Predictability is a quality both imposed upon technology and imposed by technology. Predictability, as a feature of technology, allows users to make judgments about future interactions with that technology. As a product of technology, it is manifest in the restriction of external phenomena to rational patterns.
Every day, we make assumptions about the technologies we encounter. Toasters brown bread. Light switches turn on or off. Clock hands travel clockwise. We generalize our experiences; future interactions are expected to be similar, and other technologies of the same genre are expected to operate in familiar ways. Rarely do we have the opportunity to stop and think about the possibility that things might be different.
Designers work to prevent this possibility by designing technology in ways that enforce predictability. Doors become obligatory points of passage, through which human traffic must pass. Sophisticated means of forecasting and measurement are developed to render the natural world tame. A predictable world, in turn, suggests that artifacts be just as predictable. In this way, predictability becomes self-supporting, this cycle a realization of the image of the ouroboros--a snake biting its own tail.
Reflective design offers us the possibility of changing all this. As users, we are faced with technologies that contradict the behaviors and situations we have taken for granted. Toasters might write reminders on the user's hand. Light switches might be made of wood or velvet. Clocks might not measure hours, minutes and seconds.
As designers, producing reflective designs introduces questions about the nature of predictability by inviting us to explore design spaces off the beaten path. What motivates us to produce predictable technologies? Are there viable alternative paths that we can take?
Control
Efficiency
Irrationality of Rationality
Quantifiability
Clocks
Communication Aid
Kitchen Appliances
Switches
