom we are designing, as well as ourselves.” 7
7
Lauralee Alben, “At the heart of Interactive Design,” Design Management Journal 8, no.3 (1997): 26, DOI: 10.1111/j.1948-7169.1997.tb00166.x.
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5.0 PRECEDENT: INSUFFICIENCY
Technology addiction is commonly recognized as an issue today. There are many products that aim to help addicted users to overcome this problem.
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5.1 Momentum
“Momentum” is an extension for replacing new tab page with a personalized one. By using “Momentum”, people will not only get inspired with a daily stunning photo but also will be able to eliminate distractions and beat procrastination by setting up a daily focus and tracking to-do list. Every time people open a new tab, they will see the goals set up by themselves that remind them to stay focused. 8
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Momentum (Google Chrome Extention)
5.2 Blokket
“Blokket� is a small pouch that blocks signal from the phone inside. People can enjoy an uninterrupted moment with their friends, families, beloved or on their own by simply dropping devices into it. 9
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Blokket, designed by Chelsea Briganti, Ingrid Zweifel, and Leigh Ann Tucker (The Way We See The World), https://www.prote.in/feed/blokket.
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5.3 NoPhone
“ ‘Nophone’ is a technology-free alternative to constant handto-phone contact. The 3D printed device was designed to fulfill all smartphone-holding needs without preventing the user to engage in real life interactions. They want to target the compulsory need in humans to continuously engage in physical contact with a piece of plastic (apparently we check our phones 150 times on average each day); a need which has noticeably diminished human-to-human interactions. Its sleek, plastic design serves as an idle hand’s security blanket and is devised to alleviate the constant need humans have to hold a mobile device without preventing users from fully experiencing their immediate surroundings.” 10
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NoPhone, designed by Ben Langeveld, Ingmar Larsen, Mariana Oliveira, Alanna Watson and Van Gould, http://www.larsenlangeveld.com/nophone/.
The approach of the precedents listed in this chapter is from user’s side. They are all separate “attachments” to existing technology products and are implemented by choice. In these cases, the designers view addictive technology products themselves as something that will not change so they solve problems by creating other objects to reinforce these choices.
Technology/ Industry
Precedents’ Approach
Human/ User
Is it possible to approach the issue of technology addiction from an industry perspective? Could we bring the concerns about retaining humanness to the industry? If the industry could take users’ psychological states and social relationships into consideration while designing technology products, could we change users’ behaviors in a more effective way?
My Approach
Technology/ Industry
Human/ User
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5.1 PRECEDENT: ASIMOV’S THREE LAWS
In 2035, highly intelligent robots fill public service positions throughout the world, operating under three rules to keep human beings safe.
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws. 11
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Asimov Isaac, “Runaround,” I, Robot, 1942.
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Asimov, a science fiction author, devised the Three Laws of Robotics in 1942, which became the foundation of his robotic-based fiction. The robots appearing in his works are embedded with the laws listed above. The movie “I, Robot” and “Bicentennial Man” were all based on Asimov’s works. Today, Robotics is no longer a science-fictional term, but a professional academy. Although Asimov was not a robotic scientist, his contribution to Robotics has been recognized by people who devote their whole life to this realm. Why did Asimov create the Three Laws? By observing past movies and science fictions, we can see that people have some negative stereotypes towards robots. In general, the themes of these robot-related-works are always about “robots overpowering humans” or “humans overpowering robots”. “The Terminator” and “The Matrix” are the most iconic movies of “robots overpowering humans”, which predict that robots would no longer be willing to serve human one day, and they start to fight back in the light of this awakeness. On the other hand, “Bicentennial Man” and “A.I. Artificial Intelligence” best represent the idea of “human overpowering robots”. The robotic housekeeper Andrew and robotic boy David have experienced just how difficult it is to be recognized by humans. The reason why people have this distrust towards robots is because of the unpleasant “relationship” between human and machine during the time of Industrial Revolution. As the production line invented, people had to acclimatize themselves to the downsides of having non-stop machines, and learn how to keep working 24 hours straight without taking a break. Fatigue, smoke, oil, heat, noise… the impressions are all uncomfortable, not to mention the harm and the unemployment caused by machines. Except for a few rich people who could enjoy the benefits of mass production, machines were seen as monsters that inspired hate and fear in the majority of laborers.
