Radio Frequency Identification Tags need Design Space

There is a danger in predicting the future, as we can't even know the next 12 months, claimed Martin Swerdlow, speaking at the AIGA Experience Design meeting about RFID (radio frequency identification) tags. His company, Integrated Product Intelligence Ltd, works with business, especially the retail field which quickly caught on to the value of being able to follow goods through the system to the sales point, to use the potential of labelling objects with programmable chips. As fellow presenter, Gill Wildman of Plot, put it: 'RFID is training wheels for ubiquitious computing.'

Clearly, this is a technology whose day is arriving. RFID tags already enable a wide variety of applications, from Transport for London's Oyster Card to Walmart's palette tracking system. But their real potential is barely understood. Can design approaches help to reveal new applications?

In giving its history, Swedlow pointed to the prediction in 1999 from MIT that every single object would have a wireless address and a chip. Then it looked absurd; now it looks obvious. The question has become not 'whether' but 'how'. This was Wildman's part of the evening. She reminded the audience that there is a moment when a technology is new when it hasn't yet been adopted and become familiar for certain functions. 'In the early stages, we can define the use or shape of the technology so it's worth exploring the design space,' she said.

By contrast to Swerdlow, who had spent some time dismissing consumer fears about tracking, she dwelt on consumer aspects. In the flagship Prada shop, RFID had been introduced to act like 'cookies' for shoppers; storing details of what they had previously bought, their clothes size and so on. She recounted how it was discovered that the women who shopped there didn't care if the shop assistants knew what they had bought previously – it was of no value to them – and that they really didn't want the staff to know what size they are.

And she countered any dismissal of consumer anxiety by saying that once it has become an issue, it is real. She categorised the fears that people have about this kind of mobile stored data:
* that those collecting it will also judge what the data means,
* that there may be third party interception,
* that triangulation will take place – ie it will be combined with other data sources to improve its potential for data mining,
* that there will be third party sense-making of the data.

She pointed out that having initial resistance to an idea or technology often promotes better design in the long run. The danger she identified was carving a path for the technology that regards people as 'inventories'.

And she challenged designers to look at its qualities and think broadly. Finally she addressed its qualities by presenting suggestions for its performance in experiential terms:
* Small movements
* Trustworthy contexts
* Intimate behaviours
* Ritual etiquettes
* Polite exchanges

All this advice was provided to seed the Interactionary – a design challenge - that shared the event. This is written up separately.

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