For this week's reading response, we were assigned to read Chapter 2 of Artful Design, titled "Designing Expressive Toys." The chapter outlined different design choices that should be considered when designing a toy, and provided examples such as the Ocarina, Sonic Lighter, etc... For my response, I want to focus on Principle 2.7 introduced in this chapter: "Design to Lower Inhibition."
This principle is founded upon the fundamental way that we as humans tend to think, and encourages us to design in a way that induces self-expression and creativity without any fear of judgment or failure. Ge gives the example of auto-tune, a technology that acts as a middle-ground between a user's real voice and a computer-generated voice. Having this middle layer eliminates self-consciousness, lowers inhibition, and allows the user to fully express themselves through speech and singing.
I can think of many technological designs that follow this principle. For example, Snapchat's AR filters let people transform their appearance in playful and fun ways, and provides tools for anyone to create filters that perfectly express themselves. Another example is character customization in video games, where robust character customization features allow for users to create avatars that may or may not resemble their real-world experience, providing a safe space for self-expression and identity exploration. Social media can also be considered as a design that lowers inhibition, in that users can curate their own online presence, and selectively share parts of themselves without fear of face-to-face judgement.
There are other examples of design that lowers inhibition, like anonymous forums, etc..., but I feel that most of these designs do not follow the many other principles of artful design. While some of these designs allow you to express yourself without inhibition, they tend to promote inauthenticity in the process. It seems to be a hard task to design something that allows authentic self-expression without inhibition.
Going back to auto-tune, it can be argued that the service homogenizes speech and detracts from the unique qualities of individual voices. Snapchat's AR filters can be fun, playful, and expressive, but can also promote poor self-image and a lowered self-consciousness. There seems to be a disconnect between a user's digital persona and their real-world counterpart...
All of this makes me wonder what the balance is between lowering inhibition and maintaining authenticity in artful design. How can we design a technology that encourages genuine self-expression without putting on an inauthentic facade? Maybe it is impossible. For me, I think that a technology can be designed to help us lower our inhibitions, but relying on said technology to lower our inhibitions for us is not ideal. We should be aware of our inhibitions and accept them first.