{"id":18787,"date":"2014-06-16T14:57:10","date_gmt":"2014-06-16T18:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/?p=18787"},"modified":"2014-06-16T14:57:49","modified_gmt":"2014-06-16T18:57:49","slug":"saving-the-wearable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/2014\/06\/16\/saving-the-wearable\/","title":{"rendered":"Saving the Wearable"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Image
Image From Jeremy Brooks<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The wearable is going through an adolescence right now. Products like Google Glass, Oculus Rift, or the Pebble smartwatch are a lot like teenagers: They\u2019ve come into their own, but still aren\u2019t sure about the place in society. They are a little awkward, have problems staying awake when they need to be, and they attract derision by the New York Times<\/a>. And just like human adolescence, this phase probably<\/i> has a horizon. People could warm up to the idea of face computers, battery life will get better, and (eventually, hopefully<\/i>) the public will learn to ignore Ross Douthat. But for right now, the wearable is in a precarious situtation. Are wearables like Glass relegated to the same fate as Bluetooth earpieces and the Discman, or can they be saved? Is the entire category irredeemable or have we yet to see the winning execution?<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s begin by listing some of the stated problems with wearables. The first and probably best document is Google\u2019s own \u201cDo\u2019s and Don\u2019t\u2019s\u201d guide for Glass explorers<\/a>. We can pretty fairly assume that 1) not enough people were doing the \u201cDo\u2019s\u201d 2) too many people were doing the \u201cdon\u2019ts\u201d and 3) these issues are generalizable across similar devices.<\/p>\n

The Don\u2019t\u2019s aren\u2019t very surprising: ask people before taking photos or videos of them, don\u2019t stand around in public staring up into your Glass, and when people ask you about it or request that you take it off, be an adult and acquiesce to reasonable requests and questions. What\u2019s really interesting are the \u201cDo\u2019s\u201d and the very first \u201cdo\u201d in particular:<\/p>\n

\u201cGlass puts you more in control of your technology and frees you to look up and engage with the world around you rather than look down and be distracted from it.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A typical rebuttal to the Digital Dualism<\/a> critique is that it is inherently and uncritically a \u201cpro-technology\u201d argument. That debate has been hashed out elsewhere<\/a> and continues to grow and develop but it is worth noting here that this is not just a <\/i>tech company but one of the<\/i> biggest tech company on the planet making a digital dualist statement: that smartphones distract you from \u201cengaging with the world.\u201d It assumes that there is a \u201cvirtual\u201d and a \u201creal\u201d world and that Glass is the perfect solution to the dualism: you can dip into and benefit from the latter without losing track of the former. Its an insidious idea that will make even the biggest and most successful organizations solve problems that don\u2019t exist. Or, perhaps worse, create new problems that could be avoided with relatively simple social theory.<\/p>\n

Consider for example, the fairly mundane act of taking a photo. With a phone your body posture makes it fairly obvious that you\u2019re taking a picture: Glass isn\u2019t as obvious. Glass\u2019s prism lights up when its recording a video but this doesn\u2019t mean a whole lot if those around you don\u2019t know what it means when the prism on your face begins to glow. Short of projecting [REC.] on the user\u2019s forehead, body posture might be the best indicator of the device\u2019s state. If Glass required the user to continue touching the side of the device during recording it would not only present a much more obvious indication that the user was interacting with the device, it would also make it physically uncomfortable to record for long stretches of time.<\/p>\n

