Design factors influencing technology form factors

¶ … technology have the form factor that it has?

Why does technology take its current form?

One aspect of modern technological design is clear, even to the untrained naked eye: it is getting smaller. The first computers were the size of small rooms; today's laptops can fit in a small backpack. The first cellphones were the size and weight of heavy briefcases; the latest cellphones can fit into a tiny purse. Part of this trend is due to simple technological advancement, of course. "The processing power of computers today also means they can go into smaller and smaller devices" (Roth 2006). Yet another reason for this trend is due to the need to carry technology everywhere. As technology has grown smaller, there has been an increased demand to make it part of daily, minute-by minute interactions (Roth 2006). There are basic human needs like the need to communicate and the need to do work that are satisfied by technology. There is also a physical, human limit to how much people can carry everywhere. The need to communicate has shaped the way that pure technological research has been used in commerce, and driven the desire to create and market computers and cellphones to consumers. [Thesis] the fast pace of modern life has made communication an even more constant need. The compressed time and space constraints under which human beings operate have shaped the design of technology.

Technological form and function is a chicken-and-egg debate. As technology got smaller, people became more used to having the convenience of personal computing and talking on a cellphone [HIDDEN] but the need to make technology more responsive to human demands and the desire to take technology everywhere also created the demand to make things smaller in the first place. It was because CD walkmans were so heavy to carry that the demand for MP3 players escalated, as well as the devices' improved capabilities to play and download music. But there has always been a need to hear music, and even before the technology existed some people would carry boom boxes wherever they went. The need for music seems to be an elemental, human need. The need to hear music created the demand for portable music, and the small, cramped subways (to say nothing of the heaviness of carrying certain music-playing devices) drove the desire to use the Internet to make music transportation less cumbersome. Once again, human needs drove the need to use new technology.

However, some people allege that there is a limit to how small technology can become and still be functional. Smaller laptops can be hard to read, so there is still a demand for desktop computers. Even the ability to manipulate a MP3 player can become difficult, if it is designed to be too small. "You have to ask yourself: Is a quarter of an inch here or a few ounces there really worth the loss in performance or overall versatility," said Greg Mombert of Digital Trends in 2009. Handheld tiny camcorders often have inferior resolution and the smallest cellphones can be difficult to type upon. Yet things still keep getting smaller because of another human 'need' or trend -- the need to have the 'next new thing.'

This trend towards smallness is not necessarily irreversible. Once upon a time, technology enabled things to get 'bigger.' The Industrial Revolution drove the creation of the major urban industrial complexes of the world. Public transportation like railroads was a way to move people faster than horses and buggies. Even the recent infatuation with SUVs could be seen as part of the age-old trend of 'bigger as better.' "Mary Czerwinski, a senior researcher at Microsoft, is working on large computer displays that could double as art in people's homes. The displays could post personal information on the edges that people might want to consult quickly, and that can be removed if there is a visitor, she said" (Roth 2006).

Regardless of whether the future trend is in favor of largeness or smallness, human physical and social needs and constraints shape how technology is used. What does seem unchanged is the desire to incorporate more and more technology into one's life: as technology has made the world more efficient, it has grown faster-paced, and people want to make more and better use of their leisure hours. Despite the need to make a tradeoff between power and size, technology is always more compressed and has more features than its non-technological counterparts and can result in time and space savings. An Amazon Kindle can contain more knowledge than an entire shelf of encyclopedias. Entire research databases can be stored on an MP3 player or online. Even if a limit to smallness size may be reached because of the nature of the human body and size of the human figures, technology's greater portability at least theoretically makes us a more literate society than was ever dreamed possible. Yet some people might protest that the demand to work so much in today's fast-paced, technologically-driven world makes reading more difficult than ever was the case for our grandparents!