Two-year olds change quickly and gadgets change slowly

I didn’t keep up with my blogging while at the CHI conference this week. To make up for it, each day for the coming week I’ll write about two things I learned.

1. Today I learned just how much a two year old can grow up in a week. She looks different, walks differently, talks differently, sings differently. Were my flights going at close to the speed of light? For example, before I left, I had never heard her consistently and correctly use the pronoun I in any language. She typically said mine in English regardless of the language or syntax of the rest of the sentence. Today she seemed totally comfortable with the concept in any language. For example, she announced “I go on high chair.” Or consider this dialogue with her mother, which demonstrates her newfound confidence in how she communicates:

Daughter: “Ya ustala.” (I’m tired)

Mother: “Ya ustala.” (Thinking she was referring to the mother)

Daughter: “No! YA ustala.”

The same can be seen in how she carries herself. Unfortunately, I don’t have a video from a week ago to compare to. I guess not everyone can, or should, record everything.

 

2. I learned a lot about the history (and present) of gadgets from Bill Buxton at CHI. He is a gifted storyteller and is among other things an anthropologist of computer interaction. He is assembling the Buxton Collection as a glance into the evolution of gadgets, with all of its varied, often surprising and sometimes whimsical branches (see the Phantom Chess set or the dozen different kinds of multifunctional mice).

Buxton prefaces his collection by saying: “Look at the collection and then try and convince me that our slow rate of progress is due to a lack of technology rather than a lack of imagination.” I see his point. Many of the ideas and principles that are thought of as new and innovative in the latest generation of gadgets have actually been around for a long time. As someone who bought a tablet computer years before iPads were a twinkle in Steve Jobs’ eye, I don’t need much convincing.

Although I see Buxton’s point, my take-away lesson is complementary. There’s a big difference between what kinds of interactions we can create with current technology and what kinds of interactions we should create. For the technology to catch on, it’s not enough for it to allow a novel, innovative and useful mode of interaction. It has to be smooth, efficient, reliable, attractive and appropriate for the ecosystem of software and other gadgets around it. So, if Buxton argues that there’s plenty of good technology out their just waiting for ideas of how to utilize it, I argue that there are plenty of good ideas that are already out there in the gadgets of the past just waiting for the technology that will help them shine.