One of my modules in my course is called Human Computer Interaction. It’s about designs to make it easier to use apps and programs. This is a good idea in principle, though the execution seems to have missed the mark.
See, the module is quite fun, I have a lot of experience creating and designing websites, but they have presented the industry as a… How do I put this nicely… akin to a bureaucratic bukkake. A group that merely exists to self perpetuate while circle-jerking each other with complements about how vital their work and research is, only to come in for guest lectures and leave the students with the soggy biscuit.
Today we had a lecture where someone talked about their experience in the industry, and aside from his worrying obsession with using post-it notes for everything, he made the industry come across as a bunch of people trying to wax philosophical about design without any purpose. He was discussing the importance of clear communication so everyone understands what is going on, and used the example of people getting down to “well what do you mean by a triangle?”
I dunno, 3 sides, 3 corners, typically seen in the general vicinity of everywhere, you may have heard of them once or twice. Sounds like someone trying to drill down into the nature of reality if the height of their philosophical research was hearing the words “Plato” and “Republic”, and thought they were both 80s bands.
If the industry is interested in definition haggling and talking about the slightest manouche of every little thing then what’s the point? My design for our coursework was not based on anything other than common sense and it got held up as quality shite, so I don’t believe for a moment that you need to do all the pointless little guff and gubbins that they heralded as “the process”.
He talked about how to do an app that would point you around a workplace they had people stand next to cut out QR codes with pieces of paper with a square cut out, and if people came up and did some “pin the donkey to the tail” shit then they’d point them in the direction they need to go. From this they learned that people would quite like to know how far away something is. What a pointless exercise, any app that puts you in a direction has an ETA function on it.
And is it so important that the distance is there? All this work and pointless orienteering exercises for what? People who’ve gone through the effort of entering an intended location onto an app and are midway through walking there are in too deep to decide “eh, I can’t be arsed going to this meeting, its 53 meters away instead of the 15 I was hoping for.”
It’s a frustrating topic, because there’s some interesting and useful graphs and designs to help you understand the process to get from one place to another within the context of an app, and that’s paired with primary school level bullshit that masquerades as something useful. It can feel like getting the good bits is like finding hay in a needlestack, a lot more bloody painful than the alternative and there’s added sun-glare distracting you from the things you could actually use.
And then there’s the topic of Tangible User Interfaces, oooooh boy this topic gets me annoyed. Google this and you’ll find a strange obsession with balls. The examples they’ve given us on TUIs are all “put a ball with a chip in it in the bowl” or some variation on that. It is a field of research where any researcher within it should be promptly taken behind the chemical sheds come the revolution, and their last words will echo through the fields as they fetishize how nice and tangible the AR15 aimed at them is.
There is no reason for a Tangible User Interface as my lecturers have described it, they seem to think that having physical items is better because…. Well because its better and they said so, and they’re in charge, and stop hitting yourself. They seem to think it’s incredibly innovative, but it simply isn’t – it’s a backstep in technology.
Gone are the days of having a separate phone and answering machine, but these researchers are eager to bring them back. Gone are the days where everything you’d ever need is stored in a 14cmx7cm rectangle in your pocket, put unportable balls in holes so that we can play messages out of a speaker idiot.
The video they showed of this marble answering machine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=RgVbXV1krgU is so stupid. They think it’s clever until you realise that they need about 5 different areas custom built to facilitate all these “innovations” and presumably an entire surface to work with. It’s clever until you remember that if you bump into that surface the precious marbles will be scattered across the floor like children on my second driving test. It’s clever until you realise that everything that the answering machine is associated with must be “marble compatible”, the phone needs a marble hole to call people back with, the contact book presumably needs sections to store everyone you know’s balls so they can be called upon when needed. When you urgently need someone’s phone number, you’re in the safe hands of the royal postal service with how well their ball delivery service gets your long awaited nuts to you.
God, I hate it. It’s a field that exists to study itself, providing no benefit to the real world. When the solution to all your problems is marbles, then you may as well elect an overactive 6 year old to head your research with the rest of the team there to make sure he doesn’t lose the marbles and fish the eaten ones out of his stool after they’ve been thoroughly digested.
Because think about it, no system of that ball bollocks is going to be child safe! They were talking about how you have to design it bespoke for each scenario, so there’ll be scenarios where the Ball Fondler 9000 will be perfectly applicable and usable – bollocks I tell you. Such a location will never exist, at least not as long as I draw breath.
And so it also can’t mass produce any tangible user interface, because each scenario has to be tailor made. Finally, they think, I can go to people’s houses and have a fucking use for once. I’ve seen dogs eat faeces and been more fascinated by the mechanics at work than I am about the entire field of research that 20 credits of my course is on.
I feel so annoyed too, because I know that if I just take HCI as my dissertation project and dip my bollocks into a jar of peanut butter and use that as signal for someone to gently place peeled grapes in my mouth, my examiners would be horrified, but under their breath would be the fell whisper of “he may be onto something there. Why didn’t we think of that? Balls in holes. Balls in holes.”