Is it the usability?

Today, I watched a video of people helping a motorised cardboard construction or “robot” to navigate. The so-called tweenbot has a flag on it that says “Help me,” and that asks people to send it on its way to its outdoor destination.

And people help it, time and again, get to where it “needs” to go.

On your next project, when you’re looking for corners to cut, I’d like you to imagine your future users wearing a sign that says “Help me.” Will that encourage you to help them?

The tweenbot pictured above is from Kacie Kinzer’s Tweenbots site, which creates a narrative about ”our relationship to space and our willingness to interact with what we find in it.”