Avoiding the Internet of Misinformed Things

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FEATuRE AvOiding tHe ‘internet Of MisinfOrMed tHings’

Avoiding the ‘Internet of Misinformed Things’

More and more of the everyday objects we design have the ability to send and receive information. In the coming “internet of things,” how can we avoid adding to what is already a surfeit of information? And how can we best preserve our humanity in the face of an onslaught of conflicting and biased bits of “knowledge?”

By glen walter

vERYDAY OBjECTS AREN’T WhAT ThEY used to be. There was a time when all a product needed to do to be considered “smart” was to solve a problem or answer a question and help us get to the essence of the experience. A product could be designed to slip easily into the everyday lives of users, often understanding those lives better than the users themselves. But now, with the coming of the “internet of things,” everyday objects are increasingly expected to be a different kind of smart.

At Eleven, we have the good fortune to work with many clients who share our human-centered design values—fellow travelers on a journey to the core of peoples’ lives. They know that in order to create a product that grows with penetrating roots into those lives, we must understand them at a near-molecular level. So we observe users in their natural habitat. We question; we write copious notes and take countless pictures. We collect data to capture, in living detail, slices of their lives. They extend beyond the small niche in which the product is intended to nest.

It may seem like a contradiction in terms, but designing with simplicity requires complex information in high-resolution detail—information that must be collected, at least in part, by a culture of design. This is a necessity, in order for that information to be accurately portrayed

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in the creation of the product. To curate the ideal feature set. To make all those choices with empirical confidence that the end product is based on the truth about the people who will use it.

But what if that truth suddenly isn’t so true? What if an outside force changes the way in which the product is used or interpreted? What if the product itself changes based on its use or on information-gathering patterns? What if the product causes a behavioral change in its owner that makes it obsolete or utterly irrelevant in his or her life? A wireless fitness tracker, for example, will track your steps all day long. Some trackers will track your calorie burn and others will monitor your heart rate. But just think: The idea behind all of these is to change your behavior to the extent that you no longer actually need them.

Welcome to designing everyday objects for the internet of things.

T.M.I.More and more of the everyday products we design—coffeemakers, microwave ovens, watches, and thermostats, to name a few—now have the ability to send and receive information. They communicate with us. They communicate with each other. They communicate with their environment. They’re burning up the networks with trillions of messages every day.

They are connecting ideas and actions into an intricately woven fabric of information and tasks. There is an astonishing amount of movement in the Why and What of a smart device: With a host of possible sensors and processors, they have a degree of artificial intelligence. It enables them to detect and react to events or changes in their environment, or even adapt to patterns of use to instantly turn information into action. When we’re designing these products, we need to be just as flexible. We need to be psychologists, ethnographers, envisioners, product designers, communication and interaction experts, business

FIGuRE 1 What was dreamed about in science fiction novels is coming true. We, as designers, can help shoulder the responsibility to set the moral compass toward human enlightenment.

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strategists, technologists, and more. We need all these skills to move beyond the precise definition of the truth about a product and its users to a more-fluid approach that’s capable of rendering the truth in all its varying shades.

Labeled as thinking and learning machines, some everyday objects even mimic aspects of our biology, most of which are currently beyond algorithmic computation. Implanted heart defibrillators have two major components—a power generator that monitors the heartbeat, and the lead, which transmits data from the heart and is used to send a high-energy jolt of electricity when a patient develops a potentially fatal heart rhythm. (We can create algorithms that mimic a beat, but currently, we cannot match the rhythm of love that emanates from the heart. But just you wait and see.) What was dreamed up in science fiction is coming true. Boundaries are fading fast. How close can algorithms poke at biorhythms before becoming indiscernible and essentially invisible to humans? The ability to modify and synchronize collective actions with speed is increasing. The interplay among devices, and between them and us, is in real time and extremely complex.

The possibilities are joyous and intimidating; the potential repercussions are many. It’s a big responsibility we designers need to help shoulder, by setting the moral compass in the direction of human consciousness and enlightenment. However, if the first 20 years of the internet teaches us anything, it’s how badly we need to increase our ability to absorb, synthesize, and deploy information.

Knowledge and truthAll good design starts with unbiased positive knowledge and then moves on to imagination and creativity. However, the ever-increasing amount of information available directly or subliminally is not only overwhelming but also often superficial, emotional, and “editorial”—not delivered by those close to the intricacies of a given situation. It tends to be steeped in biased analysis and delivered through varied levels of expertise. To

make things more complicated, the origin of much information is now global, and often out of context for those not directly associated. How do humans and the intelligent everyday objects we create come closer to human, emotionally digestible truth, as well as digital, factual truth?

