Brian Eno summarizes well the essence of hackability: “An important aspect of design is the degree to which the object involves you in its own completion.” Some complain about the lack of "hackability" of mobile appliances. But the mobile phone if anything is a hackable platform. Think of all the examples of physical personalization that people engage in around the world e.g. changable covers and straps and self-made accessories. Physical personalization is fast extending into software. Indeed the definition of the word hack as “a way found by devious users to get inside software or hardware and make it do things the designers did not intend” may be too narrow. It hides from view the wealth of everyday hacking behavior that far exceeds the imagination and industry of semipro technologists. This trend of customizing the generic will no doubt continue. Perhaps it has not yet even begun.
Playing to this trend raises the question: How do we design for everyday hackability? How can mass economies of scale be combined with the flexibility and costs involved in enabling users to complete products?
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