AKF

Cultural Probe


Results

# 2 Artifact Analysis

Alibaba combines the convenience of online shopping into a brick and mortar store. The store has RFID racks and AI mirrors. 

Artifact Analysis

Round 1: Answer all of the following questions. You can skip up to 5 that don’t seem relevant. Never answer with a simple “yes” or “no.” Explain your answers.

Round 2: Go back and consider other possible answers to each question. Write down at least one alternative answer to each question.

1. What function does this serve?

To bridge the benefits of online shopping with brick and mortar experience.

To get customers to buy more artifacts they might not have considered buying before.

2. What other artifacts could serve the same purpose as this one?

A phone app, an online retail space, a brick and mortar store.

An AI robot that moves throughout the store and collects your clothing for you. It guides you, recommends clothing, and carries them to your dressing room.

3. Does this artifact have any functionality that may not have been intended by its designer?

4. Where would someone use this, and what other artifacts would they have access to?

This is used in a retail space. Through this touchscreen and RFID hangers the customer has access to clothing and artifacts in the store that they can try on and purchase.

They could use this in a grocery store. They would have access to all sorts of food items which would be collected for them and placed in a basket near the register for them to check out.

5. From what perspective would you draw or photography this artifact?

I would show it as a process—the steps the customer takes in the store from when they enter: they select an item of clothing, enter the dressing room, interact with the touch screen, have an employee deliver the clothes, try them on, and then an image of them at home ordering clothes online. It would be an illustration of sequential steps in the overarching system where you would pause and focus on the moments of interaction with either the AI or the clothing.

I would illustrate the retail experience from the perspective of the article of clothing–how it moves throughout the space in accordance with the user’s directions.

6. In detail, what is the stereotype of this artifact’s user?

This particular store works with Guess, so that is how I am going to base my assumption of the user. I would say this person is a female between the ages of 20-35. The store takes place in China so they are of Asian descent. Working-Middle Class student or young professional.

The user is an urban man from the age of 20-35 with similar demographic, race, and class background as the above stereotype.

7. How does this artifact feel?

It feels like a weird hybrid of being at home on your computer and being in a physical brick and mortar as you move back and forth between the two ways of interacting with clothing and the shopping experience. It also could feel like you are on instagram, where the clothes and “suggested” items are being presented to you. It would make it easier to try on more things/purchase items.

Futuristic, friendly, minty, sharp, and sexy.

8. How does this artifact make you feel?

It makes me feel happy because I don’t have to lug around a bunch of articles of clothing to the dressing room. It also makes me feel special because I am being waited upon as an employee brings the clothes to me in the dressing room.

Frustrated and exposed but also like I did not have to do any work at the same time.

9. Could this artifact be customized by its owner?

Yes, you have the option of scanning your face for a more personalized experience.

Yes, the system responds to the owner’s selections by recommending clothing that would work with certain pieces. So it is very customizable based on the user’s preferences/selections.

10. Does this artifact encourage its users to engage in a social interaction?

The only social interaction it encourages is that between the customer and the retail employee who brings them their clothes. So minimal. They can go home and purchase the items at home so it furthers the human-human interaction.

No, the user could go through the entire experience without engaging with another human. The clothes are dropped off in the dressing room before the user enters it. So, in essence, the user could be in the store and not encounter a single human (if it is slow and there aren’t any other customers). They could go through an entire retail experience without encountering an employee because they can order the clothes from their phones/laptops when they leave.

11. Is there another artifact you would expect to find kept with this one?

Yes, a human assistant would be expected in the store to help guide the user if they could not understand the system.

A looping video that explains the retail process.

12. Is there another artifact that would be very confusing to find kept with this one?

Yes, a clothing cart would be confusing.

A menu to order food.

13. Does this artifact promote or impair its user’s safety?

It promotes the user’s safety. They do not have to carry around clothes as they are given to them. So it could be better for a person with disabilities.

It promotes the user’s safety because going through the entire experience on their own so they are at minimal risk for encountering people/objects/things that could hurt or harm them.

14. Does this artifact promote or impair its user’s privacy?

Impair: It is collecting data on the user to work for marketing information for the company and also to personalize the user’s profile to cater to their needs.

It can infringe upon the user’s privacy so it could impair their safety in that sense: who is getting their information, to what end, and what purpose could it serve in the distant future.

15. How would a cat or dog react to this artifact?

A cat would try to swat at the screen when they see the clothing appear and text change. They would think it is a game!

