Abstract
As the world is progressing at a faster rate, it is also affecting how the technologies develop. These interactions with technologies change from time to time, they are mainly due to the competition in the tech market to provide new experiences to the people.
Through this analysis I am trying to illustrate how new technological experiences create a change in our day to day lives, and what are the implications of such drastic changes.
Introduction
The shaping of technology has created both good and bad implications in the world. It has empowered a lot of people with the access to knowledge whereas it also has created a platform for new problems to emerge. The new technologies are emerging at a faster rate, which requires us as human beings to be up to date with the developments.
In the past when new devices came into existence, people had to study the ways to use that particular device, we had to learn how to interact with it so that we could get the desired output. Nowadays the process has reversed in a way that it interacts with us how we want it to. It has become much easier to interact with a particular device with the use of voice navigation and assistants as a feature. These various features have added the word ‘smart’ as a tag onto every device that we use. The way we use technology is changing, is this change taking us away from having a physical contact with the world? What will be the future of our interaction with technologies?
The Illusion of digital interaction
During my childhood days, it was always very exciting for me to spend time at the play area near my house. The play area consisted of good enough space, with quite a lot of swings, see-saw, slides and other equipment’s for the children to play around with. These structures were the major reason why most of the kids visited the play area. What I personally liked about these structures, were its colors which visually attracted me there, as well as the shape in which it was built.
This observation made me think the way how these structures were built to attract the kids. Design of those structures created a huge impact on how the kids interacted with it.
​
Nowadays these physical interactions have transformed digitally giving it the term ‘Human-Computer Interaction'. Kids interact with computer games or other digital devices these days rather than spending quality time in their physical surroundings. These virtual experiences are completely different from the worldly ones.
​
The use of haptic motors is widely used in devices to create a more tactile experience for the users. But these experiences are nothing compared to when you use a physical object in your hand.
For example, a book is a physical object. When you turn the pages, you can actually feel the texture, weight of the paper and the smell of the pages, these are somethings which you can’t experience on Kindle. What kindle provides or any digital devices for that matter, is the illusion of those physical interactions.
Evolution of human interaction
The earliest interactions that humans had was with their surroundings, which was nature itself. They tried to accomplish some of their basic tasks like breaking the bones to eat the bone marrow, hunting animals for food, which was not possible alone with their bare hands. They tried to ease their process of their day to day tasks by creating tools from the surroundings, which would take care of the hard tasks for them.
This was a starting point for mankind to create complex mechanisms and tools to ease their difficult tasks (figure-1).
Figure-1
Figure-2
Figure-3
At first all the tools and mechanisms created were powered by humans themselves. Later on they figured a way to utilise their surrounding resources to do the hard labour for them. They also discovered a way to harness the energy of water and fire to power up the machines and get it into motion (figure-2).
​
Industrial revolution turned things around for mankind. It started creating an off balance between us and nature, which was so called as capitalism. This was an era when humans started depending on machines to sustain their livelihood. Many industries started appearing in the market which sells different products. These products started creating unnecessary wants/desire among people to buy them. This desire from the people made industries to invest its profits into research and development. The sole reason for such investment was due to the emerging number of competitors in the market. Each company in the market had to constantly prove themselves as well as the competitors that their product were better than the rest. The constant innovation among products have led to a technology driven market for consumers.
​
Our interaction towards nature shifted towards these products. Those who had the latest devices in their homes were given certain importance in the society. This created a drive amongst others to use the latest devices in the market, and also the tech companies to start innovating new products.
Transformation in interaction
Changes have always been ongoing in the tech industry. Interactions also has undergone such drastic change along with the technological advancements.
​
In the 90’s physical buttons were placed onto devices, which was required to be pressed in order to interact with that particular device. This method of interaction took a transformation with the introduction of screens in the early 2000’s. Screens enabled a device to communicate better with its users, and also in providing more visual aesthetics to the machine. Buttons along with the screen provided more of a tactile as well as a visual experience. With the passage of time, screens started expanding, leaving very little room for the buttons to exist on the device. Touch screens also enabled a way to adopt buttons in a digitalised manner. A lot of development then became the focus towards screens as the tech industries considered it to be the future of devices. As the screen grew bigger a lot of scope for interaction grew along with it, making it available on every devices possible.
Figure-4
When I was specialising in the field of product design during my bachelors, we were taught that a product with good design speaks for itself. The design of the products were more focused on its shape, size, ergonomics, functionality, colour, material, finish etc. As product design learners we were more focussed on to the physical interactions with a product. The feeling of just holding a product can be a very different experience which I personally feel cannot be achieved alone through digitalisation. All the apple products are very fascinating, as it has managed to bring both the digital as well as the product experience to its consumers. They have made sure that after their product are bought, it should make the consumers feel that the products are worth the money. While other companies focussed more on its interface part, Apple had already created a product that provided a wholesome experience. This led other companies to match up to the standards of apple.
​
However this interaction experience with a product is now changing with the upcoming voice integration. Nowadays the concept of an assistant is developing to a stage where people no longer want to interact with a screen to complete a task, rather they want to accomplish it by just talking to the device.
All that the consumers crave for these days are automation. The tech companies have pampered the consumers by increasing automation in their day to day activities. This is the sole reason for the launch of many products such as Google home and Alexa.
​
With the rise in voice integration technology, these assistants are making a future world where screens are extinct. These changes are very prevalent today. Phones launching these days are well equipped with the voice assistant, also other interactions such as gesture controls are in the development stage.
​
Google and Samsung this year, have already launched the gesture control feature in their smartphones. MIT design lab have already invested their research into developing new gesture interactions in devices. These are very leading examples to where the future of tech industries are headed towards.
​
The growing technology is solely due to the competitors in the tech market. Every company wants to make a stand by releasing fascinating features or products before their other competitors do. This leads to a direct effect on the consumers by creating an unnecessary want to buy these products.
What lies after this technology has been accomplished? Will we proceed ahead by eliminating even our most basic interactions furthermore? Will we be able to control things without using our hands? Would devices be extinct or would devices be embedded into our body parts?
Embedded Future
Volunteers in Melbourne have found a way to insert microchip into the human bodies, which could act as an access card to many places including your own house. The microchip is about the size of a grain of rice and usually inserted in the webbing between the thumb and the forefinger using a needle the same thickness as used in body piercing. The chip is not big enough to store a lot of data yet, but in the upcoming future it would be one of those devices which would be widely available in the market. This invention would create a new definition of how interaction design functions.
Conclusion
The worldly presence is very important in this world that we exist. It helps us connect to our surroundings through our senses. I feel that our basic tactile sensation towards products are getting lost. With the rise in the technological developments we are constantly dis-connecting ourselves with these worldly experiences. In the beginning we interacted with nature, from nature we found resources, through resources we started creating machines. There will be a time in the future where we will want to be a machine ourselves, where complicated tasks can be performed which is quite impossible in a normal human body.
​
As a product designer, I feel that the basic definition for designing a product would change in the future. When I see Alexa and google home as a product which is being used in many households, I have noticed that many don’t actually touch or feel the product even though they are made using different textures and patterns. This made me realise that in the near future products will be designed purely based on aesthetics and not based on the CMF (colour, material and finish). A product wouldn't be defined by its physical presence, but would be defined virtually.