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Because of this negative impression of machines, people fear “machines that bear resemblance to humans”, even though it is humans who make robots resemble human beings. In the Christian religion, it challenges some of the fundamental values. First of all, “creating humans” is considered to be the job of the God. People would get punished by overstepping this authority. By telling the stories of “robots overpowering humans”, people are warned not to do something that they are not capable of. Secondly, human’s position as God’s beloved would be threatened by human-like robots. This awareness of exclusion was turned into stories of “humans overpowering robots”. Getting tired of the discourse surrounding images of the “hateful robot” and “poor robot”, Asimov was determined to create a brand new type of robot story. He thought that robots would grow to be extremely powerful. Human would not be able to live in harmony with robots if we don’t take action. Therefore, the Three Laws of Robotics was first introduced in his story of “Runaround” in 1942, which opened “the third way” for robot literature. All of the robots appearing in his fiction are embedded with the Three Laws as a safety feature. 12 Implication: Advanced robotics does not yet exist, but Asimov had already envisioned the potential negative impacts of robots and thus set rules to regulate them for the safety of humanity. Why don’t we set rules for contemporary technologies that are already harming us physically or psychologically?
12
“艾西莫夫的機器人異想世界,” PC OFFICE, August 2004.
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Asimov foresaw that robots might endanger humans if we don’t regulate them, so he devised the Three Laws for robots to address this issue. In the world created by Asimov, the Laws are positioned on the top as a guidance, designers who create robots should carefully follow the Laws for human safety. By doing so, we can reduce our chances of being harmed by robots.
Asimov’s Three Laws
Robots Invented
(Robots Killing)
It would be great if we could have foresight like Asimov to predict the potential negative impacts of a certain kind of thing before it is really invented. Unfortunately, most people are not able to see the long term future. Although we can’t be as foresighted as Asimov, we can take action from now on to intervene current issue. What if there are laws that technologyrelated designers need to obey in order to protect humans from being harmed by contemporary technologies? How would this affect technological outcomes? Will we be able to create an alternative to the current system?
Addictive Technology Invented
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Laws of Addictive Technology
Technology Addiction
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6.0 CONTEXT: SOCIAL MEDIA
There are a lot of technologies that have potential to make people addicted to them. Social media interactions come close to an addiction the most for a lot of people. According to a report from comScore 13, millennials in the US spend nearly one hour every day on social networking mobile apps (mostly on Facebook). An addicted user can even spend about 9 hours a day on social media and check their phones 100 times in a short amount of time 14, resulting not only in wasted time but also poor social relations due to our lack of social skills (texting someone without seeing their face is more comfortable than facing people in the real world) and having no respect to people around you in the physical world (multi-tasking becomes a social norm).
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Martin Beck, “Mobile Millennials Spend Almost An Hour A Day On Facebook,” Marketing Land, last modified September 25, 2015, http://marketingland.com/usmobile-users-still-favor-social-media-over-other-apps-143887. Kelly Wallace, “Teens spend a ‘mind-boggling’ 9 hours a day using media, report says,” CNN, last modified November 03, 2015, http://www.cnn. com/2015/11/03/health/teens-tweens-media-screen-use-report/.
