The Guilty Wallet and Other "Green" Ideas

Thanks to a recommendation from a fellow student blogger, I recently checked out the Greener Gadgets Design Competition ( http://www.core77.com/greenergadgets/  ). The entries are definitely creative with good sustainability ideas, but some wander away from their "green gadget" label and end up in the "object-I-will-love-for-five-minutes-and-then-throw-out" category. Some of my favorite entries end up in this category, which brings me to question the value of the statement they try to make.

My first pick is the Guilty Wallet. It comes in 7 types for the

 7 Deadly Sins: greed, lust, pride, sloth, gluttony, wrath, and envy. The idea is that your wallet will prevent you from excessive spending and waste by guilting you out of a purchase, thereby preventing more stuff from ending up in the landfill. Of course, I want one (definitely Wrath or Sloth - they are so mean to the user!! :-) ). However, in the words of someone named Jamie who commented on the product: "The whole point of these wallets is to reduce consumerism, but they are designed for an audience of consumers! These are products that we don't need... we would buy them solely for the 'cool factor'. " How long would we really put up with a wallet that stabs your fingers when you try to get money out? It's a great conversation piece, and would prob

ably foster some philosophical discussion, but the likelihood of this product defeating its purpose and ending up in the landfill is pretty high.

My real choice for what I look for in a green product is something like Lightimus. This LED lamp charges using solar energy during the day and shines at night. The hourglass shape is supposed to keep you thinking about time, and using products in cycles. I love the statement AND the utility of this product: you can actually use this product as expected, as well as treasure it as an art piece. To me, this combination should be the real goal of this competition.

While these are fun examples of green (or almost green...) products, so-called sustainable products also have a dark side. How do you sort out the greenwashing from the real treehuggers when it comes to products? As sustainability slowly becomes the next thing all the cool kids are doing, more and more people will buy products for the label without checking whether there's any walk behind the talk. As one example, Wired Magazine has run a series of articles criticizing ZAP Electric Cars for utterly failing to deliver vehicles that work in spite of all their hype. One article included an interview with a businessman who quit his job to sell environmentally friendly ZAP vehicles, then had to close his dealership due to a lack of product to sell and support from the company. In his view, the company had essentially taken his money in the name of sustainability, but had failed to do much else.

I'm definitely all for environmentally-friendly products, especially when they're as interesting and creating as the ones submitted to the Greener Gadgets Competition, but I think some caution should be used before you give them your endorsement.

My Dancing Shoes

After writing a midterm paper about shoes, I've got them on the brain. There are definitely a couple pairs out there that I crave and can't afford, but my favorite footwear in the world is sitting in the closet waiting for warmer weather. My pair of Earth Footwear sandals is definitely the most comfortable thing I ever worn on my feet. The sole conforms exactly to the bottom of my foot and distributes the weight evenly. The heel is also lower than the rest of the foot, which forces me to stand up straighter. Plus I like the blue color (unlike the picture).

All love of shoes aside, what's the deal with comfort? Another comfort trend is desks, which constantly being modified to be nicer to the user, even after long hours of work. Both shoes and desks get a lot of use every day... so why wasn't comfort the top, or one of the top, design considerations? With shoes it's easy to understand: thin soles and high heels are so attractive, but inherently uncomfortable. Maybe if we're not walking too much, it's more fun to go with something pretty and deal with the blisters later. Plus most comfortable shoe companies don't start designing with me in mind: they have people with serious knee and back pain in mind, who probably aren't as picky about appearance as long as it makes their life a little less painful. My thought on desks is that they are designed for the things you put on them, rather than for you, so you have to add stuff to fix it for you. I always want plenty of space to spread out, easy access to computer cables, a place to stack notebooks... but after a few close calls with carpal tunnel, my desk also needs to let me type unhindered. The best way for me to fix the desk is to rearrange and buy a pad to rest my arms on, forcing me to fit to the desk. While it's not too hard to me to adjust myself to the desk, that system doesn't work for shoes.

Maybe it's just me, but it seems like comfort needs to move higher up on the list. I refused to consider Earth shoes for a long time because their initial product looked terrible, but they're great. In order for comfort to move up on the list, appearance moved down. With desks, comfort was replaced by utility. While there's plenty to be said for a desk you can use and shoes you like, I'm all for thinking about comfort a little more and trying not to sacrifice other stuff when you do design for comfort. Comfort is like intuitive design for your body, and while we spend plenty of time trying to create intuitive interfaces and controls, we don't seem to spend as much on comfort. I also feel that much of human factors defines the limits of what humans can use without negative effects, but don't focus on the positive ones. I could just be going through my favorite shoe withdrawal, but I need a little comfort in design.

The Cuteness Factor

In interaction design, one of the real questions seems to be how to get people to interact with something repeatedly so that the designer can understand what to change. New objects are fun to play with once or twice, but if they don't capture your attention and don't work very well on top of that, interest dies out pretty quickly. Over the past few months I've come across three different examples of interaction design in test mode: U of BC's "Cat", Carnegie Mellon's "Snackbot", and the "Blubberbot" created by a participant on the Maker website. These three bots look nothing alike, and were built with completely different goals in mind. However, they have one thing in common: all of them are pretty darn cute.
The Cat was built to test out a participant's reaction through touch to changes in the Cat. The device is supposed to act like a cat, and use your emotions to create different reactions. The Snackbot delivered snacks and some minor conversation in a university building. The Blubberbot is a toy you build yourself that bumbles around and reacts to light sources, like your cellphone. All of these guys sound like they would be fun to play with (after reading the Blubberbot description, I so want one. It's a cute pet, and it can be left alone!), but is that really the point? The first two bots were built to test haptics and push the autonomy of robots. Is cuteness something you usually associate with those fields?
In psychology, there have been several studies done on people with a babyface, or a round face with large eyes. Compared to others, these people are perceived as more naive and trustworthy, and are more likely to be forgiven for a negative action (aka, some type of crime) if it's perceived as malicious. If you apply this cuteness thinking towards objects, maybe we're more likely to forgive mistakes in function if the object is cute. Instead of getting frustrated, and feeling that the device is not working just to annoy you, the user would be more forgiving ("Awww it ran into the wall again!"). Users of all three designs described the bot acting inappropriately, breaking down, and requiring heavy amounts of work to change one aspect. But everyone seemed to like working with them. It's great to try new things in design; I never thought that making them cute would make them easier to test...