McGazz ([info]mcgazz) wrote,
@ 2006-10-20 13:22:00
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Architecture of (bladder) Control

I find this blog very interesting. The author examines the ways that the designers of products and systems incorporate elements that control the user, and either encourage or compel them to behave a certain way.

As I was getting myself a cup of tea in work this morning, I overheard a colleague talking about a problem at the tanning salon his wife runs. Each cubicle has a bin in it, and a regular customer has apparently taken to vomiting and urinating in it (the guy reckoned the tannee in question might be bulimic).

I suggested he get round the problem by using wire mesh bins. While he was chuffed with this idea, I'm slightly worried that I managed to devise an 'architecture of control' after only a few seconds thought. I must have authoritarian tendancies...


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[info]eulogytobiko
2006-10-20 04:27 pm UTC (link)
If only I'd taped up my phone before I accidentally dropped it into the toilet. :(

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[info]eulogytobiko
2006-10-20 04:33 pm UTC (link)
Where'd the other half of my sentence go??!

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[info]i_am_gill
2006-10-20 07:40 pm UTC (link)
I have been studying product design for over a year now, and come to think of it, I can only remember perhaps one or two lectures in which we discussed designing for the user. I love my course, but it's all very much "you will be given specifications by your company/ client and you shall follow them".

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[info]craig_pulsar
2006-10-20 10:01 pm UTC (link)
Then there's the story of the architect who designed a park. Before the park was finished, it snowed - so she watched people walk across the snow, and ordered the paths to follow the trails people naturally made.

Seemed so obvious, and yet so rare.

Most of the time (in IT at least) design for end users consists of thinking 'how can users fuck this up?' and designing the product to be as resilient as possible. Makes sense, but recently I've had an exasperating conversation with a programmer who is giving us a new system. I told him of a particular function we wanted, he told me back the particular function we would get instead (because the generic system he had to offer was already programmed that way) - might as well not have bothered hiring him.

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