My Life As A Conflicted Technologist

I have been developing technology for over 25 years, 13 of those years prototyping cutting edge technology. And yet, I am a conflicted technologist. I love developing technology. I am very good at it. However, I am often frustrated using it, and many times confused by it.

For 10 years I have been doing applied research on wearable system design with a focus on high usability. Starting with a project called Person Integrated Communications in 1997 and later on a project called Conformables I and my team investigated ways to design wearable and portable devices that could be used with very little effort and focus.

The fundamental idea of both projects was that people do not want to use technology for its own sake. They don’t want to focus on it. They don’t want to figure it out. They just want to use it to perform a task. And that task is rarely intrinsically connected to the device itself. The device is simply a tool.

The frustration, the doubting of our intelligence we have all felt at one time or another when using technology says more about its failings than our own. Too many devices and applications are very good at making smart people feel stupid.

The result of the wearables work over the last eight years is a unique focus on usability backed by the definition of 18 design principles and several dozen heuristics and examples. It has also resulted in several awarded U.S. and international patents as well as the book ‘Moving Wearables into the Mainstream’ published in November of 2007 by Springer.

The focus is not on just being able to use a device or service. The focus is on adopting a mindset that promotes design of devices and applications that can be used almost transparently, allowing the user to focus on their real task instead of on using (however easily) the device or application.

As technology continues to permeate more and more of our everyday experiences we must insist on placing ourselves first. We must become masters of our technology and no longer let it dictate how we perform our tasks. We must insist that our technology fade into the background of our attention, even as we use it. Companies that take this attitude and have the knowledge and resources to embody this in their products will be the success stories of the next decades.

This blog will discuss ways to reduce this conflict of technology with people and how to design applications and services that are almost transparent to use as they help us with our daily tasks. I look forward to your comments, suggestions, and questions.