This phrase would be intended to spur new thought processes for manufacturers, contractors, and designers who have only have dealt with system design on the basis of supplying the right products for the application rather than providing a single integrated solution that includes the architectural space it is used in

We haven't approached the design problems with the same playful, aesthetic viewpoint as the architect...

Maybe one of the most quickly adopted and rapidly tiresome buzz-phrases of the 90's is "Thinking Outside of the Box." This phrase was originally intended to spur new thought processes in cubicle dwellers in large corporate structures (kind of like cave dwellers, but involving an age-old fear of predators in the form of Human Resource people instead of sabre-tooth tigers). The basic idea of "Thinking Outside the Box" is to think outside of the constraints of the entrenched corporate culture to come up with new solutions and new approaches to the real business at hand and new processes for best getting the job done.

This phrase could easily become applicable to the systems contracting industry where it meets the world of architecture, only it needs to be modified slightly to "Thinking out of the Packing Carton." This phrase would be intended to spur new thought processes for manufacturers, contractors, and designers who have only have dealt with system design on the basis of supplying the right products for the application rather than providing a single integrated solution that includes the architectural space it is used in (the phrase I use for this process is Archi-Technology', you'll have to find your own!).

The idea for this article came to me while having a tour of a "Hi-Tech Dream Home" and then attending INFOCOMM and seeing a trade show floor full of new technology with amazing potential. This "Hi-Tech Dream Home", was equipped with all sorts of high tech widgets pulled out of a packing carton and placed or installed in the space. While I understand that this space was intended as a product showcase, and as such needs to have the products in an identifiable or recognizable form, I was surprised by a few elements that seemed to have "that old-world charm" to the technical implementation. The example that stands out in my mind was a home office with a small antique styled computer cabinet with an electric TV lift system that lifts a conventional 14"CRT monitor up into viewing position, and exposes a small keyboard storage area. In any objective view of this application, it would be very hard not to balance the cost/benefit ratio of this dedicated computer cabinet equipped with an electric lift to house a computer (with no knee space to actually work at the computer keyboard) versus the cost of a top quality laptop computer with 12" TFT screen and all the other bells and whistles. The laptop could be stored in a small drawer in the same size cabinet, leaving the balance of the cabinet for storage, and more important could be carried away and used elsewhere.

Granted, this is a particularly poor example in that it has not been tested by an end user, and the obvious shortcomings have not been revealed through use, but it is indicative of the thought process that seems to happen in design where clever ideas and "cool factor" often have more weighting than usability and integration into the environment. It does not stop at "Hi-Tech Dream Home", it can show up in audio and video systems of any type in any setting.

One of the most difficult and frustrating things to handle as a systems designer is the pervasive view held by facility owners and the architects or interior designers who design the facilities that a sound, A/V presentation or video conference system is just a technical widget that can be hung on the wall, stuck in the ceiling or sat in the corner. It is true that these systems can be designed in that fashion, unfortunately it is also true that they tend to look like they were designed and installed that way in those instances. And it is also true that the audible and visual performance tends to suffer as a result of the "tacked on" approach to systems integration. The term "integration" as I use it here applies to the system and the architectural environment it is housed in, rather than the technology that is being combined into a system.

When the systems integration industry works with architects or designers, we tend to lay down a large number of very valid design limitations and say "go ahead pick the color of the frame border on the projection screen". We haven't approached the design problems with the same playful, aesthetic viewpoint as the architect, and we (as an industry) have typically ignored the fact that the system has a visual impact on the room design, both when it is operating and when it is not.

One of the problems that the manufacturers, systems contractors and systems designers face is that the interior design and architectural people are not used to thinking of technical systems as an architectural element. It is equally true that the manufacturers, contractors and systems designers are not used to thinking of their systems as architectural elements, and are not used to working with the interior designer in a truly collaborative fashion. System design coordination has typically been limited to planning sight lines, projection lines, sound coverage, lighting requirements and equipment locations. If one examines the working relationship that other design disciplines and market segments have with architects and designers, it is obvious that the systems integration industry is still working within a framework with very limited flexibility. The architect or interior designer selects lighting fixtures, finishes, furniture, and hardware based on the visual impact of the design elements. They are not typically given this same freedom by system designers.

Many manufacturers have actually started hiring industrial designers for their products, so the black box look has started to disappear in the past few years as plastics has become the dominant casing material. (Hey! Mr. Robinson was right 30 years ago! The Graduate, the movie... remember... remember... oh never mind!). You can even get computer components in some color other than putty beige these days. While many devices are becoming less butt-ugly and mundane, there is still a tendency to treat them like black boxes and stick them to the counter or wall or ceiling as required. This still becomes a design issue with the architects and interior designers because these widgets may or may not suit the rest of the decor.

...this is taking the design of a system into the architect or interior designer's world, this is dealing with the system as a design element instead of a hardware system.