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If we take the design principles of Facebook (listed below) as an example, we can see that these principles are about new or cool features, functions, style, operating speed and user engagement. However, they do not take users’ physical or mental health regarding technology addiction into consideration. Helping people become a healthy user is never in the options. Even though technology addiction has already been happening for a few years, the industries who produce addictive technologies still keep doing things that they know will cause problems and have no desire to change the situation. Facebook Design Principles:
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(1) Universal Our mission is to make the entire world more open, and this means reaching every corner, every person. So our design needs to work for everyone, every culture, every language, every device, every stage of life. This is why we build products that work for 90% of users and cut away features that only work for just a minority, even if we step back in the short term. (2) Human Users return to our site to be surrounded by friends and other people near to them. This is a central promise of our product, that the people you care about are all in one place. This is why our voice and visual style stay in the background, behind people’s voices, people’s faces, and people’s expression. (3) Clean Our visual style is clean and understated, to create a blank canvas on which our users live. A minimal, well-lit space encourages participation and honest transparent communication. Clean is the not the easiest approach to visual style. To the contrary, margins and type scale, washes and color become more important as we reduce the number of styles we rely on.
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“Facebook Design Principles,” Facebook, last modified July 01, 2009, https://www. facebook.com/notes/facebook-design/facebook-designprinciples/118951047792/.
(4) Consistent We invest our time wisely, by embracing patterns, recognizing that our usability is greatly improved when similar parts are expressed in similar ways. Our interactions speak to users with a single voice, building trust. Reduce, reuse, don’t redesign. (5) Useful Our product is more utility than entertainment, meant for repeated daily use, providing value efficiently. This is why our core interactions, the ones users engage daily, are streamlined, purged of unnecessary clicks and wasted space. (6) Fast We value our users time more than our own. We recognize faster experiences are more efficient and feel more effortless. As such, site performance is something our users should never notice. Our site should move as fast as we do. (7) Transparent Users trust us with their identity, their photos, their thoughts and conversation. We reciprocate with the utmost honesty and transparency. We are clear and up front about what’s happening and why.
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A contrast example is Coca Cola, who takes obesity as an issue that needs to be solved, rather than something that they have to hide behind or take advantage of. “We have said publicly that obesity is “the issue of our generation,” and with good reason: obesity exacts a harsh toll on the health of individuals, families and even whole communities, and it will take time, education and ongoing global support – from all of us – to address. Our very human response to this very real problem is: We care. And we want to help. That’s why we have been voluntarily stating calorie counts on the front of our products since 2009. It’s why we impose our own restrictions on advertising to children. And it’s why we offer more than 800 low and no-calorie products around the world, including 180 in the United States.” 16 As a leading beverage company, they believe that they have responsibility to address the issue of obesity and help people to make a healthier choice. Customers can control themselves to not drink sweetened beverage (even though it’s hard), but it will be more effective when a company actively takes action to stop customers from ingesting sugar. Can social media companies be responsible in this way?
16
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“Public Policy Engagement,” Coca-Cola, http://www.coca-colacompany.com/ investors/public-policy-engagement/.
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7.0 DESIGN PROCESS
7.1 Policy Making
7.2 UX Redesigning
7.3 Business Model Rebuilding
Industry Transforming
Humanness Rebuilding
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7.1 POLICY: LAWS
TIME: Technology may not induce humanity to use it endlessly and unconsciously. SOCIAL: Technology may not harm humanity’s relationships in/outside of cyberspace. INFORMATION: Technology may not cause humanity to face information overload. / 35
In order to change the current system of designing technology products, the Laws are created as a starting point to see how the world could change if these rules are introduced into the development process. The three laws listed above are created based on the logic of Asimov’s three laws and the research of diseases of civilization resulted from social media addiction: TIME: Wasting time is the biggest problem that addicted users are facing. Many people foster a serious problem of procrastination by constantly checking up their social media. Some people even stay up late just to check social media even they want to go to sleep initially. The amount of time that we spend on social media is unreasonable. People growing up with this may never know another way. SOCIAL: “We’re designing technologies that will give us the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship. We turn to technology to help us feel connected in ways we can comfortably control.” 17 Technology is changing the way we interact with others, but the result is not always good. We have seen so many people care more about the interactions in cyberspace more than with the people around them physically. INFORMATION: Technology is changing our brains. A huge amount of information online can not only cause our brains to feel excited but also cause us to experience difficultly in absorbing the information. We enjoy being immersed in the ocean named Information, reading tens of thousands of posts from people around the world, but have no idea if we are really reading them with our heart. The number of objects an average human can hold in working memory is limited. Too much information makes each individual piece of information less meaningful.
