Interaction Offloading
by winnie
I have been thinking about a concept i want to put into words.
"Interaction Offloading"
It means taking certain digital actions - things that normally live inside your phone’s attention-economy loop - and relocating them into the physical world.
Take music, for example. Navigating the Spotify app is strangely draining when you compare it to your good old Winamp Music Library. Why not find the cover arts for the CD online, print them on cardboard and have NFC Chips and/or QR Codes directly link you to the Spotify Album/List/Song. No frontpage clutter, no popup add, no politically charged podcasts in your face.
Or another thing. "Focus Countdowns" that lock ur phone for a certain time. i found it strangely counterproductive that i literally have to pick up my phone, search and start the app and the timer just to put the phone away afterwards. On the way there my phone presents about 17 distractions and at least once i got distracted in the process of starting the timer... and did not start it at all.
I am now triggering the timers directly though the vicinity of an NFC chip in my phone holder. When my phone comes in contact with it, it runs an automation that starts a Countdown.
In both cases, its a subtle shift, but it changes the whole interaction: the action becomes physical again - less abstract, less mediated, and somehow less exhausting. Sure, i cant choose from the entire history of all music ever made before i even made my first cup of coffee...
..but maybe not being able to is the whole point.