At any given moment of every day, a digital watch with incomprehensible instructions proudly announces the technological illiteracy of its owner.
The contemptuous little ”beep” never comes at the crescendo of a Wagner overture. It happens only during a dramatic pause in Hamlet`s soliloquy, the turning point in a critical sales presentation or at the perfectly
inappropriate moment of a torrid love scene. In the worst case, a sudden, uncontrollable beep has the same social impact as a sudden, uncontrollable belch.
If digital watches were the only devices openly mocking their owners, life in the Technobabble Jungle wouldn`t be so frustrating.
But how much time did you spend programming your videocassette recorder or trying to load a software package into your personal computer?
What did you say when your date asked you to explain the ”ambiance”
knob on your car stereo`s graphic equalizer?
How many of the dozens of features on your office telephone do you actually know how to use?
Face it, Mr. and Ms. Thoroughly Modern: You`re in over your head.
While technology undoubtedly has made your life better, an afternoon stroll through a shopping mall raises obvious questions about whether you really need ”anti-overpronation control” in your running shoes,
”piezoelectric tweeters” in your stereo headphones or ”racing side vents” in your boxer shorts. The exercise bike you bought may feature a
”calibrated analog ergometer readout of Newtonmeters,” and while you couldn`t be happier, there`s the nagging question of, Exactly what is a Newtonmeter?
Obviously, much of the new ”technology” is gobbledygook, an illusion created by advertisers convinced that consumers equate high-tech verbiage with product sophistication. But in many cases, the available technology demands an increased commitment of learning time for which many buyers never bargained.
”The problem is, you buy these nifty things and get them home and regrettably can`t figure out how to use them,” said Jack Laveson, former chairman of the consumer-products technical group of the Santa Monica, Calif.- based Human Factors Society, an international professional society for people in the emerging field of ergonomics-the study of the problems of people in adjusting to their environment.
Digital watches ”are sort of a humorous example of it, but what it says is that you`re not getting full value out of the product,” Laveson said.
”Another example are some good microwave ovens that give you numerous capabilities, when in fact the experience is that most people want it simply to cook and defrost.”
British farmers complained in 1523 about the increasing complexity of the field plow, and Charlie Chaplin`s struggle to cope with the assembly-line mechanics of ”Modern Times” in 1936 struck a chord among Americans both fascinated and frightened by Industrial Age advances.
”As far as consumers are concerned, technological illiteracy has been with us a long time,” said Harold A. Linstone, editor of Technological Forecasting and Social Change, a Washington, D.C.-based professional journal. ”But in relative terms it`s getting worse. Ask any high school kid why a refrigerator cools, and he won`t have any idea.”
The president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology warned recently that the United States is ”at risk as a nation” because the public is ”unable to distinguish sense from nonsense” in science, technology and public policy.
Job titles such as ”Usability/Interface Specialist” now pepper the want ads, and cognitive-science professor Donald A. Norman of the University of California, San Diego, recently published a book titled ”The Psychology of Everyday Things” in which-in a tone reminiscent of fictional mad-as-hell
”Network” television anchorman Howard Beale-he demanded:
”Why do we put up with the frustrations of everyday objects, with objects that we can`t figure out how to use, with those neat plastic-wrapped packages that seem impossible to open, with doors that trap people, with washing machines and dryers that have become too confusing to use, with audio- stereo-television-videocassette-recorders that claim in their advertisements to do everything but make it almost impossible to do anything?”
Curiously, Norman and other ergonomics experts don`t blame the buyer who fails to research which product best meets specific needs or who ignores the manufacturer`s plea to read the instruction manual before trying to operate some new technological marvel. Instead, they blame manufacturers who pay too little attention to the customer, and advertisers who celebrate complexity over simplicity.
”If you have problems programming your VCR, the problem is not that all those features are available to you. The problem is how you`re required to interact with the machine,” said Steven Casey, president of Ergonomic Systems Design Inc. of Santa Barbara, Calif.
”I think designers typically become so familiar with a product they`re working on that they cannot take the perspective of the end user who has never seen the product before, who hasn`t been working on it for two years and who isn`t intimately familiar with it,” Casey said. ”People plug it in, don`t even open the instruction manual and expect it to work. (And) manufacturers haven`t taken the time and systematic approach to design (products) so they are easily used.”
Linstone, the technological-journal editor, said there are signs that manufacturers are trying harder to make their machines more accessible to those who buy them.
”They have simplified programming in the new VCRs with on-screen programming,” he said. ”They`re making them idiot-proof. It`s an interesting reflection on the state of affairs that they`ve had to go to that.”
Norman foresees a glorious day when virtually all decision-making and thought is eliminated from the operation of some of today`s most misunderstood technology.
”We should be able to buy frozen food in the store, put it in the microwave and shut the door,” the professor said. ”The instructions for cooking should be in machine-readable form right on the package. Same with the VCR. I should be able to call the television guide up on my television screen. When I see a program I want to record, I should be able to just touch it to automatically set up the recording.”
Technological confusion is complicated by the facts of life in a competitive consumer culture where invention and advertiser imagination work hand in hand. Not only do manufacturers append confusing, gimmicky and even unnecessary gadgets to their products to make them seem more sophisticated-and therefore expensive-but for years advertisers have used such gadgetry to help sell otherwise basic technology.
Norman sketches a portrait of a consumer culture caught in a ”vicious circle” where people equate fancy technology with success and buy
increasingly complicated machines for home use, and manufacturers who market increasingly complex machines because, obviously, they sell.
That cycle has created some amazingly useless technological innovations.
Does a BMW driver really need to know the temperature of the road surface to the 10th of a degree? Is an alarm clock that emits a fragrance rather than a tone somehow more advanced? How many personal computers have been sold to people who really needed an electronic typewriter?
The confluence of technological development and advertiser verbiage peaks in the modern athletic shoe. Gone are the days of dignified black high-top Keds and gleaming white PF Flyers, the quality of which was judged solely on the length of time between purchase and their ultimate, inevitable
destruction.
Today it`s possible to buy a shoe that includes its own microchip, and even less advanced shoes described in sales catalogues sound like something out of a NASA operations manual. The ”Asics Model GT II TM06,” for example, offers ”compression-molded EVA with Asics Gel and stabilizing heel pillar . . . for anti-overpronation control” and a ”vertical midsole extension collar for motion control.”
Oliver Keith Hansen, 59, a technology consultant and fellow in the Human Factors Society, said: ”We`ve got these enormous growing glossaries of
`technologese,` and nobody can ride herd on it. How much of that new verbiage is necessary, or even makes sense, is open to debate.”
But like the boy pointing out the buck nakedness of the emperor, scientists and consumers are starting to wonder if maybe stereo receivers really need a ”seven-band graphic equalizer with spectrum analyzer,” whether skiers need to know about the ”equalizer under the AFD pad” in their bindings, and whether headphones with a ”rare Earth-moving coil element”
might, in fact, be nothing more than pretty good headphones. –