17
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Sherry Turkle, “Connected, but alone?” TED, February 2012, https://www.ted.com/talks/sherry_turkle_alone_together?language=en
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7.2 DESIGN: UXs
Partnerships: software engineer at Facebook, UI/UX designer. The Laws are introduced to the designers to challenge the design criteria that they are currently using in order to encourage them to design technology products that “care about human beings”. The outcomes are listed below with descriptions of how designers came up with the ideas and how testers feel about the “new features”. / 39
7.2.1 TIME
CONCEPT: The display of the device would be changing according to the time to imitate how people see things in the real world with natural light. It would be bright but a little bit vague in the early morning, clear at noon, dusk in the afternoon, and dark in the night. In the midnight, users will barely see anything. According to the research, one of the reasons why people are addicted to technology and can’t help using it is because they lose the sense of time. This UX is a time reminder that makes people aware of the time.
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7:00 AM 2:00 PM
7:00 PM
11:00 PM
PROTOTYPE: Use papers with different levels of transparency and ask testers to change them accordingly. USER FEEDBACKS: Basically, most addicted users know that they have the problem of wasting too much time on checking social media. They also want to stop, but they just can’t. This UX is an external force that moderately makes users conscious of the time. People said that they became more efficient when they noticed that the screen would get darker. When they saw that the screen was too dark to see anything at midnight, they just wanted to put down the phone and go to bed. This is something that they would never do before.
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7.2.2 TIME
CONCEPT: This UX is a scrolling bar that would change the level of difficulty of scrolling down. In the first 10 minutes, users can scroll down the page normally; after 10 minutes, it would be slightly difficult to scroll down; and after 20 minutes, it would be very difficult to scroll down.
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PROTOTYPE: Left top: A coding simulation that demonstrates to scroll down with a drag force. Right bottom: A physical simulation, which is a rubber band, for people to try this UX physically when they were checking social media on their phones. USER FEEDBACKS: Compared to UX 7.2.1, this idea is more compelling because it really stops people from using it. Also, this is exactly what addicted users need. As mentioned in 7.2.1, addicted users also want to stop, but they just can’t. Therefore, a built-in reminder for reminding them to work on other things and come back later is powerful and necessary for them.
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7.2.3 SOCIAL
CONCEPT: The device would detect whether the owner is having a conversation with others or not; if so, it would be silent. There would be no ringing, no notifications, and people would not even be able to access it. This UX aims to bring respect to human’s interaction in the real world.
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Prototype: We asked the testers to turn off all the notifications except for Messages. Then they just did whatever they were supposed to do and just viewed us as invisible. We imitated this idea by chatting with them constantly via message while they were alone, and stop sending message while they were having conversation with others to let them experience this contrast and how it feels like to have a device that would keep silent according to the situation. USER FEEDBACKS: People had neutral opinions about this idea. They like their technology devices to be smart enough to know what they need and what they don’t need, but they also don’t want to miss important information, especially missing calls. However, in the context of social media, it works because basically there won’t be anything urgent from social media. In addition, it’s important to pay full attention to the people that we are talking with. On the other hand, due to this experiment, people start to reflect on whether we need to be so multi-tasking or not? Is it a right social norm that people are expected to give a rapid response? Are we leaving enough time to take our time on the things or people that are more important?
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7.2.4 INFORMATION
CONCEPT: This UX provides users with only the new information. “New” is compared to the information that users saw last time. One of the behaviors of addicted users is that they can’t help checking their social media every five minutes. However, there might be only 2 new newsfeed items produced during this five minutes. As addicted users, they won’t just check these two posts. They will keep scrolling down unconsciously to see the posts that they have already seen before for several times. This UX idea investigates the efficiency of digesting information by providing only the latest posts. If there’s no post produced during this five minutes, users will see only a blank page.
