My Robot Gets Me: How Social Design Can Make New Products More Human

Description

Your relationships with your 'smart' products are about to get a lot more personal. Think how commonplace it is now for people to ask Siri for the weather forecast, deploy Roomba to clean their homes, or summon Alexa to turn on the lights. The 'smart home' market will reach well over $100 billion in the next five years on the promise of products that are truly integrated with our cooking, cleaning, entertainment, security, and hygiene habits. But the reality is, these first-generation 'smart' products aren't very smart - yet. We're clearly seeing only the tip of the iceberg in terms of capability and how such products can enhance our lives. How do we take it to the next level? In a word, design - and more specifically, social design. In this fascinating and instructive book, leading product design expert Carla Diana describes how new technology is allowing designers to humanise consumer products in delightfully subtle ways. Showcasing vivid examples of social design principles such as "product presence," "object expression," and "interaction intelligence," we see how inventive uses of light, sound, and movement can evoke human responses to even the most mundane products. Diana offers clear guidelines and takeaways for conceptualising, building, and optimising products using such methods as bodystorming, scenario storyboarding, video prototyping, behaviour charting, and more. My Robot Gets Me provides keen insights and practical advice to anyone interested or involved in the burgeoning smart marketplace, from product designers and developers to managers and venture capitalists.

Carla Diana is a designer, author, and educator who explores the impact of future technologies through hands-on experiments in product design. She has designed a range of products, from robots to connected home appliances, and her designs have appeared on the covers of Popular Science, Technology Review, and the Sunday Review section of the New York Times. Diana created the 4D Design program at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, serving as its first Designer in Residence. She also serves as Head of Design for Diligent Robotics. You can find Carla Diana at: carladiana.com/blog/ and twitter.com/carladian.

"It is impossible to lay out all the lessons in My Robot Gets Me in a single article. I simply recommend that you pick up a copy and take the smart home design of your own home, or the design you offer customers, to the next level." - Residential Tech Today "If you've ever marveled at how and why your devices "just know" things or, conversely, why Alexa keeps doing that one thing that frustrates you as an individual so much, My Robot Gets Me is a worthwhile read." - Civil Engineering (The Magazine of The American Society of Civil Engineers) Advance Praise for My Robot Gets Me: "When it comes to shaping our robotic, 'smart object' future with new and thoughtful approaches to design, Carla Diana delivers in My Robot Gets Me, approaching the subject with both practical and emotional expertise, blending high-level analysis with useful examples. There's no better guide to what comes next—and how to get there." - Rob Walker, author, The Art of Noticing "You're not crazy if you treat your Roomba like a family member or routinely chastise Alexa. As Carla Diana masterfully demonstrates in My Robot Gets Me, when our social dynamic with technology is more in harmony with our human emotions, we form a deeper relationship with the product. Anyone involved in creating new products should embrace Diana's expert guidance on how to design with human-centric purpose and create products intimately responsive to our very human needs." - J. Kelly Hoey, author, Build Your Dream Network "Carla Diana gets to the heart of the symbiotic relationship we have with many of the 'smart' products we depend upon—which for a long time might have seemed weird when they were inanimate, but now, due to new technologies, they're becoming increasingly alive. As someone who's long had deep affection and respect for the many well-designed products in our environment, I can't help the sense that 'this books gets me.'" - John Maeda, technologist; author, How to Speak Machine; and Chief Customer Experience Officer, Everbridge "Carla Diana has always brought a different perspective to the world of technology and product design-and finally the world has caught up with her. Her unique insights into our personal relationships with digital products are deeply relevant (and resonant), whether we're designers or not. My Robot Gets Me is essential reading for anyone curious about why they feel compelled to say thank you to Alexa or why their smartphones make them feel so stupid." - Robert Fabricant, cofounder, Dalberg Design; coauthor, User Friendly