This gives the designers an inertia that may actually make it more difficult for them to develop truly innovative solutions to system design problems.

Imagine instead that as a system designer or contractor you approach an architect or interior designer and say, "what is your ultimate techno-fantasy or wildest idea for the way an A/V presentation system, or video conference system would look to the client when they are using it." Get them to sketch their vision out and write down the ideas. Encourage them to think of the system as an element of the room, like the furniture. If they start coming up with Star Trek(tm) type ideas, like a Holo-deck or a transporter, you may have to reign them in a bit, but that at least demonstrates that they are beginning to think about the technical systems as something other than a box behind the wall, or on their ceiling. As you're going through this process, make note of the technical glitches you can see coming and present options to them in a creative and open fashion; "wouldn't that be hard to read in that size, or at that distance." The important thing to do is engage them in the part of the process that really counts for them, the creative visual side.

Note that this is step beyond making sure that the architect understands what the critical performance limitations are, this is taking the design of a system into the architect or interior designer's world, this is dealing with the system as a design element instead of a hardware system.

In many instances, it does not cost significantly more to implement a novel technical approach than it does to use a standard approach that has worked in the last few jobs. It may get difficult to economically achieve a video conference system out on the sun deck, as the 12,000 lumen rear-screen projector system could break the budget, but many ideas are less extreme and more easily accommodated. If the aesthetic impact of a system installation can be brought in line with the architect or interior designers viewpoint, you have an ally instead of an adversary when the budget cuts start on a project.

Many systems designers and contractors get so wrapped up in the technology implementation and the problem solving element in a system installation that the creativity goes missing when it comes to things like the human interface to the system. These are the elements that stand out for the architect or interior designer as they are entirely concerned with the tactile and visual interaction with the facility and the owner. The design of user interface goes beyond providing a cool touch screen layout for the control system, as that indicates we're still thinking within the packing carton. The touch screen is certainly more effective than a panel full of switches, but the fact is that we don't use either to interact with other people, or with other tactile visual media such as a drawing board, or a pad of paper. There are few drop down or multi-page menus in real life. The human interface includes the audio system, the visual display and the control system elements, and these all need to be considered from much more basic human interactivity terms than just picking the right products.

As system designers we often have to overcome, or sidestep the user's tendency to describe their requirements or design criteria in terms of the shortcomings in the current equipment or systems. If new systems are built strictly on the basis of fixing old problems, then it is difficult to address the real user issues, both from the technology and architectural viewpoints. Because most of the audio and video systems people come from a hardware background, we aren't trained in the fine points of ergonomic design the way an industrial designer might be. We tend to approach all interface problems from the point of view of available technology, rather than taking the approach that we have an interface to design, what is the best "from-the-ground-up" design to apply to the problem. Part of the reason for this is economic efficiency, it prevents every A/V system from costing as much as a stealth bomber. This may indicate that as an industry we may not be thinking far enough outside the packing carton, and the interface to the user is where this really shows up.

The July 1997 issue of "Scientific American" has an article titled "Taking Computers to Task" by W.Wayt Gibbs, in which the issue of computer usability and productivity is examined. This is an article well worth reading. Several leading experts in user-interface design are quoted, all pointing to the difficulty of optimizing an interface design. The issue, in general, relates to how individuals interact with a system, and that the designer's concept of an easy-to-use interface may not provide a friendly interface for the users. Interface design is an iterative process, and requires diligent interface testing with the users. As few as six iterations will find 90% of interface problems. The standard approach to control system design is similar to the one used by the big computer operating system designers; "Here's our operating system, you'll eventually learn to think like we want you to think, and then this will all make sense." There is little analysis of how people would interact with technology if the technology were more willing to cooperate, and more willing to be invisible to the users.

Product (and system) design tends to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary because the same designers that developed version 1.0 are working on version 4.0, with a few more tools at their disposal, and more experience to work with, but with the weight of their experience influencing their design choices. This gives the designers an inertia that may actually make it more difficult for them to develop truly innovative solutions to system design problems. This is the situation that exists with both camps of desktop computer operating systems, they are both evolutionary developments, and the evolutionary pressures on the development are minimal so that as computer users, we are prepared to put up with glitches and non-intuitive operations because we have limited choices. We are all familiar with the frustrations this can result in.

The systems design and contracting industry faces the same issues of fundamentally addressing the way people interact with other people and aural and visual materials. Much like a well designed speech reinforcement system is most successful when it is so subtle that the owner may wonder if it is turned on, an A/V presentation or a video conference system should all but disappear from the user's awareness. The users should just be thinking about the material they are seeing, or the person that they are interacting with on the other end of their conference link. This is a matter of integrating the systems into the user's environment, and making the user interfaces more intuitive. This is the ultimate goal of "Thinking Outside of the Packing Carton."