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2 new posts
0 new post
PROTOTYPE: Digital prototype (built by Pixate) USER FEEDBACKS: People found it effective because their brains can prepare themselves to absorb a limited amount of information. For example, when people saw that there were 10 newsfeed items, and they knew that they could see nothing but these 10 posts, then they would focus more on these 10 things. It also saves their time because there’s no way for them to review old information.
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7.2.5 INFORMATION
CONCEPT: This UX aims to keep users on a post for a little bit longer. Instead of having tons of information on an endless page and people just quickly skimming through them, this UX has only one post per page. In order to see the next one, users have to swipe through the pattern below.
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swipe through
PROTOTYPE: Digital prototype (built by Pixate) USER FEEDBACKS: At the beginning, people still wanted to quickly skip through things just like how they check their social media right now, but something interesting happened during prototyping. Because it takes a little bit of efforts to jump into the next page, they had time to catch some keywords when they were swiping through the pattern. People suddenly changed their mind while they were doing this gesture. We noticed that some people started to slow down after quickly swiping through the half of the pattern and to really digest the current post.
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7.3 BUSINESS: BUSINESS MODELS
Partnerships: marketing strategist, data analyst In order to support the idea of designing humane technology products, business also plays a crucial role in the system. Although most humane design ideas demonstrated in chapter 7.2 seem to conflict with the profit of social media companies (this concern was addressed by the designers at the end of the ideation with the Three Laws), we should look at things from different angles. / 51
“Businesspeople need to become designers. Businesspeople look at the past, but designers look at the future and thus create something new and fantastic.” 18 Businesspeople should be able to think in reverse. One of the types of reverse thinking is turning defects into something that we can take advantage of. The goal is not overcoming the defects, but considering them as advantages in order to find out a different solution. For instance, the longer the time that users spend on social media, the more profit a social media company will gain - this is how people usually think. However, we should think differently when we prioritize humanness over profit: How might we maximize profit within a limited amount of time? The business models proposed in this chapter were prototyped with a data analyst and a marketing strategist to prove the feasibility.
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Roger Martin, “Businesspeople Need to Become Designers,” Design Does Matter video series.
7.3.1 TIME The UX ideas about time seem to conflict with the profit of social media companies. Basically, making people stay on their products for as long as possible is the barometer of success for them. However, in order to support the humane UX ideas, a different way of thinking is needed. Usually, there’s a mental limitation for a person using a product because people will get tired after a certain period of time. The longer people use it, the less information they can absorb. What’s worse is that an addicted user may stay up late for it and and this may influence the time and psychological state of using this product in the next day. This means the marginal utility will not only be low, but also negative. Therefore, limiting the time of using it can not only help users stay healthy but also increase the revenue earned from each person per unit of time because this amount of time will be the most efficient one. In addition, when people start to use social media addictively and unconsciously, what they view and click are not what they are really interested in. Therefore, by limiting the time, a company can have a more accurate understanding of users and thus can provide users the information that they are really interested in, which means the advertisements will be more effective. marginal utility
marginal utility
design 7.2.1 design 7.2.2
time NOW
time FUTURE
• The objective of new business model: Maintain the marginal utility at a high level to maximize profit in a certain amount of time. / 53
7.3.2 SOCIAL Regarding the UX ideas based on social law, the profit for a company is that by guiding people in using the product appropriately, a company can win back people who used to use the product or gain people who hesitate to use it. In the context of social media, this means guiding people to use social media as tools to build good relationships with friends who are far away rather than harming relationships with friends close by because of their addictive behavior, a company can win back the hearts of people who no longer use social media today because it took away from their relationships with the people around them in the physical world. users addiction emerge
social media invented
year
• The objective of new business model: Build a good company image to attract more customers.
