Ipod and Philosophy - Essay Example

Ipod and Philosophy When you think about it, it is clear in one sense that we have emotional relationships with the things that we use on a regular basis, and which allow us to do our work and to connect with the people we love, or else allow us to do the things that we love doing. For instance, people have emotional connections with their cars and their bicycles, and this is something that advertisers understand so well. When companies market cars, for instance, there is the explicit connection that advertisers try to establish between the car as the product itself, and the way the car represents a range of emotions and relationships with people dear to car buyers. A family sedan advertised, for instance, would highlight the fun and happy things that families can do with the family sedan. The better the emotional connection made between the potential buyer and the car, the higher the prospects of buyers becoming interested enough to give the car a try. In this case, emotions pique interest and elicit response. Where there is ownership of a vehicle for instance, even a bicycle, then the emotional connection is sometimes intense. People sometimes get buried with their most favorite things, with their bicycles, with their Swiss knives, and with their cell phones. Whether the emotional connection is because of the great utility of the thing, or because of something that is designed into the thing in order to elicit hopefully positive emotional connections, it is clear that the things that people own are not just things that are devoid of emotional context. People buy and keep things on the basis of how they feel about using the things that they buy, is something that is so obvious in the way products and services are marketed, that it is absurd to overlook just how important it is to listen to Don Norman talk about imputing emotional characteristics in to the very design of products. It is clear too, from the work ethic and philosophy of the man, that the ability to elicit an emotional response is a core tenet of his design philosophy (Norman, 2012; Norman, 2012b): My field is Human-Centered Design: making products that people can use, that fit their needs, that excite them and are enjoyable. The United States leads the world in human-centered design. This is true in all domains: computer and cellphone applications, industrial equipment, work tools for professionals, and of course home and consumer electronics. It is not an accident that the entire world relies on our operating systems: Apple, Google, and Microsoft for phones; Apple and Microsoft for computers (Norman, 2012) To put it another way, it makes perfect sense that Norman asserts that it is good design to impute emotional considerations when undertaking the design of products, while also making sure that the most important product attributes as perceived by the consumer are met. For instance, imputing emotional inputs into smart phone design does not mean always that the designs include smileys at the back plates of the phones. It does mean that where the functionalities, the necessary technologies, and such product attributes as sturdiness and reliability are met, then other aspects of design, such as colors and aesthetics, can then impute more ineffable emotional characteristics. Looking at cell phones and computers, for instance, the very robustness of the technology and the excellence of certain products in terms of reliability and build quality are themselves wellsprings of positive emotions for the buyer. Those are positive emotions brought about by the excellence of the engineering. On the other hand, where the design also imputes thoughtful ergonomics and tasteful, positive colors explicitly, to induce certain positive emotions, then those are the design elements that help establish the added pull for a positive relationship between the cell phone and its owner. The take here is that absolutely, I think Norman is serious and makes sense, exhorting us to consider that human-centered design means establishing an emotional connection between products and their users explicitly through conscious design (Norman, 2012; Norman, 2012b). A third take on this is that Norman sees good design as something that incorporates the eliciting of positive emotions, as a means to make products more usable. For instance, things that are beautiful elicit positive emotions, that make those things essentially “work better (Norman, 2002): Affect and cognition can both be considered information processing systems, but with different functions and operating parameters. The affective system is judgmental, assigning positive and negative valence to the environment rapidly and efficiently. The cognitive system interprets and makes sense of the world. Each system impacts the other: some emotions -- affective states -- are driven by cognition, and cognition is impacted by affect. The surprise is that we now have evidence that pleasing things work better, are easier to learn, and produce a more harmonious result. (Norman, 2002) There is a final aspect to imputing emotions and considering the emotions of people who use products when designing those products, and that final aspect has to do with how products intentionally designed to be beautiful and to elicit positive emotions pull in people, and make them want to buy products, with regard for functionality and other attributes taking a back seat to how those products make them feel at a visceral level (Guardian News and Media Limited, 2004). 2. The Philosopher's Toolkit (Wittkower) The exercise here entails making use of some of the tools presented in Wittkower and applying those philosophical tools on smart phones as cultural and technological phenomena, to be able to get a sense of smart phones in those contexts. It is easy enough to understand the idea that the application of the philosopher tools as presented in Wittkower's collection of philosophical treatises looking at various facets and contexts of iPods can readliy be applied to smart phones. In a way, substituting smart phones or Android, or Blackberry, or Nokia to iPods in that book, we see that we can apply the tools along the same lines that the original authors developed for iPods. There is value,on the other hand, in choosing from among those tools presented philosophical constructs and analytical processes that help shine on particular aspects of smart phones, such as smart phones, for instance embodying aspects of old experiences and technologies, while representing a new, useful and very popular innovation on those experiences and technologies. In Dewey, for instance, we find that we can situate the analysis of smart phones along the lines of those phones being an evolution from pure phones to phones that incorporate computing functionalities, the Internet, MP3 players, cameras, and personal assistants. Deconstructing the phone along those components, we see that the Dewey philosophical perspective can be incorporated for MP3s, and then extended for every other component, and then later extended to be applied to the smart phone as an integrated whole. In the terms used by Dewey, smart phones represent the now moment from both an evolutionary perspective as well as from a consumption