Making Things Talk

THE TOOLS 47

It Ends with the Stuff You Touch

Though most of this book is about the fascinating world of making things talk to each

other, it’s important to remember that you’re most likely building your project for the

enjoyment of someone who doesn’t care about the technical details under the hood.

Even if you’re building it only for yourself, you don’t want

to have to fix it all the time. All that matters to the person

using your system are the parts that she can see, hear,

and touch. All the inner details are irrelevant if the physical

interface doesn’t work. So don’t spend all of your time

focusing on the communication between devices and

leave out the communication with people. In fact, it’s best

to think about the specifics of what the person does and

sees first.

There are a number of details that are easy to overlook,

but are very important to humans. For example, many

network communications can take several seconds or

more. In a screen-based operating system, progress bars

acknowledge a person’s input and keep her informed as

to the progress of the task. Physical objects don’t have

progress bars, but they should incorporate some indicator

as to what they’re doing — perhaps as simple as an LED

that gently pulses while the network transfer’s happening,

or a tune that plays.

Find your own solution, but make sure you give some

physical indication as to the invisible activities ...