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7.3.3 INFORMATION If we view social media from an economic standpoint, a post is like a good or service, sharing is like trade or distribution, and clicks and views are like purchasing or consuming posts. Currently, social media all have this problem: supply is greater than demand, which means there is too much information, and people can’t really absorb it all. When supply is greater than demand, the price of products plummet. 19 For advertisers (also social media companies), this means advertisements are not effective because most of them are ignored. For general users, this means each post becomes meaningless to them. The solution is that we should focus on addressing the consumption of contents rather than the production of contents. And this solution echoes the UX ideas numbered 7.1.4 and 7.1.5.
P P: Price
D
consumption of content
S
production of content
Q: Quantity
information on social media now
D: Demand
OBJECTIVE
S: Supply
the amount of information that people can absorb on average
Q
• The objective of new business model: Increase the substantial consumption of contents to reset the equilibrium.
19
Mike Vosters, “Social Media Economics: The Science for Social Success,” ReadWrite, last modified February 15, 2011, http://readwrite.com/2011/02/15/ social_media_economics_the_science_for_social_success/
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8.0 SYSTEM: SYSTEM MAP
In order to make the idea replicable (the idea of creating humane technology products), mapping out the system is needed. The system maps showed on the next pages present the needed elements for forming a complete system, including knowledge areas, actions and expected outcomes for different phases. Technology companies are encouraged to use it as a thought-andaction-based toolkit to transform development process.
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9.0 CONCLUSION
Everything has two sides. Technology addiction can be approached from two different perspectives: 1) the user, and 2) the industry. Most current products that aim to solve this problem approach it from the user’s side as assistive devices to help users changing their addictive behaviors. This is one way to deal with the problem: keep the design of technology products as-is, and then create other objects to help people cultivating healthy behavior like how we help smokers curbing their addiction through the use of electronic cigarettes. In this project, I propose another way of coping with this issue, which is from the industry. If designers at a technology company can take addiction into consideration while they are developing products to foster healthy users, there will be less addicted users since the behavior will no longer be built into the system. It is important for the industry to care about users and to take action to lead this change. This project demonstrates how this humane idea can happen by bringing different stakeholders into the conversation to form a complete system that supports the goal of creating technology products that care about human beings. / 65
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10.0 FUTURE SCENARIO
X Invented
Laws of X
Negative Impacts of X
Social media is the context of this project. To be more specific, Facebook is used as an example to demonstrate how the system map illustrated in chapter 8.0 can be used in this project. Other technology companies are encouraged to implement this framework into the development process of their products. It’s also promising to see this system thinking being used as a reference when coping with other types of addiction. In being introduced to this system, people are expected to be aware of technologies that are harming our live physically or psychologically, and to take action before things escape our control. By doing so, we may be able to achieve an alternative future without deeply suffering from the negative impacts emerging in our current future. / 67
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11.0 APPENDIXES
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PROTOTYPE I Testers: Students from Design Science Program at Chiba University Materials: non-technological object cards, technological object cards, worksheets Method: 1. Pick one of the non-technological object cards, and list 10 positive things of that object. (*positive things: something that makes you feel like a human) 2. Pick one technological object card, and list 10 negative aspects of that object. 3. Choose one positive thing and one negative thing from the lists. 4. Use the positive feature to change that negative feature and imagine how that technology would be in the future.
non-technology cards
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worksheet 1
technology cards
worksheet 2
worksheet 3
Lessons learned: Traditional / non-technological objects can successfully inspire designers to think about something in the past, which are usually more humane. Today, the aspects that make us human are being increasingly replaced by technology. Sometimes it feels like we are serving technology instead of having it serve us. However, when we are using non-technological objects, we usually are the subjects that actively use them. Therefore, by designing with this “technology nostalgia�, designers can contribute to making something more humane. Prototype I is an experiment for testing how we, as designers, can bring humanness into contemporary technology products, but it does not deal with the main issue of technology addiction. The next prototype tried to approach the issue with the same concept of referring to traditional / non-technological objects.
