usability

This page considers the usability of the internet refrigerator and other 'dot appliances'.

It covers -

• introduction
• function and fantasy
• accessibility

It supplements discussion elsewhere on this site regarding life online, the new economy, networks, accessibility and RFIDs.

     introduction

In practice the fridge is a triumph of ideology - we can build it, it is digital, you will therefore buy it, you will use it, human-centred design is irrelevant - over usability.

One indication of poor usability is the positioning of the screen and data entry. Don't even think about going online with the fridge if you are on the wrong side of the wheelchair divide, have motor/visual problems or are simply short (eg children without a convenient stepladder). For you the screen - and data entry - is placed out of reach.

Given research about the ergonomics of data entry we question whether most people are going to spend much time using the touch screen to enter or retrieve data - whether that is about the age of the vegies, emailed 'fridge magnet' messages or tips for tomorrow's menu.

     function and fantasy

Perhaps a more fundamental concern is how people are supposed to use the fridge.

It has been hyped as

• domestic manager - keeping "track of inventory, temperature, quantity, age" and other attributes of what's inside the fridge along with nutritional information and "recommendations for lunch or dinner". That information can be accessed remotely " at work, in the car or at the grocery store".
• communications centre - the user can "post notes, communicate with people via email and video mail, as well as multi-task more efficiently". Why use a traditional PC or PDA, "when you no longer have to rely on sticky notes! You can leave video messages for friends and family and they can check them from anywhere".
• a "learning tool" - with "instructions on how to build a menu, access to an online recipe book and information about ways to cook things"
• promotional tool - news of sales by on-line grocery stores
• a health aid - with the inventory supposedly being "safer than the traditional way of estimating when food is good/bad" and providing users with the ability to tell "when the food is out of date or has been consumed" so that "You'll never end up with tinfoil 'mystery' meals in your freezer".
• "Family Promoter" - with families variously spending "less time in the kitchen and more time in the family room" or the fridge being enshrined in the kitchen as the new family room
• domestic informatics device - "you can communicate with other appliances. From a remote computer or even a cell phone, you can manage other appliances in your home that are hooked up to a digital home network system; like the oven, washer/dryer, or air-conditioner. For example, on an unexpectedly hot afternoon, the air conditioner at home could be activated from the computer in your office. The Internet refrigerator acts as a communication hub of the home network system".

Most of those claims are problematic.

If you want music and video in your kitchen it is arguably cheaper and easier to buy an off-the-shelf entertainment unit (or simply pipe music from a hifi unit located in another room). Surveys in North America suggest that between 12% and 15% of households in the US and Canada have a television in the kitchen, typically the oldest of three set. It is unclear whether consumers will restructure their kitchens to watch a tv on the fridge door; using an existing set offers more flexibility.

Buying a separate 'communication hub' is likely to be more attractive for most people.

     accessibility

Screen positioning and navigation difficulties militate against use of the fridge as a recipe book; in practice most people rely on printouts rather than consulting a fridge or PC in the kitchen. The underlying demand for online recipe books is uncertain, with suggestions that much of the offline recipe book market involves aspirational consumption of 'gastroporn' with people typically buying books, looking at the pictures but not actually using the recipes.

The notion of a fridge automatically ordering new items as they get eaten is meaningless until supermarkets themselves become equipped to process such orders at an attractive price (and the fridge is equipped to open the door for the delivery person).

Amid exhortations to spend, potential purchasers have been reassured that the net fridge "can save money in the long run". Alas, we just can't get the figures to add up. Consumers apparently have the same difficulty: some are enthusiastic about the fridge as an idea but won't pay for the features.

Security is also emerging as a concern, particularly through increasing recognition that much spam emanates from unsecured personal computers that have become 'zombies'. Will internet fridges be subject to hacking? The answer is yes, as any device with a network connection and vulnerabilities is a target.

What of fridges that are poorly house-trained, rather than captured by evildoers? UK academic Paddy Nixon, building on past studies of 'appropriateness' in communication, warns of the potential for mobile phones and email inboxes to be filled with chatter from fridges and other devices advising that food is out of date, that they have run out of milk or that it is the end of the week.

Negroponte asked why shouldn't your carton of milk talk to your fridge and to your car? Nixon more perceptively comments

It is crucial that we are not bombarded with information at inappropriate times, such as the fridge phoning to tell its owner to buy more milk when the owner is in a meeting.

We have suggested that data capture is a fundamental impediment to acceptance of the 'domestic manager' model. Few consumers seem enthralled at the prospect of systematically waving barcode readers over items going out of the cooler or surfing the net on the fridge's front door.

One reason is that - despite grumbling about the boredom of shopping - a range of studies have demonstrated that shopping is a major (and valued) form of social interaction and indeed is an entertainment in its own right.

Usability concerns also affect the reception of other devices. Prototypes of the internet toaster have not, for example, gone beyond predictions that the day will be wet or hot: they are novelty items that supply less information than a weather map in a newspaper or television. In principle the enthusiast can use internet technologies to carve weather maps in blocks of cheese, in icecream or in butter ... but why would anyone bother?




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