The smartphone is not a miniaturized computer, but an existential prosthetic; it is embedded in the body. The lecture explains why mobile design is fundamentally different from desktopic design, which means «projecting within continuity» — and how the role of the designer shifts from the maker of the handsome to the maker of the hypotheses, against the background of Andy Clark, Donna Haraway, and the question of new cyborgization.
A phone is a device that lives in a user’s body and day-to-day environment. Everything you design here will exist in motion, in haste, in fatigue, in the cold, in bad signals and in lockdowns. So mobile service is a special form of design that is fundamentally different from desktop design. And we’re not starting with the buttons, we’re starting with the very scene of this existence.
Why aren’t we starting design from the screens anymore?
Rapidly generated screens are no longer a problem. EI makes «beautiful» in minutes; a beautiful UI has become a fairly cheap commodity. Then what does the designer do?
Designer is the person who formulates the hypothesis, concentrates on the main one, chooses the best. When screens can be generated quickly, they cease to be rare. So the project can no longer hold on to the beauty of the interface. The role of designer is shifting. Designing is no longer about «inventing beautiful things,» but «formulating hypotheses; proving that this task requires mobility; choosing what to show.»
Mobility is a characteristic of experience
Anthropological and ontological simulations
Today’s smartphone is a continuation of our body and consciousness — a kind of existential prosthetic, memory, perception, communication. We carry him around all the time, sleep next to him, first thing in the morning. He’s always at arm’s length. It’s a new form of cyborgization, the introduction of digital logic into our daily lives, our mental and social practices.
Andy Clarke and distributed agency.
Andy Clarke, a philosopher from Extended Mind, even introduced a special term for this phenomenon: widware, «broad» systems that include both biological and technical elements distributed in space. A man with a smartphone is a typical example of such a system. This is a private case of a more general trend: the blurring of the boundaries of the human entity, its distribution into networks and devices. The Cartesian concept of an autonomous, independent entity, clearly separated from the world, no longer works. Technology, algorithms, media are breaking into us at the micro level and shaping our behavior. We’ve always been infected by the unknown other, be it bacteria in our intestines or the recommendation algorithms in our smartphones. Our entity is always unclean, always contains something alien, and we cannot, in principle, completely control these «infection» processes. Technology, media, collective ideological fantasies act as some kind of «unhuman» actors that infiltrate us at the micro level and define our behaviour. Perhaps we should start moving from the creation of friendly interfaces to the more radical and «unhuman» forms that point to this fundamental technological transformation of the subject.
Cyborgization in htulucene
Donna Haraway and her family in the htulucene.
Donna Haraway, a key figure in modern technology philosophy and feminist theory, offers a figure of cyborg as a way of rethinking traditional boundaries — between man and inhuman, organism and machine, culture and nature. To her, the cyborg is not only a man with digital implants, but also any hybrid creature embodying the blurring of these boundaries. Moreover, a cyborg for Haraway is a political figure, a way to undermine established regimes of power and identity. Being a cyborg means slipping away from imposed categories, inventing new forms of solidarity and resistance. But the cyborg is ambivalent. These are not only releases, but also new forms of exploitation, such as the use of tracking and Big Data for manipulation. Aware of ourselves as cyborgs, we can be more critical of our technological conditionality and find new, more productive ways to coexist with technology — that is, to be cyborgs.
The phone’s closer to you than your juicy vein.
The Koran says: «God is closer to man than even his jugular vein.» (Surah 16, p. 50). The phone is now, of course, further away from man than God, but still closer to man than his jugular vein. It’s a finding of a profound psychological and even physiological connection that’s emerging between us and our vipers. Smartphone — we touch it thousands of times a day; it’s the most intimate personal thing, the continuation of our body. And that puts special responsibility on designers. It’s a centre of day-to-day management. It’s a 24/7 alarm, card, money, alarm and boredom shelter; it’s very staff, it’s a node of memory, navigation, communication, self-observation. Comfort causes a persistent habit, the slightest inconvenience — an irritation like a rock in a shoe.
Any negligence, any malfunction in this delicate emotional mechanism causes disproportionate irritation. Ugly icon, inaccuracy leveling, slow-down-- seem to be small, but they can ruin everything. It’s like a little pebble in a shoe that’s endlessly annoying until you shake it out. The smartphone interface is turning around as a continuation of our personal space, our territory. And any invasion, any breach of its integrity is perceived as a threat. Emotional design is a way to establish trusting, almost intimate relationships with the user. And, like in any close relationship, there’s no detail here. Moreover, emotional design has proved to be a powerful tool for differentiation in the oversaturated application world. When functionalities are about the same, it is emotion and style that become the decisive factors of choice.
The difference between a mobile device and our other screens
But there are limitations.
