Over the past decades, the design community has made a lot of effort to create user-friendly products.
However, nowadays, rapidly growth of powerful products carrying abundant functions not only distant people interactions but also made further away from its goal – to avoid hard-to-use products and confusing consumers.
In order todiminish this gradually increasing distance between human and product, many experts try other ways to achieve the goal besides usability consideration, in hope that people would appreciate and be interested in the products more.
Here is a typical scenario: One day, we walk into McDonalds, after standing in front of the counter, staring around menu on the wall for a while, we finally order a pack of French fries. The clerk takes our money and takes out the French fries, finally, he drops it on the ground at our feet, to let us bend down and pick it up…
We may hardly see this embarrass situation happened actually, but it does truly happen when we buy something from a vending machine, offense has been made. Somehow people have come to accept a standard of respect in human-machine interaction which is very different from that in human-human interaction (Overbeeke et al., 1999). Though it seems that we won’t expect such respect form a machine, while having no trouble in use, what if it can be improved? What if it can treat us in a much “respectful manner”?
When a product is aesthetically pleasing and plays to our ideas about ourselves and society, we experience it positively (Donald Norman, 2004).
It is wildly known that people don’t just use a product, mostly they become emotionally involved with it.
So products come in many kinds of new features beyond functions, and products with pleasing look did enrich
our experiences. Besides using fancy or pleasing appearance to allure the users, some designers hope their product can have certain human’s charming attributes. Take the use of “Anthropomorphism” in design of Volkswagen’s new beetle (figure 1.1), which has a warm and charming smile on its hood, shows a much friendly temptation, and distinguishes from others.
Apple presented Imac with a neck, a head and a hemisphere
body in the early 2000s. They declared that personal computer, which was no longer a powerful machine, had become a decent companion in our work or life. On the other hand, Apple set a cute look, vivid characteristic and a charming smile to its CD-ROM tray door for Imac to be closer and more intimate with people. We could even see Imac acting and responding to a passenger through a shopping window as a naughty kid in its own TV commercial (figure 1.2). Having such interesting characteristic like human “personality”
in that commercial can make a very impressive image to consumers.
In addition, what if product can really respond people as they have personality? and not only by differing from a glance at charming appearances, but also affecting people’s emotion or mood via aggressive and active interaction.
According to a highly development in computer science, both in hardware and software nowadays, the advance in technology enables computers to recognize people, express themselves and respond to people’s emotion and status. Products do have chances to participate in context of people’s living positively and are capable of responding human in the near future which may be impossible yesterday. Further more, some robots have already integrated into our daily lives in the present times. These interaction topics between human and products will be much more than task-oriented, more aggressive and more emotional beyond form,
Figure 1.1 Volkswagen New Beetle, http://www.vw.com
Figure 1.2 Imac TV commercial, http://www.apple.com
taken to be social involvement. The design issue will no longer be concentrated only on concerns of usability and ergonomics, but may have fun.
Since these technologies grow so fast, and even now a gadget can have several computing abilities within, how they should behave and interact properly with people still remain much unknown and become an emerging issue. Moreover, what kind of system should be made, which context should we consider, where they should be placed and what can they do for us are also worth discussing.
Today, designers should create experience, rather than a product. It should provide users to use their senses to enjoy the whole context experience, and whole activity is for user to immerge into the use for a period and get pleasure in the experience. Some may call it an “Aesthetics of Interaction”. In figure 1.3, we can see that B&O has designed their media player with a special manifestation of the opening door, and it may be interpreted as a smile or other meanings for inviting people to use it
Figure 1.3 BeoCenter 2, B&O An example for product motion delivering psychological meaning, http://www.bang-olufsen.com/web2/
Fogg, a director of persuasive technology lab at Stanford University, points out that designers can change what people think and do through interactive design presented by computer system or computing equipment (Fogg, 2002). The application of design so-called “computers as social actors” is one of the primary design strategies. From a user friendly design point of view, interfaces possessing social attributes may alleviate the anxiety of people while using a computer. By providing intimate and organic feeling, social presence on interface is capable of influencing and encouraging people. In our study, we also approach the problems on product with the aspect as a goal.