Let’s Connect
Some networks are for people, some are for machines. Having an ethernet cable, Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, USB or serial port on your computer means alternative wired, wireless or data transfer options. When you buy a SIM (Subscriber identity module) card, you now choose data or phone option. One is mobile internet focused (data) and the other for calls (telephony).
We have blurred the lines between a phone as a two way person to person audio communication tool and moved the experience towards a compliant immersive graphical experience.
Access levels and User levels
Think of your device as an access point to a giant library. Internet connectivity is your ticket to this library. Depending on how your device is configured, it talks to other devices, servers, or services, sends and receives information and delivers functional commands. Depending on your app choices, significant chunks of real -time data are being sent to third parties.
Here’s how it works, in plain terms:
- A Device Needs a Connection: Your phone, tablet, or laptop has to connect to the internet using some form of technology.
- Data Travels Through Networks: Your device sends requests for information (like opening a webpage or checking email) through a series of networks. These networks include your home router, your internet service provider (ISP), and larger internet hubs.
- Reaching the Destination: That request travels to the server holding the information you want. Once there, the server sends it back the same way.
- Decoding the Data: Your device takes the incoming data and turns it into something meaningful—like loading a website, playing a video, or showing you a weather forecast.
- Depending on who connects (your user level access) to the network determines how you can interact with the data.
Let’s take, for example, the ubiquitous smart phone…
Today, the physical unit is configured to give you a large screen relative to device size. You consume primarily imagistic content. Your phone is not a square, it is a rectangle. Landscape is how you watch movies, portrait is how you take selfies. One hand for portrait. Two hands for landscape.
User Experience (UX)
There is a consequential semiotic level called UX which deals your user experience. It is flat, because it must fit in your pocket. It must curve for ease of access. weight is a factor that is counterpointed by screen size. Both determine how the hardware can be built into the case. this dictates the type of materials used. Most phones are sleek and rounded. We intuitively lean to lithe, tactile, shiny objects with rounded curves.
Do you notice that many young people hold the phone to the tip of their jaw and not their ear? This relates to the socially engineered cultural importance of being seen to be talking to the tech, as opposed to listening. This aspect also gives better tracking of the user’s face and environment.
Scope creep
Images and video use a lot of data. That data transmission creates heat. Choices made to give you a relatively light device which prioritizes high resolution video and sound means a big screen, processor and battery. Your battery works for about a day before it must be recharged, which ties into the circadian rhythm of the normalized human worker. Consider these elements in reference to the core function of a phone:
50 years ago: Wired device to contact another person remotely by voice
30 years ago: Wireless device with reasonable sound capture, moderate network coverage, lousy video and a battery that lasts a week
Today: Individualized entertainment system and tracker
You will focus on visual apps and games. Some are preconfigured choices bundled with the base unit. Why is entertainment and social connectivity bundled with the device? Many people do not use a phone to call anyone, but to passively stream music and video. Navigating with it while on the move, literally using it a a screen, in the sense of a physical barrier to communication.
Choice Architecture
You will use only a few mini programs, scaled down to the level of access of the device (called apps), usually ones that are preloaded. Your interface forces click, swish and scroll actions. Adding complex tasks or having lengthy interaction time requires a desktop interface, which prioritizes a keyboard. This entails a different posture, activity level and interface type. Ergonomics is human factors engineering. Choices made in device design control the user.
The bottom line
Network connectivity is about how we prioritize communication channels and what end goal we seek. From hardware design to software deployment, each choice architecture element has been configured and deployed to draw data from (and send data to) a specific network in different ways.
