Brief 5 - Yellow

Applied to developing technology, such as a sustainable mobile phone here, this approach calls for employing an “output pull” rather than an “input push”. That means interactions with, on, and through the mobile phone are put in first place and determine furthermore what input (of energy, materials, and technical solutions) is necessary. Here this approach is applied to discover sufficient and sustainable design solutions via the interactions as output pulls.

E-ink display technology has early been mentioned in the sustainable technology design literature (Tischner & Hora, 2012) and found its way into phone models, such as the Russian-made Yotapone (ca. 2013-2019, see (PhoneDB - The Largest Phone Specs Database, 2020) https://phonedb.net/index.php?m=device&id=8249&c=yota_phone_2_yd205_lte&d=detailed_specs for reference), as well as into e-readers and tablets like the Norwegian-made ReMarkable. With e-ink passive display technology, the energy consumption compared to usual LCD and (O)LED technology is significantly lower, which is due to only having to power the switching operations when the displayed content changes. The state-of-the-art is greyscale perception of visual content, i.e. the passive displays are still monochromatic, as e-ink in RGB and pixels that then provide the usual colour spectrum, have been subject of much imagination and investigation, but to no avail.

Does that in a way mean there should be greyscale versions of whatever media content just as there are mobile/tablet/PC versions of websites for instance? Can or should such a greyscale version in turn encourage the user to fall back on it whenever appropriate, e.g. when mostly reading texts, such as prosa/literature, comments on SoMe, news on websites, instructions or static content, etc.?

On the other hand the human’s colour perception ability might be a strong pull for research on RGB e-ink. Should we strive to make interactions as similar as possible to what we have been used to, while only “going green” through the technology’s energy efficiency gain? What does the passive-ink imperative - “Consume no energy as long as the displayed content does not change!” - mean for interactions like scrolling then?

In general, consider the raised interaction issues and thought provocations under the question: How do they resonate with the Performance vs. Preference design principle (see picture)?

Let’s take here two concrete examples of possible output pulls. You can later reflect on whether maybe they are input pushes in disguise, but first assume, these alternative interactions are somehow desired (which will we more or less argued for below):

Number One suggestion stems from a phone design concept that is called cicret bracelet, which is a smartphone without display but a skin-projection screen that supposedly also employs touch technology (on the skin), mediated through the projection technology. Like with keyboard projection (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projection_keyboard, or a more recent application https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/805472788/masterkey-40), you can also think of projection to other surfaces, e.g. as done for GoogleGlass onto glasses in front of your eye(s) (see https://www.google.com/glass/start/).

Does such an interaction-side pull, that we want something displayed for our eyes to perceive, justify the means, i.e. the materials and energy we have to put in? Is the input side - so projection and projective touch technology as well as the light (energy) in use - worthy of being preferred over former display technology, e.g. LCD and/or (O)LED? In other words, may the projection be significantly more effective, i.e. sufficient and thus sustainable?

From reading about minimalist phones like Light or Punkt at http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20180814-the-new-phones-that-are-stuck-in-the-past) designers and developers also get a call to “do not make smartphones to wearables (i.e. smartwatches) in a ‘chronos’ manner but a ‘kairos’ manner”. How does that resonate with this first suggestion here to consider such “miniaturized” technology (that fits in a bracelet or glasses-frame) with only “projected” screens?

Number Two suggestion, that could be an output pull, concerns audible aspects of using a mobile phone (or in a wider sense audio-electronics). The interaction-side pull here is, that whatever structure/technology is used, it shall provide audible content to the human ear. As with many phone calls (or even meetings on digital conferencing platforms) the situation has often been that a user would want some privacy: Others in the surroundings should not or would not want to listen. With headphones or headsets this is achievable for the incoming talk/sound, but not quite for the outgoing talk/sound. A futuristic technology allows to create so-called audio spotlights through beaming the sound to certain places in a room, the technology is called audiobeam and has been developed by Sennheiser (see https://av.loyola.com/products/audio/pdf/audiobeam.pdf)

“AudioBeam is a new type of directional loudspeaker that is able to focus sound like the light beam of a torch, creating an audio spotlight for museums, exhibitions, theme parks and many other applications. Unlike conventional loudspeakers, which are only able to focus sound at high frequencies, AudioBeam emits sound as a lobe that can be precisely directed and is reflected by objects.
AudioBeam works with ultra-sound, modulating the audible sound onto an ultrasonic carrier frequency, much like a radio station does, and then emitting this signal via 150 special piezoelectric pressure transducers. Audible sound is only generated at a distance from the AudioBeam, when the signal is demodulated because of the non-linearity of air. This can be imagined like the creation of many small, virtual loudspeakers in the ultrasonic zone.
No sound is audible beside or behind an AudioBeam—you will only hear the audio information if you are directly within the sound beam, or if the sound is reflected by a smooth surface. This makes AudioBeam an ideal tool for information terminals, exhibitions, or even conferences where various AudioBeams emit several languages to a defined part of the auditorium.
AudioBeam is fitted with a sensor that switches the loudspeaker off when it registers movement within four yards. AudioBeam is an ideal tool for theme parks where it creates amazing effects with moving sound when combined with a small stepper motor. In an exhibition, AudioBeam will give explanations on an exhibit, which are only audible within a defined area. When mounted opposite an exhibit, the work of art will seem to “talk” to the visitors, as the ultrasonic beam is reflected by smooth surfaces. PC users can forget all about headphones. AudioBeam is their personal loudspeaker—without disturbing others in the office. A very discreet way of addressing customers—the sound will only reach the person directly in front of the machine. AudioBeam can be used to directly address an individual person within a safety area—putting them in an audio spotlight.»

Furthermore, imagination allows to think this audio spotlight in reverse, when human speech shall for instance operate a mobile phone or be transmitted through the mobile phone, yet nobody else is interested to perceive such “noise” in the immediate surroundings. With the human voices on this input side it definitely remains a task for R&D to somehow focus the human sound beam and cancel it out, where it won’t belong (e.g. with noise cancelling technology?). May it be the case that this noise/disturbance for others is holding us back in further developing speech-based interaction with the mobile phone or electronic devices in general?

On a last note, how would we designers, engineers, developers make use of biomimicry in the output-pull devoted interaction design endeavours introduced here? Biomimicry, or bionics, are interestingly used in hardware, structural and motion-related terms to “copy” and apply principles from nature (e.g. (Faludi et al., 2020) study the application of such methods). Could biomimicry also “go digital”, and in case it would, how?