Smarttax3

Defining smart productsDefining smart products

Derek NicollDerek Nicoll

Why define ‘smart’, ‘intelligent’ or ‘information intensive’ products

Definitions serve as conceptual apparatus whereby we can develop a shared sensibility about a phenomena, event, or object

Lack of a shared definition means that different people, institutions, agencies etc. have different perceptions, expectations and anticipations regarding the same thing

Lack of shared definitions can lead to interesting avenues of innovation: example: video formats

But lack of shared definition can lead to incompatibilities, competition or even misconceptions

There is yet no fixed, universal definition of smart technology

Those products addressing a function, not intrinsically information oriented in nature, exhibiting dynamic, real time

interaction with users, and making use of considerable information processing or

manipulation. (Fleck, Molina and Nicoll, 1997)

Some key technologies :Sensors, transducers and associated signal processing methods

Self-learning adaptive systems and neural networks: Chips

Mechanotronics, e.g. robotics

Alternative input-output devices, e.g. bio-electric interfaces, tactile displays, gesture recognition

Efficient low volume manufacturing technologies

Key ApplicationsManufacturing

Military

Retail

Logistics

Homes and lifestyles

But why smart products?Perennial demand to make tasks easier, more time efficient, simpler, frictionless, cost-effective, comfortable - all human perceptions of use - we all want life to be less arduous, more delightful: continuing the tradition of domestic labour-saving devices

An attempt to account for obvious deficiencies in current provisions or human capabilities (i.e. handicaps, lack of expertise)

PR opportunities (smart products make good news print)

Changes in the consumer/market landscape, cultural trends, changing demographics etc.

Should smart products involve more than technological innovation?

Are technologists are running out of ‘more obvious’ targets? In an age of ‘user-focused design and ‘customer-led’ marketing smart products do appear unabashedly technology driven.

– the search for new applications for digital technology– desire to exploit advances in materials science

What distinguishes smart products? They are more than technological and design innovation The most distinguishing aspect of smart products is an

objective to seamlessly meet task and human requirements: They should not be ‘in your face’

To do this suggests a design sensitivity matching technical potentials to both explicit and implicit user needs and requirements

We are speaking here of a need then for designers to have at hand significantly richer knowledge of the contingencies of use and usage than has previously been demanded by design products

The human element of machine-human interaction?

The circumstances motivating and shaping particular instances of use

The users perception of ease of use (explicit) or assistance to perform a task (implicit) - usability

The circumstances motivating and shaping patterns of use i.e. usage

The perception, engendering and institution of usefulness

There are always three basic ways in which technologies are used and incorporated into the lives of their users . . .

As intended and anticipated by designers and marketers -

useIntentions and anticipation of use and value

Simple and mature technologies

Tin Opener

Purpose defined by producers. But even a tin opener could be used as a weapon

In ways which contradict these intentions and anticipations

use

Knowledge and anticipation of use and value

Radical and emergent technologies

Telephone

Purpose was defined largely by use and users

In a much more ‘negotiated’ fashion

use

Domestication

a need for greater

awareness of use and users by designers and

producers

Intentions and anticipation of use and value

Developers

User-consumers

The human element of machine-human interaction Technologies, if successful, if they ‘fit’, are

situated, naturalised, phenomena They not only contribute to the environments of

everyday life, but support, and through their design, define lifestyle and activity

But how do they become ‘domesticated’? Socio- cultural factors i.e

• Rules governing use

• Social acceptability of use

Cognitive- psychological factors i.e.• Needs motivating use

• Feelings about use

Problem - the time, space and place of contexts

Context of design: designers inevitably begin by designing for themselves - their conceptions of what is needed - constrained by what is available - what is known to them

Context of use: The interaction between people and their domestic contexts . . .has been neglected in both architectural and psychological circles. Yandell (1995)

So the need for contextual studies – independent evaluation of design, efficiency (of machine or human?) with respect to task

Herbert Simons ‘ant’ - complexity may reside in the environment - people often think of the environment to be something to be ‘acted upon’ rather than something to be ‘interacted with’

The problems of tacit knowledge - Polanyi (1966) demonstrates that we can know more than we can say: humans make excellent use of tacit knowledge. anaphora, ellipses, unstated shared understanding are all used in the service of our collaborative relationships with each other, and how we define things and tasks on a social level

Needs can only be revealed by analysing conflicts and opportunities of everyday life. Because most innovations have roots in existing technology, observing and analysing problems and possibilities of existing technology can provide insights not only for technical innovation, but use innovation

But the nature of smart products emphasise the need for developers to ‘get closer still’ to consumer-users as true for

next generation Tamagotchis as it is to anti-lock brakes and smart dust

Human and social factors and the time, space and place of contexts

During the early 90s HCI researchers began to show an interest in context, situation and environment. This led to the development of usability studies which took more notice of context – i.e. Contextual Inquiry (Holtzblatt and Jones; 1992), Contextual Usability (Nicoll, 1994)

Contexts – individual, cognitive, experiential, social, political, physical, cultural, educational etc.

