批判互動設計作業6 / M10210118 王柏皓

According to Maslow's hierarchy of human needs, after fulfilling physiological, and security needs, there comes the needs of feeling belongingness, being loved and cared about. InTouch is a design artifact aiming at providing a whole new social interaction experience to fulfill this kind of need. It allows social interaction between friends through simple action of touch and press, where the color on the device shows the level of one's consideration toward their friend while the temperature indicates the friend's.

Although InTouch creatively uses temperature as the metaphor for the considerations toward others, it radically does not provide a precise number of temperature for the user, which might lead to a mis-understanding and therefore fundamentally go against what the first paradigm of HCI are seeking for, that is to optimize the fit between humans and machines.

And because temperature is perceived differently by different people, it is difficult to generate a standardized mapping from temperature spectrum to every levels of considerations. As the result, InTouch does not fit very well in the second paradigm.

While InTouch can't receive good credit in the first two paradigms, the value of it still remains. Not being a task-oriented tool for efficient information communication, InTouch is rather a companion quietly hung in one's room, and continuously providing materials for meaning making, such as one may hold expectation before touching the device to see whether his/her friend is giving consideration to him/her, one may feel companionship while doing other activities in the room for each squares are representing the particular friends...etc. So, from the third paradigm's aspect, InTouch opens up the space for meaning making.

It is these reasons that makes the third paradigm important. Our world is not filled with task and problems. The third paradigm provides a new aspect of viewing the world, and addresses issues that are bad fits to prior paradigms. It sees meaning and meaning construction as a central focus.