Autonomy, Connectivity, Systems — The Design Of Future Things 4.0.
By: Stacey Mendez
Tags: Autonomous Vehicles, Future Technology, Experience Design, AI, Design And Tech

Sourced from Disney Pixar

This week I listened in to ‘The next big breakthroughs in design and tech for micro-mobility with these forward thinking guys:

I have always been interested in ‘the future’ and what that could or should look like with new technologies and robots weaved into our human world. Like many, I became intrigued by Don Norman's books, or got caught up in Artificial Intelligence and Sci-Fi with films like ‘I-Robot’, ‘Wall-E’, ‘The Matrix’ or UK TV shows like ‘Humans’. For me, the psychology of human behaviours and how we interact or feel towards ‘things’ is what I find interesting. The ability to influence or guide that behaviour, journey, emotional relationship and human-product interaction positively is one of the things I enjoy about being a designer.

So here are the key things I took away from this talk and my take on what that could mean for the us in the design industry and the people we are designing for:

More ‘shared’ ownership, less single ownership in the future. This is across products, accommodation and mobility. Traditional business models of car (and other) companies making profits from the point of sale after purchased is fading. The new norm will be people having subscription based models for transportation, accommodation & products. Just like we currently do for films (Netflix) and our mobile phones. The near future involves us subscribing to have the freedom to choose to use a car, a bike or a scooter one any day. These products will be connected as part of a bigger eco-system of connected products & services. Most likely from the same provider. Like we currently do, we will have basic plans or product models with the option to add-on additional services, products or features. All to help these ‘rented’ products feel personal to us as we use them. So, what does that mean for our design and tech industry? Well for me, it helps explain the confusion of job titles today with newer niche areas such as ‘Business, CX, and Service Design’ also emerging. As we all move towards a future of flexibility and freedom, people will use products connected to services underpinned by subscription based business models. Companies and visionaries will therefore need us to make these eco-systems, products and services compelling and convenient for people living in the new 4.0 interconnected age. As we already know, we have blurred the lines between traditional disciplines. ‘Product design’ can now mean the ability to create both physical and digital products. ‘UX Design’, can mean anything from creating a service, a product, a system, a process, a script/story down to just focusing on a single interaction detail. It depends on what that company is actually trying to do. As a result, you as a designer will eventually be either a hybrid or talented specialist working with the hybrid team. Figuring out the broader interesting opportunity to execute that people find value in, is delightful to use, and meets a new business model. Community adoption and acceptance will be the biggest hurdle. The truth is most people dislike change. For a significant part of the population this transition into the interconnected autonomous world will involve a huge learning curve. Some may even feel forced into it. While I view future ideas of having self-driving scooters and cars and automated services picking and delivering me my food, medicine necessities etc to wherever I am. Providing real-time feedback and or suggestions. I also know others who view this as a nightmare coming true. For them, immediately thoughts of having less control, less privacy, dealing with ‘robots’ /digital systems to rectify mistakes or having their habits as data stored somewhere to ‘be sold’ or ‘manipulated’, are what plays on their minds. As a result, I believe micro-steps are already being introduced for mainstream society. All to help us get familiar and more comfortable. Gentle introductions of electric cars and scooters which, with little effort, can easily connect to social media profiles and location based apps automating our journey plans and storing regular location points. This year the amount of people whizzing around on electric scooters in cities has increased. Adults are using these to commute to work, a friend’s house or the shops for ease and convenience. Scooters are no longer viewed as just mobility toys for kids. With this, I believe the next step will be an increase in driverless public trams, tubes, buses and trains, globally. Leading to a world full of interconnected autonomous based mobility and vehicles. Having first built trust. The slow phasing of this into mainstream society allows for supportive operations to be implemented. Such as government supported electric charging or vehicle locking infrastructures. Pavement and parking detection technologies connected to consumer apps and public transport systems. So, what does that mean for our design and tech industry? I think it means:

There will be an even wider need for designers & engineers to build algorithms and machine learning tools that pro-actively figure out a persons individual needs. Designers will think more like psychologists and conductors than ‘end fixers’ in the design process.

For mainstream adoption and acceptance, the level of intelligence given to these smart products, systems and services will need to be in proportion to the level of trust and familiarity established at that time. This also means these smart products and services will need to be adapted to people’s different mental models of learning or communicating. Or, be opportunities offered from powerful brands which people undoubtedly trust to be led by into this new connected world. On the flip side, there will also be a need for us as designers to build in safety measures and ethics, preventing people from hurting themselves or others intentionally. While there may be good intentions for a better life, people will naturally push the limits, test boundaries or manipulate outcomes for their own agenda.

3. Safety, feedback and quality of roads will be an issue. Covid-19 led to more companies converting into a permanent or semi-permanent working from home policy. This with the development of technology and mobility means it is likely our future roads and highways could predominately be used for autonomous vehicles. With less human traffic. If happens, there is likely to be, A) A higher level of road fixes & road maintenance to enable efficient, reliable autonomous services and B) A higher level of human-robot interactions on a day-to-day basis. For me, this leads to future design questions around:

How can we build such a high level of feedback and awareness into autonomous products, to where they can respond accurately to varying human issues/perspectives?

What personality do we create in these products, services and robots, so they can interact with people and their individual cultural differences within communities?

How can we ensure these products, services and robots will recognize and respond to people of all colours, genders, shapes and sizes, in a way that is productive for mainstream society?

So, what does that mean for our design and tech industry? I think this means a need for more strategic design leadership AND, either diverse design teams, or pro-actively testing ‘new solutions’ with diverse audiences. We will all know 2020 for the year of COVID-19, and Black Lives Matter protests. Combined with media postings of bias in facial and gender detection technology. This means companies, now are becoming much more aware of the need to have diverse input and thinking in their teams. Especially at the earlier stages of the design process to gain hypotheses validation before investing in huge or project development or commercialisation costs.

The older days of hiring people who reflect your own ‘self image’ has now resulted in solutions being designed for mainstream society, which were not inclusive. The future will need diverse teams and perspectives to create cohesive outcomes we ALL can rely on, communicate and work with. Solutions that suit the wide variety of users needs, abilities, journeys, behaviours and mental models.

So what else is next?

Good question! Maybe, just like in Wall-E by 2050 all of us will be cruising in space on flying chairs and become an online only consumer society :-). However, I doubt sport innovation teams in Adidas or Nike will let us sit around online all day. What about you? What are your thoughts? I find these future topics and challenges interesting!