Back to the technology - taxonomy of smart products

•Function

•Information

•Time

•Interaction

•Information processing

“Those products addressing a function, not intrinsically information oriented in nature, exhibiting dynamic, real time interaction with users, and making use of considerable information processing or manipulation.”

Function Smart products, as opposed to orthodox products - may work best

when their functionality is not consciously registered by the user - example: intelligent lifts. This may be a problem for evaluation.

A smart product can interface people with people, people with organisations, people with their environments, between people and tasks. As such they must be acknowledged as a social as well as individual and personal technology - example: smart housing for aged or disabled where human monitoring and observation is needed

In some cases smart products short circuit human activity, in others they augment and even extend activity - example: ‘intuitive’ automation self-diagnostic and repair systems or intelligent help systems

Information People and their lifestyles, objects and

their biographies, generate useful information for design and business

Behavioural sciences examine the past to describe and explain behaviour while designers and new users have a strong future orientation

Capturing patterns and styles of use can inform new product ideas, anticipating uses more accurately

Evolutionary function and features depend on a constant flow of data and information

Stock control, post-Fordist manufacture, customization all rely strongly on accurate information flows

Time Real time - response to

use and usage or/and to immediate and changing environmental conditions.

Dynamic and non-linear - real life use can through up some ‘spanners in the works’ for self-learning systems which would, like retail and manufacturing businesses prefer that use and consumption styles and patterns remained stable and predictable

Interaction & Information processing

Communication between technologies (scenarios and automation)

Communication mediated by technology - between the individual, outside agencies, services and other people (daily routines)

Communication between the technology and outside agencies (monitoring and surveillance)

Communication between the technologies and the individuals (personal habits and activities)

Smart products can be understood to communicate in a number of different ways . . .

So where are smart products - and come to that, where are we going?

Where are we going? “By his very success in inventing labor-saving

devices, modern man has manufactured an abyss of boredom that only the privileged classes in earlier civilizations have ever fathomed . . . the notion that automation give any guarantee of human liberation is a piece of wishful

thinking.”Lewis Mumford - The Challenge of Renewal, 1951.

So where are smart products going?

Deturo-learning or learning II was originally suggested by Bateson (1972), with respect to evolution, and more recently by Argyris and Schön (1996) in their discussion of organisational learning

Technologies which learn and respond - that cocoon, enable,

contain - is this the new paradigm for design?

Complexity of processing independent of human intervention

Level of learning

Evolution of ‘smartness’

Smart products their ability to learn?

Learning 0

Learning 1

Learning II

Learning III

Smart products their ability to learn?Level oflearning

Stimulus relationsto outcome

Technologyequivalent

Pavlovian Outcome

Learning 0 Hard-wired – oneto one stimulus-response

Hand held tools Salivating while eating food Direct response

Learning I Analogy – amapping ofstimulus toBehavior

Pressing abutton

Linking the sound of a bell toan anticipation of the arrival offood

Leaned response – based ontrial and error

Learning II Generalization –i.e. for the masses– linking stimulusto behaviors

Neural nets andautomatedtechnologieswith someability to learnfrom use, or oftheirenviroment

Linking other relevant soundsto salivation – i.e. Refrigeratordoor opening or thedevelopment of develop a finerdiscrimination i.e. higherpitched rings, or finding thatother behaviours such as sittingand begging results in a higherchance of being fed,

Generalizing what is learned toother instances

Learning III Customization –linking stimulus/esto a variety ofcontingencies

Smarttechnology?

Different sets of resultsoperating within different setsof occasions - Whatbehaviours, in what situations,are most likely to result in megetting fed?)

As the learner moves toLearning III, he or she is able tocodify those sets of choices andto actively choose fromdifferent sets in differentsituations in order toconsistently achieve a desiredoutcome.

Complexity of processing independent of, BUT RELEVANT TO human intervention

Level of learning

Evolution of ‘smartness’

Smart products their ability to learn?

Learning 0

Learning 1

Learning II

Learning III

The functionality of smart products is sensitive to their use and to changing

environmental (or use) conditions. They customize automatically or they interface customization. They may be

discretely intelligent or rendered intelligent by performing as part of a communication system or network.

Conclusion - Defining smart products help us to:

Fully or truly understand the technology - its potentials and possibilities to organise, assist, surprise and delight

Understand potential use value against richer and deeper understandings of possible and actual use contexts

Develop sensibilities towards open, flexible and approaches to innovation sensitive to real world needs. When human-human collaboration becomes human-computer-human co-active collaboration, we must address explicitly issues of tacit knowledge and the human unconscious in relation to function

Most importantly; realise how human and socio-cultural trends - such as the rise of the ‘always-on’ society and the ‘24-hour world’ begin to cocoon people. They drive new needs independent of and dependent upon emerging technology

Thank you