Question: how do you intend to make the technology better?

Anna Bramwell-Dicks answered on 16 Jun 2014:

Primarily, by understanding people better!

If we can understand what people (the users) want to achieve with technology, we can design devices so that they support what the user needs and wants to do.

This is called a User-Centred Design approach (or philosophy) and is becoming more and more important in the technological field.

Recently I have been working on a project that aims to make boring work tasks (like monitoring a busy email account, or typing long documents) more interesting by playing music through the device in the background. We know that music can have a positive influence on how someone feels, so I am asking if we can we use music within the technology to make these boring tasks more enjoyable? This has a knock-on effect that when someone is doing something they enjoy, they can work at it for longer and tend to concentrate on the task better so complete it more accurately.

I guess this is an interesting example, because it’s not necessarily about making the technology itself better – it’s about making the outcome from using the technology better.