Obvious aesthetic and ergonomic issues in Project Glass

No, it wasn’t another April fool’s joke from Google. It’s the project that everyone in our community talks about the last few hours. Our blog has already contributed to this topic and projects like these evoke diverse thoughts. Dimitris tried to give an overview of the issues raised from the first video teaser.

The scope of our post does not include the experience in terms of service and functionality, but rather than focuses on the most obvious aesthetic and ergonomic issues of the glasses. Our arguments are based on personal experience of wearing glasses for the last 12 years, so contradicting views are welcome. Dimitris also shares same points as another glass wearer.

This wasn’t the first technology project to propose glasses as the main interaction element. Whenever it happens to discuss such projects with colleagues, there is always the opinion «time to start wearing lenses my mate!». I never sympathised the apologist view when it is related to technology issues, so my answer is certainly «No!». I won’t adopt my personal needs and comfort to technology, at least not to this kind of technology. I haven’t worn contact lenses in my life but i have observed many people doing that. The main reason i refuse to replace them with contact lenses is that i will lose my flexibility. I take them off and on in miliseconds no matter the situation. No need for clean hands and concerns for a sterile liquid and storage cases. So, the first issues that always arises in glass projects is the accomodation of users who already wear optical glasses. Are those people limiting users and maybe a regular use case? Not to mention the case of sunglasses. Dimitris questions the possibility of relying on Google glasses for sunlight protection, but it doesn’t seem feasible from the design.

It’s not that glasses are used without any cost. First of all, you wake up in the morning and try to remember where you have left them last night. So, the waking up scene in Google’s teaser is imaginary. The product will not work as soon as you wake up from your bed and stretch. Additionally, during the day people need to take off their «second pair of eyes» and relax. After long time usage, the crust is stretched and the feeling of an extra material on your nose becomes annoying. For that reason, some routine tasks that do not require accurate eyesight are accomplished without glasses. Thanks to advanced materials, some problems have been overcome but in general, glasses frame design still has many chances for improvement. From an ergonomic perspective the choice of glasses for gadget is very tricky and i cannot really defend its popularity in design concepts still.

Now, let’s share some thoughts on the aesthetics. Can you think of any gadget which is placed on the face? It is widely accepted that the face beauty is incomparable with any other part of our body. Thus, it’s significantly hard for a user to accept any technological artefact on it, unless it enhances its beauty. Who is persuaded that the woman in the photo is willing to sacrifice her style and finess for those glasses? It might remind of Commander La Forge’s glasses to sci-fi movie lovers. Or if anyone has gone through the painful process of dental braces in the past, it might recall the external dental aligner in the first stages. Finally, if Helmut Newton was alive, he would resign from photography if he saw Google’s attempts to combine those glasses with fashion. Google is really trying hard to convince us about this beauty, because they know that the aesthetics of this product have many weaknesses.

I am not sure if the final product should be glasses or another form of glass as a material, but Google provoked great discussions intentionally or not. These are the side effects of a polished hi-fidelity prototype release which aims the market. I cannot believe that Google engineers and designers haven’t thought of the aforementioned issues, but i really anticipate the rationale behind their decisions.