Bureau of Ergonomics
Monday, December 10th, 2012
Illustration by Alli Berry
Q: Why do kids’ toys come inside plastic packaging that seems to be impossible to open?
A: I’ve heard various theories about why packaging designs that cause “wrap rage” exist: to provide more jobs in the packaging factory, to prevent theft (both in the factory and in the store), and to make the toys more visible, but secure. Also, keep in mind that toys were among the first mass-produced products to be shipped from overseas and all that packaging protects the precious cargo during the long transit. However, my favorite rationale is that it forces the parents to destroy the packaging, thereby preventing returns once the kids lose interest in a couple of weeks. In truth, some industries (e.g. meds) require tamper-resistant packaging, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be simpler to open. Consumer pressure is causing some manufacturers to improve their packaging accessibility, as is the eco-trend to go from plastic to cardboard and other greener materials, but don’t expect change to come quick enough.
Q: Is voice recognition, like Siri, the future of interface design?
A: Voice recognition is one of those trends that seems to come around every few years, but never lasts—kind of like electric cars or professional baseball in Washington, D.C. Although voice interaction provides great usability advantages over all other types of interfaces, it seems to suffer from the social stigmas of talking to an inanimate object, as well as a lack of privacy. I expect that voice interfaces will continue to be offered as an alternative option, but it will always be paired with manual controls. In the long term, I’m anxious to see further development of subvocalization interfaces that can potentially detect commands from silent speech patterns (like when you read to yourself).
Rob Tannen holds a PhD in human factors and is a Certified Professional Ergonomist. He is the director of research and interaction design at Bresslergroup, a product development firm in Philadelphia. For more help with design and ergonomics, visit Bresslergroup.com.
4 Comments
Rob Tannen
December 10, 2012Holiday edition of Bureau of Ergonomics – why is toy packaging so difficult to pen?
Daniel Murray
December 10, 2012I think that’s an authorized use of Batman although I authorize your cynical take on the packaging preventing returns.
Lior Samson
December 11, 2012As you say, voice recognition interfaces wax and wane in popularity, but they certainly do not offer “great usability advantages over all other types of interfaces.” With in-vehicle interaction, an application area in which I have worked, many OEMs are looking to voice-command as “the solution.” But accomplishing relatively simple tasks with voice-only can take anywhere from 3 to 28 times as long as with touch-screen or other direct interaction schemes–even with 100% recognition accuracy and perfect memory by the user of what to say and how to say it. This prolonged vocal interaction may not take the driver’s eyes off the road, but it is driver-distracted time that is at least as cognitively demanding as a cellphone conversation, which we know can be dangerous. Sub-vocalization does absolutely nothing in these contexts. If anything, it takes more attention to pretend to say but not say something.
Interaction technologies are not solutions to design problems, they are just different design problems, as anyone who has suffered through a badly organized voice menu can testify. Each channel/modality has pluses and minuses, none is universally superior to all others, and all pose challenges for IxD.
–Larry Constantine (pen name, Lior Samson).
Alexander Wildner
December 18, 2012Holy crap, what a great illustration! My socks LITERALLY just flew across the room.