Everyday objects must strive to deliver the truth; but do they? When Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Alexa is asked to solve a problem or, for instance, deliver the news, where do they get their answers? In general, the more truth you detect in your information, the more likely your consequent decisions or actions will be honest, rational, and tethered to something bigger than yourself. When our emotions are based on untrustworthy information and unverified personal truths, our confusion and frustration increases. Knowledge that is based on a superficial or false support system builds an amplified level of mistrust.

Moreover, the overwhelming quantity of information we receive is likely to result in generalities and a relatively shallow understanding of many subjects. In other words, when we react to a lack of depth and connection, we often entrench emotionally in order to compensate, which further results in a lack of patience, discourse, and tolerance.

Globally, we are experiencing an amplified level of mistrust: political, economic, educational, and environmental. In order to cope with an onslaught of information, we leave the details behind, basing our decisions and beliefs on emotionally driven constructs. We begin to shift our ideals toward larger, simpler concepts as the details become overwhelming, confusing, and—so often—biased. This trend moves us further and further from the truth, based as it is on input that leaves out the details and ignores any overlap or reasonable dialogue on which to base our opinions. The result is concepts that define people so generally that they never really get to a truthful Why.

Our next great design challenge will be to create ways to supply and deal with information that puts us in the best possible position to make truthful

The ability to modify and synchronize collective actions with speed is increasing. The interplay among devices, and between them and us, is in real time and extremely complex.

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FIGuRE 2 Our next greatest design challenge will be to create ways to supply and manage information that gets us closer to the truth.

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and educated decisions. When we are confused in our own knowledge base, we are not at peace. When humans are closer to finding the truth, they feel more in control and more satisfied with themselves and their lifestyles. Will everyday objects help us get closer to the truth, or will they become cynical and biased, driven by non-altruistic and manipulative causes acting as digital lobbyists?

In order to create evolving everyday circumstances and interactions that move us

closer to the truth, we as a capitalistic society are essentially hanging our hats on technology to deliver information that (we hope) is collectively good for mankind. What have we done with it thus far, though, to ourselves and to our environment? Have we created genetically modified grains/foods, antibiotic- and steroid-filled meats, and pesticide-laden agriculture, while creating processed foods that are filled with sugar, fat, and chemicals? Have we built landfills of useless objects that don’t decompose, while creating atmospheric change that may be raising the temperature of our planet? We, as a people, are more obsessed with accumulating everyday objects than with having credible dialogues about the protection of our children and our planet. Will everyday objects eventually inform us and directly save us, or will we save ourselves with their nudging? Given the dissonance of amplified information, can everyday objects do a better job of deciphering the truth than we can?

First, people need to know themselves, but how will they hear their own voices through all the noise? It’s almost as if most everyday objects are striving to become connected; but the result is that the reverse is happening to human beings. The machine-human connection is quite often replacing the human-human connection.

Designing a platformOur challenge will be to create simply connected platforms that bring people together and allow them to find themselves happily in the background and not on center stage. In other words, there would be no need for the constant checking and digging into your smart phone—because data would be transparently delivered as an everyday object in your environment.

Assuming that we create credible sources of information that is collected by input devices, globally we’ll need an appropriate infrastructure in place. The race is on, of course, to develop a successful universal technology reference architecture that will allow for pliable operation and ease of use. Companies like Google and

FIGuRE 3 Currently, our biology is beyond algorithmic definition and therefore non-computable in the usual sense, but how close can algorithms poke at biorhythms before becoming indiscernible to humans?

It’s almost as if most everyday objects are striving to become connected; but the result is that the reverse is happening to human beings. The machine-human connection is quite often replacing the human-human connection.

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Amazon are working hard to establish a platform as the building block for all consumer-based objects and their software. Indeed, all the major players have similar strategies for creating standards.

So far, digital applications that create experience-driven social connections based on a business strategy have gone the farthest toward addressing needs. But everyday objects in the consumer markets lag behind. Even with all the possibilities, we still see companies working hard to figure out the most basic interactions. They are stuck in the same information glut consumers are, with too many choices. How, for instance, should they market the ability to turn on a light bulb while the customer is away? Is that any better than using a mechanical timer? Many attempts at designing everyday objects that offer help to the consumer have been rejected as adding unnecessary complexity. The need to know the Why— for everyday objects, as well as for the humans they serve—is key.

