Mary Lou Maher
After hearing the humorous story of a child throwing a
Siftable across the room in an effort to get the piece of technology to respond
I had to think to myself, what is the best toy in the world?
I came up with two answers, a rock and the beloved cardboard
box. Between the two, there are no affordances for interaction, and really no
place for them in a child’s toy box. Yet much of a childhood is wasted playing
with these two mundane everyday objects. Neither of them react, or offer an
kind of response when we interact with them, but the quickly turn into pets and
rocket ships capable of providing hours of entertainment. The greatest joy of a
big new toy was jumping in the box and throwing packing peanuts across the room
never to be found again.
And that’s where I found myself sitting in the InDe Lab.
Surrounded by a touchable table, a remote control ball, and
plastic touch screen boxes. While I gave them some affordances as to their mode
of interaction they really just looked like toys. It came in stark contrast to
the way that I usually interact with technology. In most situations I want or
need it to do something. Yet, without a goal in mind all I could think to do
with these things was play. I think this is a crucial difference. Had I approached
these technologies with some kind of use in mind I would have quickly gotten
frustrated with minor interface issues or lag, but instead I found myself
driving a gyroscopic ball down the hallway until it got stuck under a bench.
In hindsight I see why interactive design principles are
needed, its not because some gestures are inherently better or worse than
others, but it comes out of the need to do something with the technology not
just play with it. Kids don’t get frustrated when a gesture interface isn’t
perfect because they don’t need it to be, they are just playing and
discovering. But when rock needs to become a castle there are many design
principles and guidelines in place to ensure that the stone laying process
works.
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