and prevalence perspective. Smart phones now are what iPods used to be in terms of the mass focus on the technology, and how the smart phone as a platform, in the construct of Dewey, is both the aggregator of the new, as well as the representation of what has worked in the past in distilled form (Dewey, 2008, pp. 205-216). Meanwhile, Rehn offers us a way to deconstruct popular cultural icons such as the iPod, and in the process allow us to use such a process/tool in order to make sense of what makes certain cultural icons stand out as objects of familiarity or shared experience. As Rehn did with the iPod, deconstructing the different aspects of the product that make it familiar, and a source of communion with other people, we can also do to smart phones, and to any other popular culture or popular technological product. Rehn mentions McDonalds as well. In his deconstruction of the iPod along the framework of what makes it familiar, we are able to glean a process for understanding the role that smart phones have come to play in our lives as well. For instance, where iPhones are concerned versus Samsung phones, various individuals can relate or not relate to other people depending on the kinds of phones that they use, so that those who use the same phones can be considered as part of a familiarity group, one that can relate to the same way that Rehn is able to relate to other people seen owning different iterations and product variants of the same iPod. Applying this framework to smart phones, for instance, it is clear that a deconstruction of what makes a smart phone platform familiar can be seen from the perspective of smart phone brands being gateways or access points to entire ecosystems of apps and accessories, in the same way that the iPod is a gateway to music lists, music libraries, and communities that can relate to the experience of using those. In the case of smart phones, ecosystems of accessories and apps, as well as music, breed platforms of shared interests and shared experience, that can be the basis of the establishment of the sense of familiarity that Rehn talks about (Rehn, 2008, pp. 16-30). 3. Selling a Product- Selling Yourself (Evans) One take on this is that the questions seem to differentiate between the sales process, which can arguably be manipulative while disregarding customers' deeper feelings and sentiments, and the marketing process, especially with regard to crafting the marketing mix with an eye towards considering how customers will feel buying and using the product for the purposes promised. In the latter, it can be argued that there is consideration placed on feelings. Will the product, as crafted, bring about customer satisfaction and positive feelings? Will the product elicit the kind of positive emotions that redound to positive product and brand reputation? On the other hand, where sincere product benefits and sincere intentions to satisfy customer needs take a backseat to selling at any cost and regardless of customer value, then of course there is bound to be negative vibes and all the things associated with that developing around the sales process- suspicion, feelings of being manipulated, being ignored, being placed in a position where one cannot say no, being forced in a word to buy something that one's intuition says is not worth it. I think a distinction is to be made here between products and firms offering them that try very hard to offer value and tangible benefits that in the long run benefit consumers, on the one hand, and products and firms that have the intention to deceive, to promise falsely, and to manipulate via deceptive advertising practices, in order to move product stocks and to achieve sales and profit targets, and never mind if the customer is shortchanged in the process. In an efficient market even, misleading advertising practices and falsehoods that have taken root and that have been taken can and do take root, and in this sense of course I myself feel that I am constantly being bombarded by manipulative sales messages that disregard my feelings and insult my intelligence (Diaz, 2011; Tartakovsky, 2011). From the above it is clear that viewed one way, the problem with salesmen and with advertisers intent on deceiving is that the do consider how we feel, but in ways that further the deception, rather than in ways that sincerely consider the integrity of the person and the integrity of the person's feelings. Tartakovsky, for instance, makes an excellent observation about how advertisements for goods for children mask the ads in the form of entertaining pieces of media consumption, because children love to be entertained, and will flock to the ads, and by proxy to the products being sold, because of the entertainment value of those ads. This is the same mechanism at work when popular children's movie and cartoon characters team up with fast food chains to sell merchandise together with fast food fare. The entertainment value of the characters are meshed with the food. The entertainment is positive, but the negative nutrition value of the fast food is overlooked. The two are interlaced so kids will consume the latter while being attracted to the ads. In my own experience as the recipient of relentless assaults from salesmen and advertisers I can attest to this as well. In YouTube for a time a video about an old commercial for a cigarette brand showed doctors smoking cigarettes, and promoting a particular cigarette brand. The deceptive message here is that cigarettes are ok for your health, because see, doctors smoke them. The deception is that the ad overlooks the proven negative health effects of smoking and of cigarettes In modern media too there are other similar deceptions, too many to mention, with the intent to deceive in order to sell their products to the masses (Diaz, 2011; Tartakovsky, 2011) References Dewey, M. (2008). The Shins Will Really Change Your Life. Ipod and Philosophy- iCon of an ePoch (DE Wittkower ed). Open Court. Diaz, M. A. (2011). Manipulation of Teenagers Through Advertising: A Critical Discourse Approach. Revista de Linguistica y Lenguas Aplicadas. Retrieved from http://www.upv.es/dla/revista/docs/art2011/02_RDLAn6_AlcantudDiaz_Maria.pdf Norman, D. (2002). Emotion & Design: Attractive things work better. Nielsen Norman Group. Retrieved from http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/emotion_design_at.html Norman, D. (2012). Manufacturing, Design and Innovation. Nielsen Norman Group. Retrieved from http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/manufacturing_desig.html Norman, D. (2012b). The Rise of the Small. Nielsen Norman Group. Retrieved from http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/my_dream_the_rise_o.html Guardian News and Media Limited (2004). Emotional about design. Guardian.co.uk. Retrieved from http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,11710,1166468,00.html Rehn, A. (2008). Wittgenstein's iPod, or, The Familiar Among Us. Ipod and Philosophy- iCon of an ePoch (DE Wittkower ed). Open Court. Tartakovsky, M. (2011). How Marketers Manipulate Us to Buy, Buy, Buy. Psych Central. Retrieved from http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2011/11/07/how-marketers-manipulate-us-to-buy-buy-buy/ Read More