Men are tools

This year, a contributor to the Huffington Post wrote about the use of tools by humans and animals, and that really we are not special in our use of tools, rather it is common among many animals, particularly our close relatives, chimpanzees.
Now, I'm passionate about wildlife and making others aware of the beauty and complexities of the natural world, so getting the opportunity to express this in a class that would appear human centric is fantastic.  As someone who likes animals, I often ask, or get asked, which animal I would be if I was reincarnated (or something to that effect). Most people answer with a top predator or a conventionally pretty animal - killer whale, tiger, butterfly, or, appropriate for the region, a falcon.

Fair enough, it would be cool to be a falcon - super speed, flight, the ability to take on prey larger than yourself, and the striking appearance. Yet, I like to throw a different hat into the ring. 

What about being a crow? Personally, I would be a Carrion Crow, they just seem the sleekest of all the corvids (the crow family). Crows are incredibly intelligent, possibly to the same extent as apes. They live together with an elaborate social structure and have mastered many tools. Sticks are not only used by corvids for food, poking at insects living in holes and other hard to reach places, but also for defence - New Caledonian crows probe a rubber spider with a twig! Furthermore, they sometimes even use a stick to get another stick, which is better suited for the task... that's cool.

And even Aesop's fable of 'The Crow and the Pitcher' has been tested in real life and the crows were intelligent enough to actively drop stones in order to raise the water level of a container so they could gain access to a nut. 

As I thought, I have overdone the introduction in my enjoyment of typing about the awesomeness of wildlife.

So, here's the crux of this blog post and the reason for what I hope is a witty title...

Is there an example of an animal using humans as a tool? Well, yes, kind of. Crows have adapted to urban life and taken advantage of the tools of the city. In Japan, crows are known to try and crack nuts on the hard surface of the road, but that's only a little bit intelligent. The really intelligent thing is that some of them have started dropping the nuts purposefully onto pedestrian crossings, then they wait for a human in a car to run over the nut, splitting it open. When the green man shows that the crossing is safe, the crow descends from its perch to safely reap its reward. Through observation the crow has been able to put together a beautiful solution to how to crack its nut - humans (okay, cars and the convention of road safety) are the tool.

An initial look at tools...

Yeah, so this is the first time I've ever blogged!

I'm using Blogger as a tool to keep a journal on my thoughts for my university class about Tools - their uses, their designs and their impact on society and culture.

Proper design of tools, everyday items, is difficult. Usability is the key and even that is determined by various other details. Simple designs that suggest their use or how to use them are often the most effective. Scissors are a great example - sharp blades so the users know they are for cutting and the two holes naturally accommodate the fingers to hold the scissors. A person could see a photograph of a pair of scissors, without ever having used scissors before, and be able to guess how the tool should be used - a conceptual model can be created in the mind and no instruction manual is used. Certain designs also have affordances, details such as shape or materials that people associate with particular attributes. Personally I have a rugged, underwater camera and, like most of the current rugged camera models, has exposed rubber and a quirky, angled shape - 'Oh, rubber, that's a tough, durable material, so the camera must be too'.

Sticking with my camera, the other important parts of usable design can be illustrated. Controls are visible with each button having a symbol to identify its purpose and there is feedback when each of these buttons is pressed, maybe a beep, maybe a change of menu on the screen. 

Usability is key because you then have a basic product; once you have a basic product, you can make it beautiful! Beautiful aesthetics are important to reinforce the positives and to influence the mood. Teapots all have the same function, yet aesthetics determine whether they are used when guests come, or if they are used as decoration in the home.

Inspiration for this blogpost and recommended reads are ‘The Design Of Everyday Things’ and ‘Emotion and Design: Attractive Things WorkBetter’, both by Donald A. Norman