One of the biggest problems I have with my phone occurs when I am at home or out with friends and it vibrates only without a ringtone. This is bothersome because it causes me to miss calls because the phone is only buzzing on the couch and I can’t hear it, and it also makes me miss valuable opportunities to show off my awesome ring tones. Another big problem is that I get text messages or phone calls when I’m busy, and when I’m busy I’m really bad at getting back to people in a timely manner. For example, if you text me and I’m in the middle of something, I might not get back to you until the next day, which can be a big problem.
To solve the vibrate problem, I would have my phone be able to know whether I’m in a situation where a loud ringtone is appropriate. Using a combination of my calendar, GPS, and the earphone, my phone would know some things like when I’m in a meeting (from my calendar), when I’m at the movie theatre (from GPS), or when I’m at a party (from the earphone). Even though this could be annoying, I would even put up with my phone asking me whether it should be on vibrate mode. For example, if I was in a place where my phone is not sure what setting it should be on, it could buzz to remind me to set its ring mode appropriately.
To solve the busy texting problem, I would have my phone analyze the content of text messages or voice mails and let me know if a message seems urgent. My phone would also let the caller designate a message as urgent. If a message is urgent, my phone would bother me constantly until I took care of it or said “this is not actually urgent”.
I’m hoping that some of these hypothetical designs would help remedy some of the current social-technical gaps in cell phones described by Ackerman. Social-technical gaps are the disparity between what people do and need and what current technology can provide. The problem is that the solutions for the issues I outlined are not very feasible or realistic today, because content analysis algorithms are not strong enough to complete the tasks, and a low percentage of people actually have the calendar on their phone have everything they’re doing on it (I am in that low percentage). People in general know everything they have to do and use tools to help, and they also know immediately from looking at a text message or a missed call or a voicemail whether it’s important. You could let people flag things as urgent with one click, which would accomplish the same thing as a smart algorithm, but it would require more work from the user.
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It is annoying when you miss calls, I complained about something similar. It would be cool if your phone could adapt to the situation you're in and change its ring tone accordingly. A phone that can analyze your voicemail messages might be problematic only because it seems like there is a lot of room for error--what if something that you think is important, your phone doesn't? The more I think about it, the more i understand why people have assistants and secretaries--technology can only do so much, but the social technical gap interferes, such that another person can accomplish the same task in a way that suits your needs exactly.
ReplyDeleteInteresting. I like your idea about the phone adapting its volume based on the volume around it. Like in your party example, sometimes you need your phone to be loud and noticeable. Though I often think of times when I wish the phone wasn't so loud, I didn't think about the times when you'd want it to be louder.
ReplyDeleteI think the fact that you list three different tools that your phone would use to determine your situation reveals just how difficult it is for a phone to be as "aware" as a person. You tried to cover all the bases by giving the phone as much information as possible, but even with GPS, an calendar, and and earphone, there will still be times when your availability is gauged incorrectly. Like Christina commented above, what a person can determine in a second, a program cannot replicate.