The Interaction11 student competition prompt is to create an interactive system that enables the conference theme of “use not own.”
This is a difficult space for designers, especially for those of us with backgrounds in industrial design, as we have mastered the art of selling consumerism. Our national happiness peeked in the 1950s, which has declined since the rise of consumerism. At this same time, an important topic of discussion in industrial design journals centered on how to actively plan product obsolescence without displeasing the consumer.
Those of us who are interaction designers have sold a different bill of goods (or services) that have us connected to endless streams of information.
The challenge that I have for the IXDA Interaction11 student competition is to attempt to change the relationships that we have worked so hard to create with consumed objects. It is to move consumption from an independent activity to a collaborative one. By making consumption collaborative we enable people to share goods.
Just like the Industrial Revolution, the information age has left us with problems to solve. The information age has left us with a threat to local relationships; we are so enthralled with our digital lives, that we don’t build and maintain physical ones.
My goal is to create hyper local services to reduce consumption and start to rebuild local communities.
I have been building a framework for myself that has been evolving over the past week. This frame is built from a mass of readings including Enzo Manzini, BJ Fogg, What’s Mine is Yours, and No More Throw Away People. I have also looked at student work in this space.
Everyone should check out this University of Washington experience prototype. This is a beautiful piece of work in terms of both cinematography and thinking. However, the proposed service has an issue in achieving critical mass, just like some of the commercial services that are currently failing at the same goal.
Changing consumption involves behavioral change. BJ Fogg’s framework for simplicity has been floating in my head for awhile. His framework states that “there are 6 dimensions to simplicity: physical exertion, money resources, braincyles required to do the task, time available, and degree away from social norms, and degree away from daily routine.” Simplicity of a system is a function of a person’s least available resource within the context.
Turning products into services takes multiple components to be successful: idling capacity, a critical mass (think tipping point), trust between strangers, and some belief in the common good.
The ability to share an item, and have both customer and agent be fully satisfied, means creating something fundamentally different than renting.
Additionally, my take aways from the book “No More Throw Away People” were:
- We need to alter the way that we measure our economic value as a nation, to think about our effects on the natural environment and the value of and abilities of non-paid caretakers
- We need to value one another’s time in a more egalitarian way, as we all have something to offer, whether that’s baby sitting or medical advice
Given my reading and design research I have boiled my ideas down to three main themes that I would like to explore:
- Kiosk based sharing (think Redbox of tool rental, or RedBox of dorm needs)
- Enabling time banking
- Hyper-local community building
Tell me what you think?