How the Next Generation of Products Pushes to Rethink the Role of Users and Designers

Editor's Notes

• #5: Nowadays the world of Making through the web is approached by a diverse set of users, that differentiate each other on the basing of their expertise and purposes as well as on social and cultural habits. It is possible to include Artists; Product designer; Makers; Researchers; but also controversially described profiles such as Nerds and Geeks. Some of them often identified as Professionalamateurs (Pro-ams) From a technological point of view, many recent innovations accelerated the process that led to the democratization of product designing and making: 1) user friendly web-based CAD environments for 3D design such as SketchUp [www.sketchup.com], Tinkercad [www.tinkercad.com], Shapeways [www.shapeways.com 2) Then the already introduced user-manufacturing web services such as Ponoko, Vectorialism [www.vectorialism.com], Thingiverse [www.thingiverse.com], and iMaterialize [i.materialize.com] 3) Such initiatives were also driven by the spread of low cost 3D printers and other layered manufacturing tools
• #6: 4) In parallel, a broad community was born around the open-source hardware and its synergies with digital fabrication. Devices like Arduino microcontroller development platform pioneered this field, and some companies have begun to apply digital fabrication and open-source hardware to consumer electronic products, producing kits which combine electronics and digitally fabricated parts. The success of open-source hardware initiatives can be easily assessed by measuring Google research trends [http://www.google.com/trends] of the word “Arduino” in contrast with microcontrollers leading manufacturers such as “Atmel” [www.atmel.com], “Texas Instruments” [www.ti.com], and “Freescale” [www.freescale.com]. The results shown in Figure 1 provide a qualitative but clear signal of the terrific change in users behavious towards hardware prototyping. Arduino redefined a new (and big) niche of possible users who never faced both the electronic and programming before Arduino has appeared in the market. 5) Lastly, in this context, a primary role can be played by the Internet Of Things (IOT) would not be just self-created by the user, but also “alive” in an interconnected smart system that includes objects, individuals, and social networks. DIY and IOT together have the potentiality to move from the creation of fixed artifacts by traditional DIY-ers to the mass realization of smart objects, able to adapt to social and technical changes.
• #7: In such scenario, we decided to investigate the possibility to develop a common design language that values both professional designers and users (as-designers)
• #8: The design theory model that we took as a reference for our purpose is FBS. The FBS model basically assumes that the three entities that constitute the acronym, and their mutual relationships, encode all the relevant information about a product or a process. Functions are the interpretation of physical behaviours according to the users goals. Gero [15] describes them as the motivation for the product existence or, more generally, ascribes them to teleology (i.e. what the object is for). Behaviours are the “physical phenomena” that cause the change of the “states” of the system. In our view behaviours are the descriptions in natural language of the equations (belonging to physics, chemistry, mechanics, etc..) that describe the evolution of a system (i.e. what the object does). Structure: Even if the discussion on the term structure has a long tradition [13,20–22], here we define structure the set of physical entities (subassemblies and components) and their parameters (i.e. what the object is).
• #9: Since FBS are really intuitive also for novices and not experts in design theories the authors developed a framework where the users could design and program their products by adopting a FBS design space. For this purpose, the study concentrated on the identification of the key generative factors that can encompass the conception and design of a new object through the web, as well as on the analysis and clustering of the possible users. Structure: It allows the user to choose the skin of the product (the external shape) and its structural characteristics, but also its brain (the central “nervous system”) that include also the set of all sensors (the peripheral “nervous system”) and all actuators of the device. Behaviours: Low level programming allows the expert user to configure the behavior of those elements belonging to the brain set (structure). Functions: This level allows the user to design and program (high level) the product functionalities. The actions and reactions of the device are defined through a set of rules to organize behaviors on the basis of a cause-effect logic.
• #10: Each user, based on the individual expertize and needs, can interact in different ways with the above described three factors. Different typologies of users have been clustered on the basis of their possible levels of interaction with the three key generative factors. The amount of interaction of a generic user depends on both measurable and less measurable reasons such as skills, technical expertise, creativity, motivations, etc. A first ethnographic analysis has been conducted during the Rome Maker Faire 2013 and involved 50 potential users (in particular: 3 researchers; 3 product designers; 3 artists; 10 amateurs; 12 makers; 9 nerds/geeks; 10 mainstream users). The investigation provided the results shown in Table 1. Given the nature of users’categories, interactions with structure and behaviours have been detailed into Physical and Electronic features. The clusters resulting from this analysis are the following.