\"Image
Image captured by the author from “Building New Experiences with Glass<\/a>“<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What I just described is a problem with a designed solution but it is informed by several sociological observations. The biggest of which is that all knowledge and practice is situated within a culture. Really big changes to cultures –like the kind Glass and other wearables promise for the tech industry– don\u2019t just adhere soundly to existing orthodoxy, they make new logics and reinterpret existing narratives. Making recording video slightly more difficult is counter-intuitive to what we commonly consider good design and the underlying logic of Google Glass in particular. In fact, if there is a single unifying narrative that connects all consumer devices, it is the idea that technology is best when it is invisible. Devices are meant to be desired (albeit guiltily) but ultimately looked past. Or, as Google Developer Advocate Timothy Jordan said at SXSW 2013<\/a> while wearing Google Glass and<\/i> a fedora: \u201cBy bringing technology closer, we can get it more out of the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea that the most pleasurable experience with technology is the one you barely notice goes back several decades. Legendary designer and living avatar of German minimalism Dieter Rams, for example, has been prescribing \u201cGood design is unobtrusive\u201d for over 30 years. Echos of Rams\u2019 \u201cTen Principles of Good Design<\/a>\u201d (unobtrusiveness is number 5) can be heard in every product announcement and commercial going back for decades. When Steve Jobs introduced the iPod in 2001 it wasn\u2019t pitched as a \u201chard drive in your pocket\u201d but as \u201c1000 songs in your pocket.\u201d Our devices are supposed to \u201cget out of the way\u201d and let us experience something pure and even visceral. The ideal device would be completely invisible.<\/p>\n

This \u201cinvisibile device\u201d approach to product design has produced immensely useful and entertaining devices but is, ultimately, a beautiful lie. Technology is always framing scenarios, affording certain social actions at the expense of others, and encouraging (and at times forcing) us to think in terms of likes<\/a>, tweets, and photos. Designers want their devices to look beautiful but are also taught that the virtual is obtrusive. It is no wonder then, that Glass Explorers are having such a hard time: they\u2019re sold a device that you\u2019re meant to forget because technology is obtrusive, but that obtrusiveness manifests itself every time someone looks at you because you have this device hanging from your face. The sales pitch is that Wearables will make tech fade into the background but maybe that isn\u2019t what the best tech looks like. Maybe the orthodoxy is wrong. After all, interaction with your data may appear<\/i> unfacilitated and that might feel good, but I suspect that the pursuit of invisible devices breeds Glassholes.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard (at least for me) to look at Ram\u2019s Ten Principles of Good Design and not think about what Donna Haraway called the \u201cimmodest witness.\u201d Scientists and engineers are prone to thinking that their observations and conclusions are self-evident<\/a> and that their gaze comes from nowhere; that they are not interpreting or translating the natural world through their own standpoint, but merely describing it in an impartial way. This means that undesirable social phenomena like racism<\/a> or sexism<\/a> can masquerade as natural phenomena. If you believe without question (as many scientists did and unfortunately still do) that women are naturally subservient to men or that there are clear, separate, and distinct human races, then you\u2019ll go out and find justification for that kind of thinking in your data.<\/p>\n

A similar kind of structural bias can be found in Silicon Valley. Back in January I wrote about this phenomena<\/a> and observed that,<\/p>\n

When something isn\u2019t quite designed to your lifestyle you experience it as \u201cI love this thing but I don\u2019t understand why it does X, Y, and Z.\u201d It would seem to follow then, that design incompatibilities between designed object and user would become increasingly obvious as any given user drifts further away from the intended user of the designed object. But that is, generally, not the case. Design something that\u2019s just a little off, and it\u2019s an itch you can\u2019t scratch. Design entire product categories with only specific people in mind and its difficult to imagine the material world any other way.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This issue is blaringly obvious in the demo videos for Glass. A white man (invariably) does a bunch of upper middle class things to impresses a woman. We see, quite literally, the perspective of heteronormative white men and all the things they need to live a better life. It also shows the self-centered behavior that comes with extreme privilege: information is for your eyes only and the world stands ready for your gaze and enjoyment. A small design intervention like the one I described above for image capture asks that the user acknowledge that they are not passive or modest; that the user\u00a0at least continue to exert some kind of energy in order to take or do what they want.<\/p>\n

Can the wearable be saved? Its a difficult question to answer because it is unclear whether the motivating factors for creating the wearable –digital dualism, invisible devices– are the only thing making them desirable. To save the wearable as a device category is to confront and overcome the long-standing, intersecting oversights in the tech industry: assumed body norms, patriarchy, and the clunky way engineers and businessmen talk about “the social.” This isn\u2019t a pedantic problem relevant only to Silicon Valley elites. Solving (or at least coming to a better understanding of) what is wrong with wearables could make for a more inclusive and thoughtful culture of technological development.<\/p>\n

David is on Twitter<\/a> and Tumblr<\/a>. Also at\u00a0davidabanks.org<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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