Form, Function and Familiarity

The advocates of form and those of function have been playing tug-of-war with design for a long time. But now we designers are wisely moving in the direction not letting design limit itself to these two. I think the rise of experiential design is extremely crucial to the purpose of broadening horizons with respect to design.

I can give you the example of my mother. My brother and I are computer engineers. We have tried to convince her that however hard she tries, she cannot possibly make our personal computer irreparable. Yet, she’s afraid of using the computer, especially the internet. My grandmother boasts of using the typewriter. But definitely, she’ll have a hard time getting one-on-one with the PC. People say that the learning ability goes down with age. But my grandma got accustomed to the new LCD screen TV (and its remote control) on the very first day. Plus these are the same people who use the television for number of hours beyond imagination. Don’t they feel they might kill the TV pressing the remote control a million times a day? How long will the computer, the mobile, the mp3 player, the DVD player, and many other digital products take to establish the same comfort level as the TV?

Now, is there any way to get rid of the Guia del Usario? Can the user just look at the product and figure the function all by himself? The form certainly will play a major partnership with function here. Giving the user the sense of familiarity, when he uses the product for the first time. I certainly see a new breed of designers working in this domain and hence making the forever-developing technology accessible and available to more and more people.

Emotions and relationships play a very vital role, especially in the Indian subcontinent, as motivating factors to make the non-tech-savvy accept and apply technology. Senior citizens in India would not want to use the internet or chat, unless they know they can see their new-born grandson in Miami. Similarly, another motivating factor would be money.I would call my best friend staying away say once a week. But I’ll scrap him on orkut or chat with him on Yahoo!Messenger more frequently. For free.

I think as Designers for Digital Experience, we have a very wide scope for connecting with the user and creating something they’ll not only accept, but also love to use, love to experience. I sincerely feel, all the knowledge we’ve gained, ever since we were born plays a big part here. Just scratching our brains a bit and living our life again, in your mind, answers so many questions we face while designing anything. Here I’d like to congratulate my friend, Prabuddha Vyas, who did a wonderful assignment in Digital Design and Society-I.