The other day we got to hang out with robots. I know what you’re thinking, but these weren’t your average everyday robots, these were robots that could look, speak, listen, and move. Two out of our five senses wasn’t bad. And did I mention they were being operated from a real person thousands of miles away?
The “coolness” factor wore off after a bit, but what really shocked me was the “humanness” I started to feel after a while. It was sort of creepy. As it stared at me blankly from across the room I began to feel as if it was just another real life person with me in the conference room.
It occurred to me that the only difference was in its lack of physical and emotional expression. You know those subtle hints you get in a meeting such as someone staring down at their phone to check their email, or shifting their body in a nervous manner, or smiling, or raising their eyebrows. It had a screen with a person on it, but it didn’t feel like enough.
Then I started to realize that our emotional and physical expressions are kind of the ultimate forms of visual feedback. You know “visual feedback”, that term that you’re so tired of hearing at design conferences. These emotional and physical expressions are so instantly communicative and rich in data yet it seems like we have forgotten about them in modern interface design. We’ve known them almost subconsciously since we popped out of the womb and yet they’re hardly ever used for feedback.
Red warnings or green confirmations got nothing on a good ‘ole smile. And guess what, there’s no need for localization (that is, until we meet the aliens). It’s so limiting to pop an emoticon into the input field. I don’t want to try and make a tongue at you with text characters (:P), I’d rather the whole screen give you the tongue. I realize there are technical and hardware limitations, but nothing we can’t get past in the next ten, twenty years.
Why do you think Johnny 5 had those metal shades for eyebrows? Wall-E? So they could express themselves, beyond a simple glowing red light.
Is there a career field for robot interface design yet? Sign me up.