• #11: The conducted analysis allowed the development of a web platform that enables proficient users, pro-ams and mainstream users to create fully customized smart objects. According to the already introduced levels of interaction, the user can access the platform through three different virtual areas that correspond to the three key generative factors. Functions: Here the goals of the smart object are defined, selecting from a set of functions achievable through the available set of behaviours. Once the user-designer identified the wanted functions for his/her own device, an intuitive set of graphical objects and a functional positioning grid allow the logic translation of functions into behaviours (i.e. Formulation process). The logic allows the definition of a structured set of rules that contextualize the behavior of the smart object on the basis of the planned functions. Rules are easily understandable thanks to an if-then logic, developed in the “Behaviours” section, described in the following natural language structure: When something happens, Do something magical.
• #12: The conducted analysis allowed the development of a web platform that enables proficient users, pro-ams and mainstream users to create fully customized smart objects. According to the already introduced levels of interaction, the user can access the platform through three different virtual areas that correspond to the three key generative factors. Functions: Here the goals of the smart object are defined, selecting from a set of functions achievable through the available set of behaviours. Once the user-designer identified the wanted functions for his/her own device, an intuitive set of graphical objects and a functional positioning grid allow the logic translation of functions into behaviours (i.e. Formulation process). The logic allows the definition of a structured set of rules that contextualize the behavior of the smart object on the basis of the planned functions. Rules are easily understandable thanks to an if-then logic, developed in the “Behaviours” section, described in the following natural language structure: When something happens, Do something magical.
• #13: Behaviours: this area allows the creation of the graphic blocks that enable the smart object to perform a particular action. Concerning “electronic behaviour”, a web based programming environment allows the construction of the graphic blocks containing a particular portion of code that enables to elaborate a given input or to perform a particular output. Of course a behaviour can be performed after a particular input event happens. Thus, in this area the user defines the set of triggers that allow the execution of a given action. Triggering events can be related to a range of values of a particular variable. In addition, “physical behaviours” belonging to a vast set of fields, such as mechanics and ergonomics, can be set up. This can be, for example, the connection of two physical objects whose mechanical interaction allows an electrical connection through the plugging of compatible pin sockets.
• #14: Structure: Here is where the user can select or define the hard feature of the smart device. STL models can be uploaded or selected allowing the realization through 3D printing of the object case (Physical Structure, i.e. Skin). In addition, electronics, sensors, extension board, etc. are selected (Electronic Structure, i.e. Brain).
• #15: Each of the presented sections allows the user saving single FBS features to be used as building blocks for the development of various devices. In this way, each user contributes to the development of a FBS features library. All the community users can gather FBS features from the library in order to build their own devices. This community based approach empowers also non skilled users in conceiving new customized smart objects.
• #16: The platform allowed the design and creation of a first exemplary case. The device, is a 3D printed smart object whose basic characteristics are reported in Table. It is the result of the collaboration of a team of advanced and novice users, each of which concentrated on a particular FBS aspect according to the background. First of all, a panel of Mainstream Users concentrated on the definition of the functions to be achieved by the device. The device was defined to: perform a vibration; emit a light; blink; communicate through the web; physically connect with other devices by means of a particular shape. Behaviours have been set up by a team of Pro-ams Users on the basis of the defined functions. Some electronic behaviours were already present in the set of coded blocks, while other blocks have been defined ad hoc. In particular, at this phase the user-designers established the necessary triggers (“when”) to perform a given function (“do”). In this case, light emissions were set to change color and vibration to be activated on the basis of a given levels of noise in the surrounding environment. Moreover, the connection with the web allowed the posting of a tweet containing the message “its hot!” once a given temperature was detected. The structure has been designed according to the previous choices. A product designer defined the puzzle-shaped physical structure, basing on aesthetic and behavioural requirements (a puzzle allows to physically secure the connection among two devices). In addition, a team of Pro-Am users selected the necessary electronic through the platforms library.
• #17: The object has been manufactured with a low-cost 3D printer through a Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) process. The electronic has been easily assembled using prototyping kits and breadboards. Involved users provided generally positive feedback on the usability of the system. The product have been conceived and manufactured in less than one week and presented in a public event. These results give a first evidence on the potentiality of the system to provide professionals and amateurs with an user-friendly platform that allows pro-active collaboration among different profiles
• #18: FBS as an enabler for conceiving and designing everyday devices development in the user-as-designer era; Interaction through three different virtual areas that correspond to the three key generative factors. Democratization of design through a holistic system. First evidence on the potentiality of the system to provide professionals and amateurs with an user-friendly platform that allows pro-active collaboration among different profiles LIMITS the system does not implement any feature to proof the consistency of the designed products (this boost trial and error approaches and stimulates users’ learning by doing). Future work test on a wider set of users and application will provide a structured set of feedback on the effectiveness of the approach and the interaction with the platform identification of the unexplored layers of the proposed design process in order to reinforce the FBS-based framework. This will allow performing an ex-post FBS consistency check of the designed products that can guarantee the validation of the selected product, without interfering with the learning by doing philosophy