Staging our lives

Having a discussion with John over a couple of beers, we realised that there's little pleasure in designing our own lives. Making a perfect playlist to listen to during the day is too much work, it feels weird and almost phoney. I don' think we're able to fool our selves. In his book The Paradox of Choice Barry Schwartz explains how our subjective experiences becomes less satisfying when we're in control. We're able to enjoy something more if we know we're not responsible. This fits very well with a hunch I've had for quite some time, that customisation is played-up. Yes, we want things in our lives to feel personal, but there's some kind of border where we personal becomes personal responsibility. And that's where the joy starts to fade. And as many of us have experienced with portable music, I think this staging of our lives is just as destructive with tv as it is with music. That's why the iPod shuffle works. And I personally think that's why Apple have fans. Their products, though they all are the same, feel personal because they have been developed with such care. We, product designers must care so that the users don't have to. And the users feel better because we deside things on their behalfs. The real challenge is in finding the balance between too rigid and too free...