Design for an ancient organism

Human brains are hardwired by evolution to be drawn to certain shapes, colors and patterns because they were important for our ancestor’s survival. To subconsciously determine that a person is a person, we look at their body and their face. Your form and face are your primary, universal components used to express body language. It’s what we sent to space on the Pioneer Plaque for alien civilizations to know who made the spacecraft.

The form and face are patterns that we take as a sign of social interaction or a potential mate. When done right, putting a face on a product can be inviting. But many times it can creep people out, like the Furby. The large eyes and animatronic movements aren’t what we see in nature, so it feels unnatural and off-putting. We don’t trust it.

But the problem is not that artificial faces are not realistic enough. When creators walk the line of human-inspired faces and hyper-realistic ones is when the uncanny valley phenomenon kicks in. It’s too real, too cold, and too against what we know to be safe. We feel safe around what is real. Products with faces need to take inspiration from humans, but replicating it or dramatizing features too much can be off-putting.

As machine learning and artificial intelligence become more prevalent, it’s reasonable to assume that more products with faces will develop. When humans are mimicked through design the risk of the uncanny valley goes up. People know what a person is. Artificial creations belong in a separate box. Appropriate reflections of human attributes are what people are comfortable with. Design for how people are evolved to perceive the world today.