Summary
Invisible Design: Exploring Insights and Ideas through Ambiguous Film Scenarios written by Pam Briggs, Mark Blythe, and other authors from Northumbria University, Newcastle University, and University of York was an interesting read.
The article focuses on the concept of invisible design, which is a strategy employed by designers to engender insights and ideas by collecting and analyzing the responses of workshop participants in the initial stages of concept development. The invisible design presented in this article involves films that depict actors that briefly describe and interact with an invisible device of advanced technology. The three invisible designs illustrated in this publication are the following: Biometric Daemon, Panini, and Smart Money. The latter two invisible designs were designed for the older demographic of the society.
Biometric Daemon refers to a device that is like an electronic pet that is inseparable from the owner; it contains valuable information about the owner. Two workers discuss about the pet, and conversations that take place about the pet are not intelligent as the character personalities of the film are structured that way.
Panini is about an add-on smart device for scooters that allows the user to navigate through neighborhoods and communicate with friends. An old man and woman are featured in the film where the woman talks about the benefits of the device whereas the man displays his skepticism about the device as he is confident about the geography of his neighborhood. However, he encounters obstacles due to the absence of the device, and the woman comes into help.
Smart money is about a smart banknote that only works in the hands of the person that is authorized to utilize the note at predetermined locations. The two men from the electronic pet film come out again, and at this time, has a hard time communicating the concept of the banknote, which results in a vague presentation of how the smart banknote works.
There were different workshop participants for each film, with the latter two films inviting an older demographic. The reactions regarding the film varied, but many of the reactions were focused on concerns related to security, maintenance, and costs. An interesting thing to note is that the participants attempted to visualize the design via the current and past technologies that they have experienced. The authors concluded that although the invisible design films created confusion amongst the workshop participants, it was useful in a sense that it provided insight about the concepts that they presented.
Critique
Amongst the three readings, I was the most interested in this work as I thought that the idea of presenting an “invisible” design is interesting and novel. I was intrigued with all three ideas, but especially the first and last idea. An electronic pet that follows the owner everywhere is a concept that I have evidenced in multiple science fiction cartoons. It is an attractive concept, and the responses of the participants have let me imagine methodologies on how to improve an electronic pet to be released in the market. I deeply agreed with one participant’s response that the Biometric Daemon reminds her of the electronic pets that were once a fad amongst children only to collect dust and be thrown away soon as it failed to secure user retention and attention as I evidenced the very happening of such incident amongst my friends when I was young. At this point of the publication, I was convinced that the invisible design film strategy is useful because it prompted me to be inspired on how to ameliorate some reasonable defects that a concept could have.
I loved the smart money idea as well as I believe that the older generation’s opinion on technology is valuable as they are the ones to be one of the most critical when it comes to the convenient and safe usability of tech products like the article states.
Although the authors stated that they somewhat failed to address the shortcomings that the project can have, I believe that it was successful in a sense that it inspired people like me to explore more options to create a meaningful product for the future to revolutionize the way we interact with devices in a way that is seamless. I hope to utilize this tactic in the near future.
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