2022-03-10 Human Experience WG

• Welcome & antitrust notice

• Agenda review

• Antitrust Policy Notice: Attendees are reminded to adhere to the meeting agenda and not participate in activities prohibited under antitrust and competition laws. Only members of ToIP who have signed the necessary agreements are permitted to participate in this activity beyond an observer role.

Expert Series 2: CALM TECHNOLOGY: DESIGNING FOR THE NEXT GENERATION OF DEVICES‍‍'

We need opposite we need calm technology - a concept from Xerox Parc, a place where liberal artists, historians, social scientists all worked alongside each other 

Mark Weiser:  In the future tech will be cheap but time will be expensive.  

 paper on calm tech website.

Timeless papers - helpful universal decisions - think of universals not for the faster, throw away now. 

• The Coming Age of Calm Technology. Mark Weiser and John Seely Brown. Xerox PARC, October 5, 1996.

 NOT invisible in making decisions for your, you focus on looking outside not the window, (insert.........extras)

Book by Amber has led to e.g. Windows 11 on Calm, others expands on Mark Weiser & Seeley Brown's work, 

HOW:

Much should be ambient and subconscious e.g. dashboard display in a car, a light switch

The light switch hides great complexity and danger, simple but not demeaning, anyone can use it.  Beautiful example of calm technology.

Different ways to do this, e.g. ambient awareness (transfer one visual thing into audio)

  Example is this weather status lighting, you 'feel' what the weather will be depending on the light and the weather

The brain translates from one sense to the other, taking something that's formerly invisible and make it visible.

  Very important, we don't expect a dog to act like a dog, nor will AI - a different species

Harmonious feedback loop, human chooses the search term and does the curation, man alongside tech.  Many good examples in Japan in indigenous cultures.  Humans working alongside tech

Example of humans coming together - omotenashi we will anticipate your needs.  

Always a human back-up, they automated out of necessity

Tech speaking is confusing for us because we expect them to understand, use different sounds, lights & music 

REDUNDANCY

e.g. Freud, 'humans were annoyed by prosthetics' - we have much to learn

EG some of my favourite tech

If we were to design now would be extra tech.  Universal pictograms from bauhaus movement.  Universally understood

We should never be 'bad at technology' it's just learning curve

On animism:
Nicky: Do you think the fact that Japanese relate better to machines is because of animist foundations of Shintoism?
Phil: Animism is the primary relationship with our surround as we sprinkle the world with intelligence and connectivity. The conversation you want to have with things is fundamentally animist. Trusting your environment and the things in it is the challenge for HX of identity. Identity of things confronts the challenge of devices being otherwise silent and opaque. You look at the object and you cannot interview it about it's history, who lurks on the cyberspace side of the device, who it leaks data to, about it's place in law/society, about its magic powers or the limits on those powers. 

(insert q&a from recording)

Cosmotechnics - Book find link

Japanese cultural norms make them natural calm technologists

Problem with silicon valley model - need silicon valley faces to give value to their culture, we don't think deeply and ask enough questions

Need for liberal arts & humanities, anthropology. ethics, go to the school to learn what you're bad at

Phil: Animism is the metaphor that works with IoT, surrounded by things that are increasingly smart & connected, they have secrets and are connected to other things with secrets., no way to know if you should trust a device.  They don't communicate with things.

Amber:  See https://calmtech.com/papers/technologists-responsibilities-and-social-change.html

Democratising design, 

Amber - how do we seek to translate calm tech into high stress settings like Law Enforcement, Medical and critical care - to aid de-stressing. At the moment we aim to overwhelm the humans in these settings with more and more tech, and wonder why they lose sight of the target - human, and crumble with work related stress - which is more driven by tech related stress?

EG Bloomberg - e.g. alert fatigue, a new nurse takes 3-4 mins for critical alarm, veteran will take 40 mins - frequency related to device constraints - bad design, need to design bottom-up, change to lights, or lights over doors.  American healthcare is not about patient, but about making money, problem is administrators.  

 T5min