Alysha Naples: The Next Level in High-Tech
A 20-year veteran of the tech industry, Alysha Naples has both witnessed and led advancements within the fields of interaction and user experience design from the frontline; in a career with graphic design beginnings, that leapt headlong into the most secretive startup of all time…
Magic Leap. For years, seemingly far-fetched rumours have been proffered about exactly what mind-blowing tech was underway in a company that has, until recently, remained firmly underground. When the reality surfaced, it was wilder than even the most implausible fiction – Mixed Reality Lightfield, Magic Leap’s display headset that will blend 3D elements undetectably into real-world environments in a move that will change computing forever.
Naples’ nearly two-year stint as the company’s Senior Director of User Interaction and Experience sounds beyond intriguing; inventing the future, with the cloak of mystique that surrounds it only further adding to the allure. Yet despite her involvement in projects so extraordinary many of us couldn’t even fathom their existence, Naples affirms that true tech progress lies very much in mastering a universal ordinary.
“The tech industry is led by engineers, mostly male, who often struggle to understand people as well as they understand machines,” she says. “So things tend to index on what’s comprehensible — machines, algorithms, things that can be codified. You can remove the complexity from machine code, but you cannot remove the complexity from people. So I’m trying to get people to pay attention and actually start creating tech that serves their customers.”
“Good, core, universal function is more important than the length of your feature list. I would love to see somebody build a really simple, functional system that learns who I am, understands my needs, and works — whomever I may be. Like, a hand-based gestural system needs to work with rings, it needs to work with tattoos, it needs to work if you have dark skin or freckles, it needs to work if you’re missing a finger – it needs to work. ”
This level of functionality is something that, according to Naples, even the industry’s biggest players are failing to achieve. She cites the Amazon Echo that, in spite of its female personality “Alexa”, rather ironically struggles to comprehend female voices; Apple’s infamous, rage-inducing autocorrect, and Microsoft’s HoloLens AR headset, a $3,000 piece of equipment so frustrating to set up, she very nearly threw it out of the window.
All, she admits, are huge feats of engineering, but their real-world failings highlight the necessity for companies to become more mindful about the purpose and long-term ramifications of what it is they are designing. This is particularly relevant in terms of how new tech like AR could be used to enhance connection, a perspective Naples will be discussing with audiences at Australasia’s premier innovation festival, Pause.
“Systems can be designed to foster connection between people and there are some examples that do this really well. Like the video game Journey, which is a PlayStation 3 game I talk about all the time, because it’s an amazing example where it constantly brings people into your sphere and, if you work together, it’s way easier to solve the game. It removes language completely, so there’s no localisation or translation, and there are no distinguishing characteristics to your character, so no opportunities for discrimination. And there are entire message boards devoted to people talking about how this game moved them, broke their hearts, and then mended and strengthened them. You can design systems that foster connection and understanding and belonging between people, but it’s hard and, frankly, most of the time, it’s not nearly as sexy as making a first-person shooter. Nor is it nearly as lucrative, but I truly believe that we are at a point where if we continue to only focus on making money we are heading directly toward dystopia.”
And Naples is similarly impassioned about the importance of safety – something she says not enough people in tech are considering.
“To get widespread adoption of a this new medium you have to make users feel safe — physically and emotionally — and, here’s the thing, nothing will actually take off until women get behind it. The folks that prioritise women’s comfort and safety will be demonstrating a commitment to issues that are important to at least half of their customers, and this dedication will pay off for them in the long run.
“Here’s an example, like if anybody made a dating app that really took women’s safety into account. It would be revolutionary – and it wouldn’t even be that hard. Identity verification of users, or a system that requires new members to be vouched for by existing members, for example. Maybe you could have a system that encouraged you to share your plans with a nearby friend, or set up check-ins with friends — basically encouraging people to think about the safety of their customers and communicate that their safety is important to the company making the dating app. There are so many tiny little things that we could do to make the systems that we already have so much more humane and more kind, but nobody does it because it’s not sexy from a traditional marketing perspective.”
And, ultimately, for Naples, that’s what the user experience comes down to – making systems more humane or, as she puts it, replacing design thinking with design feeling.
“Design thinking is obviously a wonderful thing, bringing rigour and data to what we do… But at the same time, I feel like we’ve almost data-driven it to a point of sterility, like all of the feeling and the blood is gone.”
fluoro is an official media partner of the premier creative, tech and business festival in Australasia Pause, where Naples will feature as part of the Pause 2017 edition. To celebrate the partnership, we have created a special edition Pause Magazine 2017 by fluoro. Each feature within the magazine has been curated to offer an exclusive insight into the game changers from the Pause 2017 program, including the likes of Naples, SXSW, Lucasfilm, The Mill, Pixar, Google, Etsy and frog.
Click here for a complimentary copy of this special edition magazine.
—