The Undivided
Attention Podcast. Listened to the
podcast of Centre form Humane Technology which brings out the problems the companies and technology have brought us.
Tristan had a
conversation with Natasha, the author of the 'Addiction by Design.' She researched on Las Vegas Gambling and shared a lot of inside stories of Gambling. She
shared interesting insights on the addiction and mechanics of Las Vegas.
It's interesting how
the architecture of the gambling zones are designed to lure the consumers into
endless time. Few interesting aspects
that surprised me are the interior designing and the absence of right angles on the carpets.
"The carpet is
drawing them into the gaming areas, they are sort of narrowing at the right point, and they are
never, never having the right angles in them. And that is very important not to
have right angles in the carpets because what a right angle does is it stops you up, and
puts you in the position of a decision maker, where you have to make a choice,
into the gaming area-"
Last thing a casino
wants the person is to decide. We think we're the decision makers but we're easily deceived by the atmosphere.
The
designing casino manuals say, "Not analyze
the various things you observe as you meander along, we want to curve you to
where we want you.""
The curvature design
hasn't ended in the carpet, it went on to the curvature of ergonomic seats. The
seats are designed especially for the elderly to allow the flow of blood through arteries. In a production line, there's productivity
to produce and these designs are implemented to increase the continuous gaming
productivity.
Back then, productivity was worked on to get the efficient work from the assembly line and now, it's to get more money
from the consumer.
Natasha also shared a lot of interesting insights on how light, space matters. "Right, so you
are measuring that light doesn't bounce directly at people from interior surfaces
because that will bring them to awareness and tax their senses. You don't want sound
to bounce off walls and come and again make you feel depleted,"
With this kind of
designs, I really wonder how IT office architecture is planned. With
conglomerates like TCS, Infosys, what do they expect from their employees.
I personally find
the architecture dull, boring, uninspiring. I wonder what do they have in mind in designing these spaces. I also remember my architect friend mentioning, "Lights in IT spaces are so screwed up that they want you not to think much but do monotonous works with a herd mentality."
Back to the podcast
lessons, Natasha explained how there's a shift from mechanical reels to computational devices. Despite the upgrade in
the devices, the design to trap the customer into the game as there's time on
the device, they've also computed many false wins to let them be in the zone.
There are levels
that are not too tough so that you give up, there are also levels that are not so easy that you stop of boredom.
There's a sweet spot
between anxiety and boredom where the levels challenge you to be there, playing for
long time.
With this kind of
methods and design, Natasha, Tristan discussed how it's a problem of technology
but not the person. Because the technology around us is running on the attention
economy.
Everyone wants our attention.
Discussing if the answer rests with the individual or algorithm, Tristan concluded with great perspectives on technology and design. Love the podcast.
In between the
podcast, there's a conversation between Tris and Aza discussing the problems of
design and usage. Aza designed the infinite scroll. He says, " I got
caught believing that making an
interface easier to use meant it was better for humanity. Instead, it was one of the first
interfaces that got used not to help you, but to hold you."
There are many suggestions Aza gave out to fight back the addiction.
"If the user says like, I don't really want to be using Instagram more than 15 minutes, we'll just start slowing things down just a little bit after 15 minutes, because you've asked the user what they want and now you're just helping align their environment so that when they trust fall into the interface, the trust fall is aligned with their values and what they want. It's adding friction back into the interface."
Interesting Podcast. Here's the link.
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