A dog would stare at the screen for a second and then go towards the article of clothing and try to eat it.

16. How valuable is this artifact, and to whom?

17. What sort of special knowledge, if any, would possessing the artifact imply?

Alot. The artifact is a tool to collect a lot of data on the customers shopping trends, outfit analysis, times of day to shop, etc. There would be alot of marketing special knowledge that would be given with it.

You would have precise knowledge on fashion trends of the day and of how to accessorize.

18. Does a user need to actively engage with the artifact to make use of it?

Yes, the user needs to engage with multiple artifacts to make use of the whole system (clothing rack, mirror, touchscreen)

Yes, without interacting with the touchscreen they could not select the articles of clothing they want. I guess I could just bypass the whole system and pick up the clothes they want and carry them to the dressing room analog style.

19. Is this artifact currently “trendy,” or could it ever have been?

20. Could the functionality of the artifact be appropriated for other uses?

21. How would you describe this artifact in one sentence?

The artifact is composed of one thing, but of a bunch of smart interactive devices that communicate with each other to lead the customer throughout a retail experience by acting as a fashion expert while easing the burden of in store shopping.

Artifact provides a hands off, behind the scenes shopping experience for the user to do basically nothing and then leave buying a lot more items than they expected.

22. Would this artifact be perceived differently by someone with specific impairments? Please explain.

Yes, if a person was poor sighted the system would not work as effectively because it relies on large touchscreens for the experience to occur.

If you had some sort of anxiety disorder or trouble with technology you would probably be overwhelmed with the system and would not want to engage with it.

23. Could this artifact have inspired anything in contemporary culture?

Yes, we see personal robot assistants in the form of movable carts in grocery stores and walmart. It is the same idea—using an AI to help with the shopping that recommends objects to buy and guides the user throughout the store in an efficient manner.

It reminds me of instagram ads that basically tell you what to buy or present artifacts to you. They plant the seed in your mind that something is out there for you to get. This system plants seeds and recommends clothes to buy you might not otherwise.

24. Could you play a game with this artifact?

Yes, you could play “Let’s make the employee work unnecessarily hard” game where you select 100 items of clothing and make the employee bring them to you and then you try all of them on and do not purchase any of them—leaving a mess of clothes for the person to then clean up/rehang.

Yes, you could try to select the most random articles of clothing so their algorithms would not be very effective in determining cohesive, fashionable outfits for you.

25. What genre of music best suits this artifact?

I would say electro-pop. It is a futuristic, technologically savvy, but also fun and energetic.

New Age Spa music: especially if you go throughout the store without seeing another human.

26. What technology foreshadowed the arrival of this artifact?

The internet of things and smart devices in the home.

Amazon delivery, basically amazon.

27. Could you imagine a world in which this type of artifact never existed?

Yes, it is the world pre-2008/09. I lived in that world so I can imagine it.

For the future world, NO I cannot imagine a world. It makes sense and we are more than willing to incorporate technology and non-digital living experiences.

28. Is this artifact dependent on other artifacts to function?

Yes, it is dependent on an array of analog and digital artifacts: Clothing, accessories, user information, real time analytics, fashion data, sensors, communication between digital devices in the store: the racks and the mirror, communication between humans and technology (store employee and mirror), a smart phone, tablet, or computer at home.

The system would not function but the digital devices would function because they could turn on and allow you to interact with them.

29. If this artifact had a personality, which Myers-Briggs type would it be assigned?

Super type A organized but also really creative.  The personality that could envision larger systems and make them happen seamlessly. I’d say it has the personality of Obama:  ENFJ: Astute, smart, systems thinker, smooth, seamless, effective, outgoing.

ENTP Obama’s other personality type.

30. Would a child understand this artifact?

No a child would think it is a game. It is too complex for a child.

Yes, children are pretty precocious these days especially when it comes to technology so they could probably pick it up.

31. Would an elderly person be able to use this artifact?

Depending on the age and how engaged they are with technology. I think it would be difficult for the elderly person to intuitively interact with the touch screen, but I think they could benefit from the customer service aspect.

32. Is it owned, shared, communal or corporate property?

It is corporate property, but data is communal and shared.

It is corporate property

33. Is it part of a larger system?

Yes, it is a part of a larger database of information and of the larger system of the store0- the whole retail experience that exists once the user enters the store and also when they go back home and get on their couch.

Yes, it is a part of a larger system. The IOT of things.

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