Technology: The Responsible Approach. It's not Magic.

So recently I was listening to a speech given by inventor Dean Kamen (aka that Segway guy). The gist, and this is my own heavy paraphrase, is that while we are a society that is ever more entrenched, and reliant on technology, but we are a people that are increasingly less fascinated by and inclined to simply take it for granted. In 1969 when NASA landed two men on the Moon it spawned a generation that immediately wanted to take apart the vacuum cleaner to see how it worked, or go out and build model rockets. Today technology has become something this more often marveled at in awe or wonderment than understood and dissected.

This got me thinking about a number of things. The first is why aren't we doing a lot better in 2012? I would wager that if you were to make a list of say the 5 most common computing tasks things like: How do I get my digital pictures off my camera? How to I make a playlist of music and copy it to my media player? How do I sync my calendar with my phone?, etc. Then took a sampling of folks and asked them to do those tasks and compared their success or failure to that of Windows 95 the results wouldn't be a lot different. These are basics tasks and they are things that generally non-technical people still stumble over, but actually really want to be able to do.

This got me thinking about what a waste some of that technology ends up being. For example you can do amazingly powerful things with iTunes and playlists but I am constantly running in to people who don't even bother to sync music to their phone. Take media for example if you spend the time to tag your photos and store them in a library type of application you can slice and dice them in all kinds of cool ways and yet people still default to the age old method of file system folders. At the risk of sounding elitist, it actually depresses me a bit, to see large numbers of consumers not using their devices to the fullest potential. Particularly when there is so much untapped power locked inside most of them.

This dilemma in turn made me wonder, who bares the responsibility for that problem? Is it the consumers who aren't interested in learning how their devices really work or taking the time to figure out how to use them? Or is it the hardware and software makers who simply aren't providing the user experiences required to surface that functionality and make it useful in a non-burdensome way?

Perhaps it's a catch-22. As technology gets easier to interact with it only enforces the idea that it should be effortless in the users mind. We take things like the iPhone for granted and don't stop to think that just 20 years ago you had to carry a mobile phone in a briefcase. This also leads to a situation where when something goes wrong or stops working users are increasingly impatient and they just don't think about the incredibly complex interdependent systems that make the magic in their hand possible. As the software intentionally hides it's inner workings from the user it also creates an environment where it is more difficult for the user to understand what is happening and why. Users should though bear some responsibility for understanding their technology, and also remember that it is a complex system and in many cases sensitive electronics. If you spill beer on to your laptop, or throw it down a flight of stairs don't be surprised when it doesn't last like it should. Don't start from the position that it must always just work and then get frustrated. It is a complex system and may require some systematic thinking. As with everything you are going to get out what you put in. The more time you take to understand and be familiar with the intended use and functions of your devices the more you will get out. In short the better you treat them, the better they'll treat you.

The question though is what responsibility do the software and hardware makers have in this equation? Why is it still so baffling to accomplish these basic tasks? In the case of Windows a major selling point of perhaps every single edition has been that it will make common media tasks easier to deal with. Yet it feels like we are still waiting for the promise to truly be fulfilled. Even take Mac and iTunes and iPhoto. They are both powerful and easy to deal with...IF...you subscribe to and understand their unique ideologies of media management. In fact they again try to hide the complexities from the users, who then wonder where all their pictures went, "What happened to my folder structure?", as an example. In fact the race to hide complexity and solve every single problem the user might ever have is a trap of software design and tends to result in very complex systems which are potential complex to the user.

I believe part of the problem lies in the fact that here we are in 2012 but we don't really have any modern operating systems.  Windows and Mac and their UI paradigms both have their legacies in an era computing when the primary uses were Word Processing and Spreadsheets. UNIX goes back even further and has its roots in a time before even UI was prevalent. It makes me wonder what would an OS or computing system that started with the goal of fundamentally just being amazing at those 5 things users want to do 90% of the time look like?

Of course this inevitably leads to the question: Well doesn't the cloud just solve this problem? Maybe one day it will. Of course the first problem with that question is that it assumes there is just one cloud and a consistent way of doing everything there. Just in the cloud music space it is an almost dizzying array of services each with their own ideologies, quirks, and idiosyncrasies. The cloud also brings with it of course the issues or privacy, ownership, etc. I frequently run into folks are loathe to put their personal photos online privacy or controls or not. I confess I too fall into that category despite recently going all in on Google Music.

The reality is that the path forward is that both group need to acknowledge the responsibility they have. Users need to treat technology like the complex system and sensitive electronics is really is and not just magic in the palm of their hand.  Software and hardware makers need to be mindful of the ideologies their apps present and the impact they have on the users ability, or very likely, inability to understand how they work. Lastly, society has an obligation to educate future generations in away that removes the mystique of the technological magic occurring in the world around them and inspires them to ask questions like how? and why? about that technology.