Electronics keep getting cheaper, and people keep drinking alcohol. Those are I suspect the underlying reasons for the appearance of products with what I would call 'unnecessary interactivity'. The things that make you say "Why?" and that make the more technically inclined and socially handicapped say: "Because we can!" Don't get me wrong, I’m all in favor of innovation. But I am also in favor of innovating in a way that makes sense. Thus: A Top Ten of Unnecessary Interactivity. To keep the selection process subjective but transparent, here's the selection criteria:

• Making it interactive brings no added value to the user
  
• The interaction was poorly designed and/or implemented
  
• It's annoying

The result: ten 'inspiring' examples from both academia and shops. And once you've gone through the list, one question remains: why do people feel compelled to 'improve' kitchen appliances by adding electronics and internet connections?

10. The yoyo-powered MP3-player

I love the idea of using human power as an energy source for an MP3-player. That actually makes sense, but there must be a more practical and less embarrassing way of powering your music player then by swinging a yoyo.

9. Farting iPhone applications

Pushing a touch-screen to hear a farting sound remains funny for about three seconds. Developers of similar finger-pulling applications are actually suing each other, because of - get this - trademark infringements.

8. Rollover alarm clock

It’s not that often during a usability test that you get participants asking you whether they are allowed to smash the product. The AJ3136 alarm clock provoked that reaction from multiple participants (we use it in a course on observational research at IDE, because it is such a satisfying product to evaluate). It has a playful design, with the funny little feature that it can produce a different wake-up signal depending on which side you rotate it on. However, as one of the (authentic) reviewers on Amazon points out:

You have to handle it with care, or it would generate big noise.

Handling with care? That sounds more like nitroglycerin than like an alarm clock. In addition, our participants had big trouble turning that big noise off, and thus got tremendously frustrated. Needless to say it won an award.

7. Electric pepper-mill (with flashlight!)

Why create a battery powered peppermill with a built-in flashlight, you say? Because you still want to make pasta with freshly ground pepper even if you injured your wrist and the electricity company goes bankrupt and you are all out of candles.

6. ‘Cute’ paperclips and lazy dogs

Affective computing with a mischievous twist. I don’t want a puffy puppy asking me questions; I want to search my hard drive. I don’t want an annoying paperclip making inappropriate suggestions and not finding the answers to my questions. You can’t compensate for poor performance by throwing in an animated character or two.

5. Touch-screen shower controls

Imagine a touch-screen operated shower in which each family member can store his/her own shower settings, such as temperature and duration. You’re imagining it? Good, because it exists! We spotted it at this year's ISH fair (no documentation online yet, but it's similar to this one). That’s one less thing to really, really annoy me in the morning: turning on the shower.

4. The Internet/touch-screen fridge

What exactly it is that drives kitchen appliance manufacturers to equip refrigerators with an Internet connection and/or a touch-screen is beyond me. Apparently on of the bigger benefits is that your fridge can order food. That would require your eating behavior to be as predictable as what suit the mad scientist from The Fly puts on each morning. And for the touch screen: is it really such a fuss to access the Internet through your laptop or are laptops no longer allowed in the kitchen for some reason? Or maybe you can manage your shopping list on that screen. But wait, you could also just… look inside the fridge. Or use a whiteboard marker. This one did have strong competition from the Internet-connected oven.

3. Weather-forecasting toaster

A toaster that prints the weather forecast on your toast. Sure, why not? Would have loved to see the sales pitch on that one. (See also: the digital image toaster)

2. iBrella: the iPod controlling umbrella

Even though it's thousands of years old, there are useful ways of innovating the umbrella. You can make it storm resistant as they did with the marvelous Senz umbrella. Think a little wilder and you can make the handle show you the weather forecast. Out-there, but I can understand the reasoning. But why the hell would I want to operate an iPod with my umbrella?

1. Blendie

We have a winner. Blendie is a voice-controlled blender that you operate by modulating the pitch of your voice (movie). Why? Because we can. Or: because we had the funding anyway. Or because we are having a cocktail party this evening and are looking for some entertainment. Based on the premise that 'the person speaks the language of the blender’. That's one disturbing piece of interaction design.


You disagree?
Or you have better suggestions? Feel free to leave your suggestions in the comments.

Thanks for all the input for this list from my colleagues at the ID StudioLab and my research group at IDE, and thanks to Walter for triggering it with his brilliant musings about the Spaceballs Fallacy.