A (product) role for the (human) soul

Designing for the self at this point sounds like a very foreign concept. After almost two quarters of designing for other people (Pedro, is not me), John Zimmerman's lecture discussing design research, designing product, and the philosophical gap seemed foreign and new, but also refreshing. Let me elaborate.

Zimmerman's studies often took the perspective of pursuing an experience, or life goal, and through the interactions with product to find these experiences or achieve these goals, users built up relationships and became attached to the product themselves. An interesting example, which simple and logical enough, was also startling and intriguing, was the example Zimmerman gave of parents and the books which they read to their children.

Now, reading a book to one's child at night seems to be a simple enough task, requiring (usually), no more than fifteen to twenty minutes, and usually the books would rotate between a set number of favorites that the child held. Now fast forward 15 years. One example of product attachment that was given was the attachment parents build with books that they read to their children. Now obviously, these books are not held so dearly because of their content, market value, or age. Rather, Zimmerman discusses, these books were kept because they are a manifestation of the goals that the parents held when their children were younger. While the book did not matter, the book(s) represented the parents desire to be good parents, and these books were tools to reach that goal.

Perhaps, one might attribute the retaining of the books to nostalgia, and for scrap booking purposes, but I think that is really interesting to look at how parents interact with the products that their children use. Very often, we look at what the children keep or remember, such as that stuffed animal that they loved and dragged everywhere (Hobbes), or the security blanket that we never let go of (Linus), but what about the parents? Perhaps the discussion of retaining books that were read often touched a string of my soul, but I think that this is indeed something that we can look into, and perhaps find out a little about product attachment at a very personal level. So the next time you call mom or dad, ask if they've got anything hidden.

I offer an interesting thought though: do people develop stronger attachments when they are undergoing role transitions? My thought is that generally mom or dad will keep scrap books, old toys, video tapes, etc of the first child more so that the second, the thought being that these items represent strongly the transition from being husband and wife to being father and mother. Likewise, are we more prone to develop strong attachment to items that are crucial to our transitions from middle/grade school to high school, high school to college, college to working/single adult, etc. In our pre-lecture luncheon, John Zimmerman spoke about how the little things that people never considered about college to be the things that were recalled by freshmen he studied. Take for example, the shower caddies that students use to transfer their toiletries to and from their dorm rooms to the communal showers. While communal showers aren't the highlight of college, why is it that so many students recall it? Because it is so strange, foreign, so unlike their former residence (home), that it sticks out in their mind? While I doubt any of us have built any sort of attachment to our shower caddies during our relatively short tenure as freshmen (and college students), can any think about items that they feel any special relation to?

With all of us (except Mark, who will be ancient when he finishes school) leaving school (again) and (hopefully) entering the working world, what products would help you with the transition? I asked one of my friends, who responded "a teleporter" and explained that with free and instantaneous travel, he could keep up with all of his college buddies at no expense. Discussing with other already working friends (and this was also discussed during our luncheon), the working world is not really there to accept you as a person, but rather as an employee. Co-workers will be friendly (hopefully), but probably not necessarily want to be friends. So what do you want? Teleporters? A more grown up Facebook? All your college buddies? Sigh... on second thought, maybe the working world isn't for me.