Artifact Reviews
(ongoing)
Lyssna: A Design Fiction to Reframe Food Waste by Doenja Oogjes
Lyssna is a speculative project created by designer Doenja Oogjes as a way of reframing our relationship with the food in our homes. Lyssna is described as a sort of “hearing aid” for your refrigerator, allowing you to relate to the food inside auditorily. Each food item has its own unique sound, communicating (albeit in a way that’s not entirely clear from the documentation) to the listener its flavor profile and relative freshness. In general terms, a fridge full of food waiting to be eaten would relay a symphony of sound, encouraging and hopefully inspiring the user to make use of it.
This project is of particular interest to my own work as it exists at the intersection of speculative design and food waste mitigation, and is deployed within the home (much of the discourse surrounding food waste occupies a more conceptual plane rather than being grounded in-situ.) It also takes a decidely positive tact, positioning the feedback gathered from the food as a whimsical gain, rather than exposing potential loss.
The Indoor Weather Stations by Gaver et al.
As a set, the objects are intended to pique curiosity and encourage discovery within the home environment by leveraging elements of ludic design. The set includes the following:
- Temperature Tape — a 2.5m tape designed to reveal temperature gradients across a span using thermo chromatic ink
- Light Collector — a small light sensor that measures and displays the light collected in a location over the course of 2 hours
- Wind Tunnel — represents the air currents detected in the home utilizing a fan and tiny forest of film trees
According to the designers, “ a ludic approach to domestic technology undermines assumptions about ‘smart’ appliances for the efficient and productive home and presents instead curious systems for exploration and reflection about domestic space.” One of the most intriguing aspects of these devices is the concerted effort to create transparency in the dynamic between user and sensor as a means of mitigating “the suspicion and feelings of intrusion which such systems have given rise to in the past.” The researchers also found that engagement with the devices quickly faded for many participants, as they found the sensors simply didn’t provide enough novel feedback; as one respondent pointed out, the stations recorded phenomena that were already available to a home’s occupant, they simply presented the data more concretely.
Data Domestication by Iohanna Nicenboim
Iohanna Nicenboim’s Data Domestication aims to explore one potential strategy for fostering more “human” interactions in a world where environmental sensors are commonplace in the residential setting. She states that “humans are not good at remembering numbers, but rather very good at interpreting vital signs,” and it’s this observation that drove her to develop a series of pet-like devices that could report environmental information to their users in “meaningful” ways. Unlike environmental sensors on the market today, Nicenboim’s “Air-Quality Birdcage” is imbued with a sort of artificial life-force, and as such, thrives under favorable conditions and “dies” when conditions exceed a particular limit.
This project serves as an inspiring precedent for design fictions that challenge the existing user-device paradigm of IoT and smart objects, particularly within the space of eco-feedback. As seen in Gaver’s study of the Indoor Weather Stations, each of Nicenboim’s conceptual devices has an appearance of autonomy, creating a dynamic of care and cohabitation between user and object. This relationship transcends the typical exchange of information occuring in today’s “smart” environments, perhaps fostering greater emotional attachment and deeper user engagement.
BuggyAir by Superflux
BuggyAir was developed as a network of mobile air-quality sensors to be deployed on strollers so that as parents went out for walks with their children, they could monitor the quality of the air they were exposed to. As the studio noted in their write-up for the project, “we believe that true power of IoT technology lies in the hands of people and communities who decide to use this technology to gain empirical understanding about issues that matter most.”
This venture, as noted in several other precedents reviewed, aims to challenge the culture surrounding IoT objects, in this case by democratizing the process of gathering and analyzing environmental data. Instead of acting as passive objects intended for the dissemination of centrally controlled information, each kit has its own unique personality and empowers its user to sense and record otherwise unseen data.
Mitigation of Shock by Superflux
In 2017, design studio Superflux created Mitigation of Shock, an exhibition designed to situate viewers in a London flat in the year 2050 in order to relate the impacts of climate change directly to the individual. The reconstructed home was populated with omens of a food-insecure reality, from cookbooks instructing readers on food prep in times of scarcity (“Pets as Protein”) to micro-laboratory setups for in-home agriculture, driving home the profound shift that could (and likely would) occur in our everyday lives should global warming continue at its current rate. The hope was that by prompting visitors to confront a harsh impending reality, the installation might make clearer the causal relationship between current behavior and future states, therefore “mitigating the shock” of this bleak eventuality and sparking meaningful conversation about preventative action.