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outcomes of prototype I
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outcomes of prototype I
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outcomes of prototype I
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PROTOTYPE II Redesign prototype I in order to respond to the issue of technology addiction. Testers: software engineer at Facebook, UI/UX designer Method: The idea of traditional values of non-technological objects is still kept in prototype II. In addition, I identify the reasons why people are addicted to technology (using social media as the context), and give each reason a contrast. These contrasts are something that could help people to achieve a better quality of being a human. For example: 1. Endless v.s. finished Endless is “problem”, finished is “humanness”. When people are using social media, there’s no goal of using them. There’s no goal, so there’s not end, and the result is that people just keep scrolling down unconsciously. On the other hand, when we are using a hammer, even when we keep repeating the same gesture (just like we keep scrolling the screen), we know when we should stop because there’s a task (driving nails) that we need to complete. 2. Uncertainty v.s. Certainty Technology throughout human history has had one purpose: to reduce uncertainty, which was a great thing when uncertainty in our lives was life-threatening. However, today we have so much food, so much energy, so much of everything, but too little uncertainty. Today, people are afraid of making eye contact with others so they keep scrolling away on their phones, people are afraid of buying a product without full knowledge, people are afraid of anything that they are not sure of. Technologists create a hyper-sensitive society where people think the real world is too uncertain so they would rather stay in the virtual world where the social pressure is lower and where we can control everything. Implication: a certain amount of uncertainty is a part of natural humanness.
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3. Self v.s. itself Self: human’s self. Itself: technology’s self. As humans, we are increasingly replaced by technology’s self. That’s why some people claim that they can’t live without their phones, Internet, or social media. They feel as though they are dying if they are living without them. We are no longer just ourselves anymore. Each category have several metaphors, which are nontechnological and evocative for designers to analyze and deconstruct. Designers use the elements from this analysis as references to design the technology products. The idea is that designers design the future with proven qualities of the past and translate these existing values into a contemporary form.
1
4
2
5
3
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1.2.3. metaphor cards 4. analyze worksheet 5. design worksheet
When this method could be used: This method could be used when designers are designing the UX (user journey), which is right after the functional map design, and before UI design during the whole app developing process. It’s the best timing to twist the way that designers design the way we use products.
outcomes of prototype II
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Lesson learned: 1. I define the outcome of this method as “Micro-UX”. It’s not a method for creating a whole new application, but a method for changing a little part of the user experience (e.g. changing the way of scrolling). Each metaphor may inspire designers to come up with several different, humane UX ideas. 2. The designers think that non-technological things really can inspire them to think of something more humane. By analyzing non-technological metaphors, they can have ways to track back to the most primitive elements existed in those things that arouse the memory of being a natural human, and then translate those elements into a contemporary form. It’s not copying the historical element, but prompting designers to recall the humanness deep in their heart. 3. They think there’s a lack of clearer instruction of how to use this method. Without my explanation, they wouldn’t know how to use it. Their suggestion is to think about how board game is designed. A board game contains a set of rules, a deck of card, a big sheet of map...etc. My methodology can also be designed like that. 4. They suggest me to come up with more contrasts (technology problem v.s. natural humanness) in order to see if there’s a better one. Finished/endless is clear, certainty/uncertainty is fine, too, but self/itself is hard for them. This means I need to find out more reasons why people are addicted. 5. There’s one UX idea, which is generated from the metaphor of checklist. Checklist is categorized to finished/endless, but the idea they came up with is related to uncertainty/certainty - is it necessary to categorize metaphors? 6) Profit v.s. humanness. One of the goals of social media is to make people stay on them for as long as possible so that people can see more advertisements. Therefore, I need to either solve it or have a good argument for explaining why I think humanness is important even it sometimes conflicts with profit. / 78
How prototype I & prototype II inform the final thesis: When my partners (both designers) mentioned the profit issue for the first time, I didn’t take it seriously. I just focused on the methodology that I would like to develop for designers to use because I believed that doing something morally and inherently good would be more important than anything else. However, today’s world is not composed of a single element. If we want to tackle a complex issue such as technology addiction, we need to include different people from various fields in the conversation. This means I can’t just design a toolkit and hope that designers at a technology company will easily change the way they are designing now and start to use my methodology without taking a range of different positions and points of view into consideration. As a result, I decided to take on the challenge of changing the patterns embedded in technology design from a systematic point of view in order to make this thesis more feasible.
