The New York Times > Technology > Circuits > A Digital Generation's Analog Chic

The New York Times > Technology > Circuits > A Digital Generation's Analog Chic

This is a really interesting article about form factor and modern design and, how modern technology design sometimes overlooks some nuances of social rhetoric and everyday mundane aesthetic. The modern design pushes towards the "future" which is hard to see through the dredges of the current, but the current may not be so bad.

This reminds me of an interesting story in one of our mover-interviews this summer. There was a couple that switched to cell phones and dropped a landline in the process of moving (people often seemed to renegotiate their use of technology as they decided on its applications in the new location). While the husband worked, the wife stayed at home with a newborn baby. Her phone had good reception in the house, and, having moved so recently, she spent quite a bit of time calling friends and family back home. She was a bit tied to the house with the child needing constant attention and the only people she had managed to meet were her neighbors and some old friends that lived in the area. She was a bit lonely and wanted to talk... yet she discovered that the design of the cellphone really did not support it being used as a house phone for the following reasons:

1. Its small. Size and weight are important considerations when we select an item that we will get to carry around with us nearly everywhere. However, at home, it seems silly to always have the phone in your pocket or carry around a bag for it (doesn't it?). So the phone develops a "place" in the house, usually next to the keys, the wallet, the handbag - a cognitive trick to reduce its changes of being lost - due to its size. Then again, because its so small and mobile, it can be carried anywhere in the apartment during conversation... and then left where the conversation ended. Of course, this is not the first time we are encountering handsets we can carry around the house. Wireless housephones have been around for ages. Unfortunately a cell phone lacks one important thing - a little button on the base station of the housephone that would make the handset make a loud annoying noise, allowing it to be found. The cell phone doesn't even have to wring if you forgot to switch off the vibrate or "etiquette" mode (on some models).
** on a sidenote, this problem has been dealt with in asian countries in a brilliant way - their handsets are even smaller, small enough to be worn around the neck like pendants. (works at least for women, men can use a belt-clip, no matter how ugly that looks its at least functional and many men don't seem to mind, far fewer women use that feature according to some market research stats).

2. Vibration - cell phone are often put on vibrate - their ring tones are for the most part annoying and you don't want it to ring loudly in a quite public space (or when the child is sleeping). Its a good feature... very good, unless you happen to have a pale of water standing underneath the cabinet where it resides together with keys and wallet... and someone calls... and it happens to vibrate (move in this case) off into the water because it was on a flat surface... It can also simply vibrate off the shelf and fall on the floor, vibrating itself under the cabinet... Successfully loosing itself for the owner. When was the last time you had to deal with technology that walked of its own accord?

There are many others, but I think this relates in some interesting way to the NYT article. Some of the "older" "outdated" technology had enjoyed years of design iterations. Maybe its not such a bad idea to go back and learn form these (as some of them were very successful)