The general approach of inciting conversation provides a valuable case study into the potential of futuring in the problem space of environmental action and food security. Elements of this strategy — making clear and relatable an extrapolated future condition — may prove useful in surfacing the potential consequences of current behaviors. One question, however, that remains critical for exploration in my own work is the productive potential that these feelings of discomfort have for sparking reflection.
Energy AWARE Clock by the Interactive Institute
The study of eco-feedback is somewhat saturated with designs meant to curb energy consumption, but the Energy AWARE Clock is one of the best examples of an abstract, yet intuitive representation. The design draws on a familiar paradigm — the clock face — as a display that most homeowners are already accustomed to referencing for information. Mimicking each of a clock’s hands, three overlapping starbursts depict energy usage by the hour, minute, and second, with the largest spikes occurring when energy usage is at its highest. Its house-shaped enclosure reinforces the underlying notion that the device is depicting energy used within the home (rather than some larger, more abstract universal concept like time.)
The techniques employed in this design, including the strategy of leveraging a familiar clock interface, provide inspiration and reference for my own explorations. By tapping into established behavioral patterns, the designers have lessened their users’ cognitive load, requiring less explicit attention and increasing the likelihood that this new display will integrate seamlessly with their day-to-day lives.
Uninvited Guests by Superflux
Superflux’s Uninvited Guests presents a speculative window onto a future in which smart objects act as proxies for those looking to provide “remote care” to the elderly. The project video centers around the day-to-day experience of a man living alone and receiving “remote care” from his children. However, the objects gifted to the main character are viewed less as welcome aides and more as “uninvited guests.” As the narrative unfolds, we see the man adapting to the various objects’ repeated provocations, finding ways to “outsmart” the technology and return to his preferred routine unencumbered.
The artifacts themselves appear as abstract representations — flourescent symbols of tech to come — in an effort to focus the viewer’s attention on the quality of the interaction between device and user. Physical clues in the environment, including birthday cards from children, lend authenticity to the scene and allow viewers to suspend their disbelief to fully engage with the scenario.
What are the messy, whimsical, unintended human behaviours that might collide with the one-size-fits-all ‘care’ that many smart devices are designed to deliver?
Apple Watch
Apple’s fitness tracking app for the Apple Watch takes an abstract approach to data representation, leveraging the Gestalt principle of closure to encourage users to “close [their] rings.” The three rings each represent a user’s progress towards a goal in Standing (blue), Exercising (green), and Moving (red), though at a glance, the association between the colors and the activity levels they represent are not immediately apparent. However, larger representations of the rings do include small arrows in the 12 o’clock position to act as reminders of each’s meaning. (Without any prior knowledge, these would be insufficient in communicating their purpose, but once a user is generally familiar with the metrics being tracked, the arrows are intuitive enough to jog their memory.)
Challenges and achievements act as additional motivators, appealing to the goal-oriented among us. Challenges are also tailored to the individual, which means that the application transcends simple data display and instead provides actionable insights. Achievements are positioned as fun and whimsical milestones, rewarding positive behavior with colorful badges so that a user can “fill [their] digital trophy case” and commemorate progress made.
Further, the app’s sharing functionality elevates the user experience from a solely individual activity to a social one, incorporating the power of community encouragement and a little “healthy” competition.
FitBit
The fitbit flex 2 nudges users to move and provides basic phone notifications, leveraging only haptic feedback and a series of blinking LEDs. However, without a bit of experience or product onboarding, these signals would be difficult to decode. A single pink light with two flashing white ones indicate that it’s time to move, but nothing about this representation is immediately intuitive. Activity metrics are tracked and represented in fairly traditional ways (bar graphs and charts) and require the user to seek them out through the accompanying fitbit app. Similar to the Apple Watch functionality, the app also allows users to connect with friends and family by challenging them leveraging social dynamics to motivate activity.
The fitbit flex offers a case study in data minimalism, prompting users without the use of a display or explicit sensory cues. In that respect, it illustrates one end of spectrum in terms of representational abstraction, conveying information in a way that’s unobtrusive and requires minimal user attention, therefore lessening the effects of notification fatigue and increasing its potential longevity in a user’s daily routine.