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12.0 BIBLIOGRAPHY
• Turkle, Sherry. “Can You Hear Me Now?” Forbes. Last modified April 21, 2007. http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2007/0507/176.html. • Lee, Singyin. “5 Ways ‘Tech Addiction’ Is Changing Human Behaviour.” HONGKIAT. http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/techaddiction/. • Mensvoort, Koert van. “Innovative Nastalgia.” Dutch Design. nai010 publishers, 2013. • Hreha, Jason. “Applied Psychology in Silicon Valley.” Medium. Last modified November 29, 2013. https://medium.com/@jhreha/ applied-psychology-in-silicon-valley-81d001f0e172#.6teghhpmc. • Kay, Alan. Hong Kong press conference in the late 1980s. • Vandehey, Jeremy. “This is your brain on mobile.” Medium. Last modified April 10, 2014. https://medium.com/@jgvandehey/this-isyour-brain-on-mobile-15308056cfae#.toc39y5ci. • Alben, Lauralee. “At the heart of Interactive Design.” Design Management Journal 8, no.3 (1997): 26. DOI: 10.1111/j.19487169.1997.tb00166.x. • Blokket. Designed by Chelsea Briganti, Ingrid Zweifel, and Leigh Ann Tucker (The Way We See The World). https://www.prote. in/feed/blokket. • NoPhone. Designed by Ben Langeveld, Ingmar Larsen, Mariana Oliveira, Alanna Watson and Van Gould. http://www. larsenlangeveld.com/nophone/. / 81
• Isaac, Asimov. “Runaround.” I, Robot. 1942. • “艾西莫夫的機器人異想世界.” PC OFFICE. August 2014. • Beck, Martin. “Mobile Millennials Spend Almost An Hour A Day On Facebook.” Marketing Land. Last modified September 25, 2015. http://marketingland.com/us-mobile-users-still-favor-socialmedia-over-other-apps-143887. • Wallace, Kelly. “Teens spend a ‘mind-boggling’ 9 hours a day using media, report says.” CNN. Last modified November 03, 2015. http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/03/health/teens-tweens-media-screenuse-report/. • “Facebook Design Principles.” Facebook. Last modified July 01, 2009. https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-design/facebookdesign-principles/118951047792/. • “Public Policy Engagement.” Coca-Cola. http://www.cocacolacompany.com/investors/public-policy-engagement/. • Turkle, Sherry. “Connected, but alone?” TED. February 2012. https://www.ted.com/talks/sherry_turkle_alone_ together?language=en. • Martin, Roger. “Businesspeople Need to Become Designers.” Design Does Matter video series. • Vosters, Mike. “Social Media Economics: The Science for Social Success”. ReadWrite. Last modified February 15, 2011. http:// readwrite.com/2011/02/15/social_media_economics_the_science_for_ social_success/.
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13.0 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would first like to express my gratitude to my principal advisor Elliott P. Montgomery for his continuous support of my thesis, for his patience, encouragement, motivation, enthusiasm, and immense knowledge. I could not have imagined having a better advisor and mentor for my MFA study. In addition, I would like to thank my primary partner Kuanyu Tseng, software engineer at Facebook, who took time out of his busy schedule to ideate and prototype with me, and to provide me with expertise that widened my view throughout this project. I thank other partners and my friends who directly or indirectly have lent their hands in this design process. My sincere thank also goes to the faculties and peers in MFA Transdisciplinary Design, especially Clive Dilnot, Eduardo Staszowski, Patricia Beirne, and Elliott’s cohort. Last but not least, I would like to thank my families. Without them, I would even have no chance to start this venture. / 85
TECHNOLOGY REENVISIONG & HUMANNESS REBUILDING