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INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES IN THE HOME
151
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Comments
ROLAND W. SCHMITT
Senior Vice-President, CoIporate Research and Development
General Electric Company
I think Walter Baer's paper is an excellent overview and delineation of this
field of information technologies in the home. It codifies and defines the terms
of reference for discussion of this topic probably better than any I have seen
in the past. The issues he raises have two dimensions. He has highlighted one
of these dimensions that of working, doing chores, learning, relaxing. There
is also that other axis of issues that he discussed the question of how certain
is the likely future? When is it going to happen? What surprises are going to
be there? I want to dwell on a couple of topics pertaining to this second axis.
First, however, let me say that one of the key observations that Dr. Baer has
made is that when you are looking at information technologies in the home,
the key parameter is not discretionary dollars, but discretionary minutes and
discretionary hours. I think that is something you must keep in mind when
talking about this topic.
I would like to deal with two issues. First, markets. You might say it is a
little dangerous for a technical person to deal with markets, but Dankly, it is
my experience that the marketing people do such a poor job of dealing with
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152
WALTER S. BAER
high-technology markets that I do not fear to tread on that ground. Second, I
will make a few comments on what is known as user-friendliness.
Home information technology markets have some interesting characteristics.
First, the user and the buyer of these technologies are really very closely
linked. Most often they are the same person. That is a little different from the
situation in a factory or office environment. A great number of noneconomic,
nonfunctional considerations go into the reaction of the consumer; things like
taste, fashion, curiosity many of the factors that Walter Baer commented
on are very important. Therefore, I believe that these markets are really
very hard to predict, and they are especially hard to mastermind. There is a
lot of buying one and buying it once the Hula-Hoop example, if you like.
Consider the evolution of videogames. The first ones really did not impress
people very much, and most people dismissed them as a minor novelty.
Suddenly, videogames came of age, and all at once we were hearing sweeping
statements about a Pacman culture. We heard that videogames were the
prototype of the industry of the future. You may remember that phrase, not
heard very often anymore, Atari democrat. The pop sociologists told us that
the videogame was either saving or ruining our youth, depending on whom
you listened to. I recall a widely publicized seminar, held at Harvard University,
on the educational impact of videogames. Remember how towns were slapping
curfews on video arcades? Look at it today. The arcades are going broke.
Those same prophets who were wrong on the two previous rounds are
confidently predicting that the videogame is dead, and I suspect that they are
just as wrong this time.
Another example is the videocassette recorder (VCR). There was a very
long period of latency before the VCR really hit its stride and became the
major industry it is today. One of the big factors in that growth was the
emergence of a mom-and-pop industry, the videotape leasing and renting
industry. Suppose, for a minute, that someone in a large corporation had been
smart enough early on to have envisaged the whole synergistic system that
would be required to make the VCR industry boom. Suppose they had seen
the necessity of establishing a network of video rental outlets and had put the
ideas and scheduling together in a business plan. The answer from the top
would have been that the investment is too high and the payback is too long.
It just would not have gone. The present boom and growth has truly emerged,
in my opinion, from the patient offering of a new technology, from expen-
menting with it out there in the real market, depending on the vision, on the
interest, on the entrepreneurship of a lot of people who are trying things,
finding out what happens, and finding out what combinations will work. Given
this background, I think we have to realize that as we go down the path of
evolving information technologies in the home, it is going to be a highly
experimental path, one of trial and error, and one where there are going to be
a lot of contributions from a lot of different people. Therefore, again, I do not
think that these markets will be easily masterminded.
I would now like to turn to the topic of user-friendliness. It is a phrase we
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INFOR~IATION TEClINOLOGIES IN THE lIOME
153
hear time and time again, and to which we attach a lot of emphasis and
importance. Frankly, I think we are doing a poor job of it today. I think we
really do not understand the full dimensions of what is needed for user-
fnendliness. We have heard much about home computers, and I share the
frustrations and experiences of everyone who has pushed a disk in and had
the screen read "Disk Read Error," "Error 11," or whatever else can happen.
I contend that you can fix those things and still not be user-friendly by a wide
margin. I believe that the key to widespread diffusion of the technologies that
Walter Baer has been talking about is for us to get to a new level of
understanding and appreciation of what user-friendliness really means. Frankly,
I think that TV low enthusiasm but very high acceptance is a good standard
for user-friendliness.
I want to dramatize what I mean by user-fnendliness. Let me take the
example of the telephone. Think for a minute what happens to you when you
want to make a call on the telephone to someone whose number you do not
know and whose number is not in that list of 30 numbers you can store in
your telephone today. You pull out a big, thick volume that you have tucked
away in some obscure spot to keep it from being unsightly, open it up, and
run your finger down fine print to try to find the person you want. Then, of
course, there is no space to lay the book near the telephone, so you balance
it on your knee, hold one finger on the name, pick up the receiver, try to hold
it to your ear and dial, and halfway through you drop the telephone book and
receiver. ~ submit that that is not user-friendly.
I believe that we do have to get to a new level of understanding and
comprehension of user-fnendliness in order to make many home technologies
come about. There are a number of technologies on the horizon that can help
do that, but the biggest gain will come if we perfect voice input and voice
recognition. If we move forward to a state where voice input is low cost and
sophisticated, user-friendliness will be just around the corner.
Finally, I agree, by and large, with the assessments that Walter Baer has
made. The only one that I would question is whether the impact of learning
in the home will be quite as large as he thinks it will be unless we solve the
problem of user-fnendliness. Moreover, I think that the technologies required
to improve user-fnendliness are only now emerging and being developed. The
software related to such things as expert systems and artificial intelligence-
if they come along as dramatically as many of us expect them t~will
significantly improve our ability to build truly user-friendly products.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
voice input
