How the Youngest Technology Platforms Can Learn From the World’s Oldest Technology Platform

“Globalization, as defined by rich people like us, is a very nice thing... you are talking about the Internet, you are talking about cell phones, you are talking about computers. This doesn't affect two-thirds of the people of the world.” – Jimmy Carter, as quoted on www.brainyquote.com

Technology is all around us even when it's not computer-based technology.  In fact, there is a long and distinguished tradition of technology that predates the computer by a few millennia, and we can look to some of the oldest technologies to find out how we should – or in some cases should not – do new technology design.

Here goes…  Walk into the men’s room (or ladies’ room - I'm assuming here - I don't poke bears with sticks, shut off a PC during an update or invade territory I’m not supposed to be in), especially a newly-constructed one, and take in the advanced architecture and technology features there to support the oldest functions in the newest ways. 

Let’s begin at the back and move forward.  There are paper gaskets created go in there for sanitary purposes, but they don’t exactly fit.  They are deployed using a tearing out motion that leaves each one of them damaged, sometimes to the point they don’t really work.  But for the sake of this example, let’s assume you get one that works correctly.

You’re in the middle of that efficient and modern facility that has an automatic flush system.  The problem is twofold: there is only one sensor that uses optics to sense a change in light exposure and process otherwise, rather than one of those augmented with a pressure switch to eliminate the problem of the phantom flush.  So much time went into designing them, and so much architecture was done so they wouldn’t be seen as the frightening things that my 3 year-old still somehow sees as frightening, but those eyes are either not calibrated or are not sophisticated enough to tell the difference between a passing shadow cast by someone placing the said cover onto the toilet from a true end of engagement. 

Now, consider if you will the ventilation systems that are in places such as this.  Often times, even if the initial gasket processing works well, the airflow blows it into the bowl, especially when the pressure changes from door movement. 

We will skip a door that does not latch and the paper dispenser that is either too difficult to use, or so poorly engineered in a weight of the roll versus tensile strength manner that after the first dispensing the rest of the paper rolls up inside and requires an expedition to extract another sample.  We will, though, run into the same technology issues with the electric eyes on the water and soap dispensers.  We also have a recursion of the airflow issue with the air dryers. 

You may be asking how that applies to software, or a website, but consider this: the lessons from designing around the most basic of technologies are the same design points for good stuff anywhere.

1)     Security only works if it works.  This sounds too simple, but is every transaction your software/site does that involves sensitive information encrypted properly, and secured properly at the other end?  Are you sure?  Security of sensitive information is too often the equivalent of that paper gasket. 

2)     Controls need to match the needs of the users.  There are many instances when autocorrect does the wrong thing, where the hover buttons delay, then cause you to have clicked on something you didn’t intend, etc.  If you have something that happens automatically, and the users don’t need it to be that way, it is actually technology misapplied.

3)     There is a natural flow to everything, and it needs to be used when necessary, and avoided when not.  Like the ventilation that isn’t calibrated for the flows of the room, the workflows within your software and processes need to be set up so that they aren’t destructive.  A great example of this is when you don’t fill out every blank of a form, hit submit, then have to go back in and refill everything because of that one.  This also happens when you’re using a piece of software and try to alter a graphic, only to click one pixel too low in a menu so you click on the next item down and change the default settings for the whole program. And into the bowl goes the gasket…

As I was having difficulty tonight with jitter in my Skype signal and simultaneously bad reception for my cell phone, it struck me that these design basics have been lost in what I’ll call bleeding-edge dwelling.  30 years ago neither existed, but we had some awfully good signal through the copper via analog switches.  The functional difference between a call done on an analog copper line and a wireless videochat with such a poor signal that you can’t use the video is that the copper line carries the voice well, while the same signal issues causing video problems also introduce chatter and jitter.  When Skype works it’s essential to help maintain contact with my family, but when it doesn’t…

We have made so many strides in the technology, but we get less use out of it.  By trying to assist in the designing of automatic things, we have introduced elements that actually undo what we try to accomplish.  Automation is great – I regularly use it myself – but it has to be done right.  What if we spent as much time on the actual usability of our designs as we did on the ‘coolness’ factor?  Might we have also added a pressure switch to those electric eyes to confirm ‘done’ versus ‘fidgeted’?  Might voice to text development not have lagged the development of keyboards for smartphones?  Just some thoughts.