Form, Function and Culture

Emotion Makes Form More Functional.

There is an overwhelming push for utility in software. Designers and developers focus on the function of technology to drive the success of their software. But what is the utility of love? What is the functionality of your best friend? The idea that form follows function is just the tip of the iceberg and we can do much better.

People don’t care about new features. They care about improving the established qualities of their lives. Software has replaced past ways of doing things through efficiency. “Users” can never go back to the old way of doing things because it is no longer an option. The tragedy of this adoption is that we have forgotten the deep cultural moments of the past. Designers and developers have a great opportunity to resurrect and re-purpose these dormant emotional moments through software.

Software is replacing all elements of our culture. Only a half-decade ago people predominantly consumed news through a physical paper. The newspaper was a slow medium of communication. Within the voids people placed faith, built rituals, and built connections. The newspaper itself was a cultural artifact. From receiving it from a postman, to recycling the paper after the news was read, there was an abundance of cultural moments.

You don’t have to wait for the Sunday paper anymore. Now news is an endless stream of media blips presented on screen. The cultural moments between the news are lost. Even though computers, software, websites, and applications are cultural artifacts, they usually lack the values that the old way of doing things once had.

Humans are adaptable and they crave meaning. Designers and developers need to look at the cultural moments that have been disrupted for clues on how to re-purpose them in the modern age. This does not mean we need to skeuomorph interfaces to mimic its past artifact. It means we must resurrect and remold the dormant emotions that once inhabited the physical world.

People have emotional connections with the artifacts of their lives. Efficiency has reached its resolution and emotion brings new meaning to functionality. There is a lot of room to create software that functions well because it provides a place for cultural moments to cultivate.