Having access to everyday objects captured within the internet of things makes the idea of collecting data possible. It is viewed as closing the loop: consumer input goes back to the product’s maker, collecting tremendous amounts of data that can be transformed into useful information and further insights. This makes decision-makers feel comfortable in the hope that quantity will even out the extremes and get them closer to the truth. Everyday objects do make this possible, but the question is: does a larger quantity of shallow emotional understanding translate to a deeper analysis of meaning?

The opportunities are vast and unpredictable. The convergence of manually operated controls within a smart phone, for example, is so condensed, labor-intensive, and all-consuming that the enabling features may eventually be transferred into the everyday objects that surround us. Fostering a digital human-to-human connection may be an honorable and great start, if we can heed and analyze the growing pains associated with being so easily and intimately connected with one another. As designers, how

should we understand and further develop the human-machine connection so that it never loses sight of the human-to-human connection?

By the year 2020, it is estimated that there will be 50 billion devices connected to the worldwide Internet: everyday objects that listen to you, that learn your routine, that control your environment. There will be more and more objects that allow us to monitor from afar and limit our forgetfulness: driverless cars, robots, virtual assistants, smart drones… an endless list, interesting to national governments, as well as to product manufacturers.

The foundation of intelligence, whether it is digitally based or comes from a notebook and a pen, is the integrity of its actionable information. A heartbeat that can be interpreted falsely through

FIGuRE 4 Digital truth might be defined as concepts or directions helping us make decisions or take direct action based on some measure of factual information that is good for one’s soul—while helping, or at the very least minimally harming, our collective souls.

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FIGuRE 5 We, as a people, are more obsessed with accumulating everyday objects than with having credible dialogues around the protection of our children and our planet.

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hardware or software or biased reporting does not help the heart’s owner and offers nothing to science either. Our goal must be to find the Why behind the What by listening and letting the human voice take the lead. We will need to let everyday objects have some control by proving to the individual and to society that their usefulness is based upon a journey to find truth and build trust. The objects that survive will be products that meet appropriate needs and offer simplicity, robustness, and a seamless fit into a larger network; these will be able to help the humans with which they interface, and they will also improve other objects by sharing relevant information.

Designers may need to forfeit control, shifting our design process toward the collaboration and nurturing of everyday objects instead of a precise definition. It is time to evolve the way we think about our associations with objects as physical interfaces turn into digital systems. They will evolve on their own. We will have to step back from the detailed physical, allowing objects to evolve and change as we provide guidance, nurturing, and care. This adjustment places a greater emphasis on the Why, the reason for being, the informational input sources and the context in which the resultant actions take place.

You are not an “everyday object”At Eleven, we have created a culture of design based on consumer anthropology, global research, futures, and trends. We try to amplify—visually and emotionally—everything we do, from digital landscaping to market landscape analysis; and we think a lot about the future, because we have an entrepreneurial bent and are always interested in growth opportunities, patent creation, and early-stage business development. We are trying to see it coming.

It’s up to us to save our world for those who come next. Don’t become an everyday object. Don’t lose your intuition, your truthful

emotions, your love, your friends, your family to the intricacies and seductions of a digital reality. Don’t look back to find that your life was virtual; make sure it is based in reality as much as is humanly possible. Design everyday objects that do play digitally and work for you, but then get back to reality—playing, building, loving, and learning from nature. Nature has already gone through an evolution and has dealt with much more complexity than we are facing globally within a single organism. Search within!

Design thinking is coming of age, but don’t rest on your laurels; we have just begun. Those who feel that traditional design is the final weapon in a crowded frontier of goods and services only see one sector of a bigger picture. The internet of things will create a vast network of information with the capacity to inform, sense, learn, entertain, secure, and save. We must transform ourselves in order to be aware and capable enough to begin to unravel some of the riddles of our global connectedness.

Glen Walter is a co-founder and managing member of Eleven, an international design studio with offices in Boston and Manhattan. As a human-centered, design-oriented cooperative, Eleven’s designers manifest meaningful brands and design the products, packaging, visual communications, business strategies, and experiences

that connect with those brands. Walter is the son of an elementary school teacher who bordered on evangelism in her approach to new and creative methods of learning. His father was an artist who imbued every action with skill and every journey with the goal of excellence. Walter has been published often and is a popular

guest lecturer presenting at MIT, Harvard, Babson College, NYU, Syracuse University, the Design Management Institute, IDSA, APDF, Pira International, and as a special guest to the Government of Ireland. He graduated from Syracuse University.

Avoiding the Internet of Misinformed Things

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