Small screen Unlike desktop computers and laptops, mobile devices have a much smaller screen area. This places severe restrictions on the amount of information that can be placed on the same screen and requires careful prioritization of content. ## Unstable Internet connection Smartphones are often used in unstable or slow Internet connections. To ensure business continuity, designers need to optimize rapid download applications, use data caches, progressive downloads, and provide offline access to key functions. Often, plugs are used, and the user has the illusion of uninterruptible downloading content, although in reality he sees an animated graph. ## The application battery, which quickly unloads the battery, causes irritation to users and may even lead to the removal of the application. Designers should optimize applications for energy efficiency, minimize the use of resource-intensive functions such as GPS or background synchronization.
Phenomenology of touchscrine
Tuchscreen, unlike a mouse, provides direct, direct interaction with digital objects. When we touch the icon with a finger, it’s like we’re really touching it, manipulating it in real space. In a sense, a touchscreen opens up a fundamentally new way of being a digital world that requires a radical rethinking of the basics of design itself.
Zero design example: there’s no smartphone, you just hold a calculator in your hand.
This creates a sense of naturality and «preparedness-k-hand» (using the Hydegger concept). Of course, it’s an illusion — we actually interact with the plane of the screen, not with the objects themselves. But this illusion is critical to user experience. It puts special obligations on designers. Since we give the user the illusion of «direct access», digital objects must behave naturally and predictably. Any failure of this illusion will be perceived as frustration, destruction of the «magic» interface.
A cristomatical example of such a failure is the failed design of the early Kindle application for iPad, where an unnatural «swipe and release» gesture was used to roll pages, instead of a simple swipe, as in a real book. Many users have complained that it «takes out of the stream,» reminding them that they are dealing not with a real book, but only with its digital simulation. Ironically, the more «direct» and «natural» interaction, the more sophisticated design must be. The Zero Design (Zero design), which seeks full transparency in the interface, is in fact the result of an enormous effort to optimize experience.
Ergonomics
The typical use of a smartphone is one hand, a thumb. A very natural and intuitive position, but it creates serious limitations on the reach of different areas of the screen. In particular, it is almost impossible to reach the left upper corner with a thumb. That’s why it’s rare to have important interface elements. Conversely, the bottom area on the right is the hottest, usually containing key buttons and options.
A good designer should create interfaces that are convenient, both physically and mentally. The platforms' Guidelines provide specific guidance on the size and location of the elements based on research. But sometimes conscious violation of conventions can be an innovation (e.g., «long» styps in Tinder, which support emotional action at the motor level).
Four ingredients in one glass
A matter of ethics, not aesthetics.
Interactive 1. Put the extras away.
One screen — One Dominant
Forget the target audience. Design Status
When a designer says «our target audience is young people 18-25 years old,» it’s useless information. The same young man, sleepy and mechanical in the morning, rushes in the afternoon, explores in the evening, panics at night. Different modes need different things. When you design an app for «man in general,» it works for no one. Forget the demographics. Ask me, what is the exact condition of a person when he opens my interface right now?
Imagine: You drive in a tram, with one hand hold on to the errand, and the other hand hold on to the smartphone. In such circumstances, any complexity of the interface is perceived as violence against the user. The designer must choose to free the user from the need to make decisions. One screen is one action, one thought, one gestalt. It creates a sense of control and integrity, it makes it possible to keep the focus.
Deeplyapp
Good examples of this approach are meditation applications like «Headspace». Each screen is a separate meditation, with minimum settings and distractions.
Three contexts
Consider the three key contexts of mobile applications.
Boring at times like this, we’re looking for quick entertainment, short dopamine hinges. Here, the designer’s job is to create cycles of quick rewards that hold attention. A striking example is the mechanics of Pull-to-refresh in social media, where every update of the tape brings a microdose of new content. Or a system of awards and bonuses in game applications. The ethical side of such singers is questionable, but their effectiveness is undeniable.
Emergency in a hurry, under pressure of circumstances, we need minimalism and focus on the main, reliable, unmistakable, and speed of work. Emergency scenarios therefore require special minimalism and a focus on the core. No more options, no more visual noise, just the most necessary elements, big buttons, clear instructions.
A good example is the Uber application interface, where a car call is made by a pair of boots using big buttons.
♪ Lost in an unusual environment ♪ ♪ Navigation, search, recommendation ♪ The interface must be an understandable compass, a guide in a strange space. A good example is apps for travelers like Foursquare or Lonely Planet, which combine clear routes and recommendations with elements of spontaneousity.
What is Netflix’s context?
Of course, these three contexts do not exhaust the diversity of scenarios for the use of mobile applications. But they set a good basic frame for design thinking. In each case, we are dealing with a particular psycho-emotional state of the user and special environmental conditions — and our task is to adapt the interface to these conditions and conditions. In fact, a good mobile application must be a sensitive interviewer tailored to our condition and situation. It’s fun to be bored, to be stressed, to guide when you’re lost.
Interactive 2. What’s the user’s condition?
The main question you should always ask is, why should it be an app and not a website?
Two project formats in this module
In this module, you can go in two ways. First is an application that solves a specific user task. Man opens it to achieve a specific goal. It may be boring to design, but it has to work. Second way is an application as a study. As a way to recapture experience, perception, urban movement, attention. The application may be philosophical, experimental, may not be commercial at all. But these are two different universes? No, it’s one educational standard. In both cases, you need a hypothesis, you need to understand the context, you need a scenario logic, you need a prototype that works. The only difference is what your interface is trying to do: solve the problem or rethink the experience.
