Understanding Industrial Design by Simon King & Kuen Chang

Author:Simon King & Kuen Chang
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: O’Reilly Media, Inc.
Published: 2015-04-25T04:00:00+00:00

Figure 3.x Screenshot from Figure Running website showing an animal GPS trail

FigureRunning is a playful twist on everyday exercise. One of the most common uses for connected devices and sensors has been personal health. Dedicated devices like FitBit and Jawbone UP track movement throughout the day, and numerous smartphone apps can capture and share movement information. Nike+ and Runkeeper are two popular apps for runners, both of which record a runner’s route while keeping track of distance and calories burned. Many runners find this quantification of their exercise to be an important motivator and use it to track their progress or compete with friends.

The FigureRunning app and website take a different, more playful approach to running, focusing not on distance or speed but on “drawing” an image by plotting your run on a map. Most running apps provide a visual record of your route, but with FigureRunning the resulting image is the entire purpose. Users have been inspired to run routes in the shape of animals, faces, and words.33 During a run the app allows users to change the color of their GPS trail, or “pencil,” which gives runners more creative control over how their route is rendered. A “multi-artist-run” feature allows multiple people to contribute to the same drawing, and FigureRunning has hosted challenges where runners try to find a route that matches a proposed shape.34

Optimizing a route for the perfect drawing may require runners to go well off the sidewalk, through parking lots, down alleys, and over fences. This playful reframing of why and how someone should run can lead people to explore their environment in new ways, and get more out of a run than just a good workout. It elevates an everyday activity in a hidden way, using what looks like normal exercise for purposes known only to the runner.

Precise sensors are increasingly embedded into common objects and everyone’s smartphone is a wealth of potential data. Designers can utilize this flow of data as a playful design material, treating everyday objects as individual actors on a larger stage. It’s already common to create chains of logical events, inferring intent for one action through another such as turning off the Smart Lights if the Smart Door knows the house is empty. This is efficient, but not very fun. How might connected devices allow for new ways of elevating a daily ritual that brings a smile to the user and those around them? How might embedded computation let design dissolve more easily into behavior? How might we reframe existing activities as part of a playful system that helps users see their environment in a new way?

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