The Real Problem With Meta Glasses Isn’t Privacy
...thats the lazy argument
A few days I was heading into the city, Meta shades on, podcast playing, and caught myself doing a new thing, rather than looking ahead I found myself looking downwards more to the floor because I didnt want anyone thinking I was recording them
Its weird right, someone I had never met somewhere else in the world had used this product badly and their creepy behaviour changed the perception of this product so much that here I am changing my behaviour because I am worried what stranger might assume about me.
That little cohort of creeps Ive never met are now shaping my experience, all of a sudden I’m feeling self-conscious wearing something that removed alot of friction in my day to day
This is the point that barely being talked about, the behaviour of the few creeps who misused the technology doesn’t just affect the person theres secretly recording but it also changed how everyone else experience of using the product
Before anyone comes at me let me be clear here.
Secretly recording someone is creepy.
Filming anyone without their knowledge is creepy.
Using technology to stalk, harass or exploit someone is creepy.
I’m not sticking up for any of that.
That being said I am questioning the leap some folk are making which is a small group of weirdos are using the technology bad, therefore this technology is bad which feel like a lazy argument. If thats the standard were going to use on every new piece of technology then its time to pack everything up and get out the chalk and slate.
I own a pair of the first generation meta raybans. They were a gift and possible the best gift i’ve every receive see below
When I received them I wasn’t instantly sure how much use I would get out of them. Then earlier this year father time got a grip on me and decided it was time for me to wear prescription glasses full time. So I had my prescription lenses fitted to my meta frames and honestly it’s one of the best things I’ve done, they're literally one of the most useful things I have.
Before that leaving the house meant I had to take my reading glasses, sunglasses, my Airpods, my phone just to basically function in my day to day. With my Meta glasses I have basically collapsed three things into one.
I also discovered another benefit I hadnt previously thought of, as many of you will know i’m dyslexic but i also love writing and semi hate being on my phone. Now being able to talk to my glasses I can capture thoughts before they disappear or without getting distracted by the 100 notifications competing for my attention on my phone.
One of my favourite things is walking through Manchester listening to a podcast while still being able to hear what’s happening around me because nothing is blocking my ears.
For me, my Meta Raybans are genuinely useful and valuable. As for the camera, I barely use them. Which is why I find it a little loco watching a great product hit so much scrutiny for something I personally see as the least interesting thing about them.
Two sided experience
When I’m wearing Meta glasses, there’s my experience. I’m wearing prescription glasses which allow me to see the world clearer, they convert into sunglasses when hit with light, I can listen to a podcast and not feel blocked out from the world. I can capture fleeting thoughts and ideas for the newsletter like this, I can take calls.
Ultimately being able to move through the world without constantly pulling my phone from my pocket, is a great thing for me…but then theres your experience.
Your standing across from me, and your thinking is he recording me, taking pictures etc, and yet you didnt buy the meta glasses nor did you read the onboarding stuff, agree to the T&Cs, or choose to participate, and yet suddenly your inside the experience all the same.
Your reaction now becomes part of my experience, if you feel uncomfortable, I feel uncomfortable, if you think things are a bit off and suspicious I feel self conscious.
The minute you think am recording you, I then start changing my behaviour to over signal hard that am not, the experience flows in both directions and its kind of a design problem.
Organisations spend aload of time and resource designing their product for the customer who buys it and often not enough around the experience for the people who never chose to interact with it. As we move at the speed of light bring in new tech designing of the experience cant stop just with the customer sometimes you have to design for the person standing next to them.
Creep Test
Years ago, I watched a kid walk into a local cinema. He couldn’t have been much older than six. He wandered over to the pick ‘n’ mix, glanced over his shoulder like a tiny gremlin picked up one of those pink and blue fizzy bottles. Then he gave it what I can only describe as a full-on tonguing, not a little lick but a full on proper job.
Then he carefully placed it back into the pile and wandered off.
Once I’d got past wondering where the hell his parents were, I realised this tiny psychopath had accidentally demonstrated something surprisingly important about experience design. Someone will always find a way to use your product in a way you never intended that will benefit them… I call this The Creep Test.
Most organisations are good at designing for intended behaviour. We ask
what does the customer need?
What job are they trying to get done?
How might they use this feature?
All sensible questions, but the Creep Test asks something much very different which is what happens when somebody wants to exploit what we’ve built?
Self-checkouts were designed to make shopping quicker and cheaper to operate. Some customers discovered machines can be surprisingly open-minded about whether whether the £1.50 avocado they’re holding is actually an 15 pence onion or not (yes you know who you are) we call these people shoplifters.
When what we intent hits what is capable in the hand of the public we rarely get to decided every purpose it will eventually serve. But asking could somebody misuse this is a lazy question, because if we did that everything would fail.
A better way is to run a creep test is to look at the Service, Product, Interaction or experience through three things:
Ease: How easy is the unintended behaviour?
Harm: How much harm could it cause?
Invisibility: How difficult is it for everybody else to detect?
Design the experience for the person who didn’t buy the glasses
Here a few thought on what could have been done better with the glasses
Make recording unmistakable, make it so the recording indicator is impossible to ignore, yes they have done this with the blinking indicator but again creeps have found a way round that so maybe more time was needed there.
Test what happens when somebody deliberately tries to hide they’re recording, how does it show up in the patterns and behaviour. They could have modelled harassment as a user journey to help identify any blind spot in the thinking, and brought adversarial users into product testing, and asked what happens when the product works perfectly in the hands of somebody selfish, predatory, bored or opportunistic.
Run alot of experience experimentation, and put the glasses on somebody who uses them as intended but made the fact it was a camera really bold, then see other peoples reaction. Walk through the city, catch a train, sit in a cafe, stand in a queue, go to a hospital and observe the reaction. Do people become uncomfortable, ask why. Do they behave differently, ask why. Does the wearer notice, ask how. Do they begin changing their own behaviour in response, what does that look like.
This is the experience we’re currently ignoring, the creeps using these create victims, its also changing the social meaning of the product, and once that happens the use case and experience of the people using them slowly has to dissolve.
The backlash is missing the point
I’ll continue wearing my Meta glasses in much the same way I’ll continue using my iPhone, AirTags, AI, the internet and my car.
Every one of those technologies has been misused but also made millions of people’s lives better. The answer isn’t pretending misuse doesn’t exist. It’s not deciding a technology is bad because a handful of people found a way to abuse it. The answer is designing the experience for both the person using them, the person standing in front of them and designing the friction for the person who want to exploit them