Design can be easier when we acknowledge that products share our homes and malls, and have wants and lives of their own. In short: Products are people too.
(Abstraction in speech & thought; Actions under self-control distinguished from those not under control; Aesthetics...)
Objects in the shops, websites, media: These aren't passive tools but have experiential, social, and other complex qualities. Design can be easier when we acknowledge that products share our homes and malls, and have wants and lives of their own. In short: Products are people too.
But what makes people, well, *people*?
(Risk-taking; Rites of passage; Rituals...)
Like us, products live in a peopled world. They understand this: Human factors, ergonomics and psychology. What makes people tick: Play, politeness, and other engaging techniques. And social software is aware of the behaviour of groups, and the behaviour of people *in* groups.
Aren't there other, more *humane* descriptions of what makes us human? Perhaps these ideas could shape our products too... so what are they?
(Weaning; Weapons; Weather control (attempts to); White (colour term); World view.)
One additional way of understanding what people are: Edward Brown's list of human universals, a few of which are interspersed in this abstract.
Another way: Humans and more-than-humans as depicted in myths and science fiction.
Through these, other conceptions of what makes people *people*, and examples, Matt Webb looks at how we live alongside products, how products act and could act in the world, and whether we might use these ideas to inform the design of all kinds of products--ones that maybe we get along with just a little better.
