real world columns

There are certain things that are difficult to define: freedom, beauty, truth… Well, here’s a new one: toast. Toast truly is in the eye of the beholder, ask any couple living together. I like toast to be real toast, Wendelynne however enjoys slightly warmed bread for breakfast, and accuses me of burning the toast every time I make it. Although not as fundamental an issue as freedom, beauty or truth, I’m fairly confident that more time has been spent discussing (or arguing) about this issue than any of the others. However with the advent of clever technology we can now side-step this and discuss things like freedom, truth and beauty at breakfast over perfect pieces of toast.

Much of today’s new technology is intimate, it is carried, worn or intended for personal use by one user. Think of mobile phones, laptops, organizers, MP3 players. However, there is still a lot out there that is less intimate, it just sits around in the kitchen or bedroom until someone, anyone, comes along to use it, and although it is designed for one user, it usually ends up in domestic environments inhabited by a couple. This needn’t be a problem, unless the technology needs to be used independently by both people at the same time, like the bathroom (‘Well what are you doing in there?’), the phone (‘Shall I tell you how long you were on for?’) or the television (‘No I don’t want to watch it, it’s just monkeys and space and nothing happens in it’).

More general problems do arise with technology owned by couples if that technology can be parameterized - which is jargon for setting-up various things before you actually use the technology. Think of setting the dial on the toaster for how well-done the toast will be. (‘Hang on honey, I’m just parametrizing the toaster!’). This is when you realize that you both have different ideas about what it should be set to; that you prefer real toast and your partner doesn’t. Or you realize when you share the same push-bike or car how short your partners legs actually are, or that they prefer showers that are scalding hot and leave the shower set on ‘scalding hot’ when they have finished, that they must have incredible hearing because they only need the TV volume on 2 which makes you think it’s bust when you come to switch it on, and that they need so many lights on to read that the lounge looks like something from ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’. And what about different wake-up alarm times? There is only one thing worse than getting up at 5:30 in the morning and that is getting up at 5:30 and then using half a sleep-starved brain in total darkness to try and reset the alarm for two hours later for your partner who is blissfully under the covers making snugly ‘I’m enjoying being asleep’ noises.

How can designers solve the problem? Well, there are the occasional un-designed solutions to these problems. Julia and David had their TV stolen but the thief couldn’t find the remote control (let’s face it; who can?). With the insurance pay-out they got the same model and so ended up with two remote controls, one each, which may seem like the ideal way to solve the issue of who has the remote, but in actual fact turned out to be quite unworkable! However, designers in the commercial world are coming to terms with this dual-ownership problem. You can now get a ‘his and hers’ toaster with two presets, ensuring that one partner can enjoy limp, warm bread while the other tries to spread butter on brittle carbon. Also, alarm-clocks are available with two presets for the alarm and (expensive) cars have a number of different preset memories for the seat configuration. Any product designers wishing to make the next breakthrough in this field need only study a couple living together and identify all the areas where there is some disagreement in how the technology is to be used.

Even simple, non-digital technology is open to redesign. You can’t get more non-digital than a duvet, but there is a company that manufactures duvets that has finally tuned in to users’ needs and started manufacturing a double-duvet that is thick on one side of the bed and yet thinner on the other; brilliant!

The really interesting thing that is probably going to happen in this area will be the Bluetooth revolution; we’ll carry round our preferences for everything in our mobile phones and they will be instantly transmitted to any bit of technology we use; we’ll never get a badly cooked piece of toast again. The corollary to this is that parameterizing your mobile phone will probably take about three weeks: ‘What time should the alarm ring in the morning? What TV channel do you like watching, and at what volume?, Do you prefer milk in your coffee? How do you like your toast…’ And just imagine what will happen then when your partner needs to borrow your mobile!