Interactive 3. One idea is two versions.
The role of designer in the age of generic tools
Beautiful I.E. screens are quick, beautiful, and plausible. If the task is already on the cultural track — a mobile bank, a taxi, a food delivery — it will produce a convincing result very quickly. And it’s gonna seem normal. But normal and good are not the same thing. Your role is to choose, cut, check, hold the frame of hypotheses. I.I. is a material producer. You’re taste bearers, criteria, judgment. So we start here not with mudboards or refords, but with the hard part: understanding why the solution we’re proposing should live on a person’s phone.
Rules for working with AI in this module
Three Philosophy lenses
Stigler insists that the poison cannot be separated from the cure. Every function you design at the same time helps and poisons. The Push notification, which reminds me of the important thing, is that it interrupts the dream. The GPS that leads to the place, it kills the skill of wandering. The four load ingredients in our lecture — visual, cognitive, motor, contextal — are four pharmacological channels: each can be facilitated (the cure), but the relief itself creates a new dependence (the poison). The solution for your design is: every decision in a mobile interface is pharmacological. The question is not «good or bad» but «how do we move the balance towards medicine, knowing that the poison will not disappear?» Design not the use, but the dosage.
♪ Linse 2. Dark media without an address: an unhuman ancestor in a pocket. In an article entitled «Putrefactio culture», we’re looking at Eugene Tucker’s idea of dark media — technologies that do not transmit meaning, but are opening a gap where human beings move into an alien culture. The cursed video cassette from «The Call» doesn’t add up anything, but triggers an event that can’t be undone. The recommended algorithm for your smartphone is the dark medium par excellence. He doesn’t know what he’s doing; his operations take place in a black box that’s not transparent even to engineers. The real horror is not that we are being manipulated (that would be humanly understandable), but that manipulation is not. There’s a self-replicating system that is indistinguishable to human, but that still shapes your affinity landscape — that you see what you’re afraid of, what you want. We’ve already said that «unhuman» actors enter us at the micro level and determine behavior. Dark media is the exact name for this process. Your phone is not a neutral instrument or a malicious manipulator. He’s a third thing: an object whose real intuition is fundamentally unavailable, but whose effect on you is quite real. Tucker wouldn’t call him Pennywayse, but rather Azatot would be a blind, insane god around which nameless flute players dance. The output for your design is: by designing a mobile service, you connect the user to the dark media ecosystem. The algorithms that will work inside your application — recommendations, ribbons, put them — are not the tools of your control. They’re human actors with their logic. Your job is not to pretend that you control them, but to make their presence visible to the user.
♪ Linsa 3. Bladder puncture: Intimateness as an ontological risk Developing in the bookNigredo» The idea of object-oriented ontology by Graham Harman, I introduce the concept of black foam. Each object — man, dog, font, algorithm — is isolated by a wall*: its real intuition is fundamentally unaffordable to another. We’re always alone. The contact between bubbles is possible only through puncture is an act, always risky, sometimes painful. A phone that is «near you than your jugular vein» is a continuous puncture device. It cuts through the wall of your bubble with hundreds of microholes a day: notification, call, message, update tape. Every puncture is contact with someone else: someone else’s joy, someone’s anxiety, someone’s advertising, someone’s opinion. The puncture can be. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A quiet message from a friend, a useful route, a soft reminder. And the puncture can be violent. It’s an endless camouflage, panicary notification, dark pattern, which goes into the vortex. When we say «chambers in a shoe,» we describe this: a micropuncture that disrupts the airtightness of the bubble and causes disproportionate irritation. An interface that doesn’t work is a puncture in the wrong place: instead of contacting the world, you get contact with the vision of the device itself. The interface from the punk becomes cash, discovers itself as an alien stupid thing. The outcome for your design is: The intimateity of smartphones is not a metaphor. It’s an ontological fact: the device punctures your isolation hundreds of times a day. Design the quality of the puncture: to make contact with the world through your interface soft, not violent. So that notification would be a mirage, not an invasion. So that the four load layers — visual, cognitive, motor, contextal — wouldn’t turn each touch of the screen into another wound on the wall of the bubble.
What do you have to take from this lecture?
From this lecture you do not take a beautiful mudboard or the idea of an app, but a given situation of use (where, when, in which circumstances, in which environment); understanding of the user’s state is his mode, his load; explaining why the problem is not solved by the site; the first draft hypothesis.
The mini-task right now, each in three minutes describes one situation in its life where the mobile interface saved or failed.
Homework: Field ethnography
Final formula
A mobile application is a form of organization within someone’s body and day-to-day activities. It’s a simple but rigid maxim. If your project doesn’t organize real action, if it’s not part of a person’s real life, it’s not an app yet, and the set of screens is beautiful, maybe well designed, but still. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The design of interfaces is a practical humanitarianist.
