There is a strange thing about human psychology in that we expect our technology to be complex and mind-boggling, despite many of the most critical elements actually being quite simple. Few people consider a wheel to be ‘technology’, but it’s a fundamental device for our whole society. Sometimes, companies have to actively make their simple tech look more complex to get people interested.
Casino Games
Interactive media as a whole has long been seen as something inherently complex, and the average person on the street would naturally think of them as hi-tech. As an unwritten rule behind the scenes, however, this kind of media has always been a lot simpler than many realise, with casino games being the best example in all the forms they appear in.
Slot games, for example, all run on a random number generator which handles the bulk of calculations behind the scenes, and when you play bingo online at Paddy Power or anywhere else, you are mainly working with a random lottery system of the same style as offline bingo. It’s the presentation of all of them, with extensive graphic and sound design, that makes each game more appealing and interesting to players
Roombas
Many forget that the vacuum cleaner itself is, by all standards, a simple device at heart, and despite the many modern iterations and improvements made to the design, the core tech is now over 100 years old. Between that and the fact that vacuum cleaners are just fundamentally not that interesting, marketing a new idea like the Roomba was a challenge for company iRobot.
A basic sensor system on wheels attached to a vacuum, the Roomba is an incredibly simple creation. Even in the latest versions with more advanced options, iRobot’s marketing strategy has been clear: make it lovable. Humans love anything small and sentient, and many treat it like a pet in their homes. The fact that the latest versions now come with voices and personalities just shows that iRobot know exactly what they’re doing with this.
Ocean Cleaning
The oceans of the world are choked with trash and debris to the point of sizeable islands being created in the middle of them. More than a few environmental groups are doing something about it, although young entrepreneur Boyan Slat’s compact The Ocean Cleanup has become the most famous among them. Again, their technology isn’t particularly flashy, but they’ve managed to raise public interest in another way.
To put it simply, they’ve used social media on a scale few others have. Aside from drawing in big celebrity names like Coldplay and companies like Kia, they’ve organised events like The Ocean Cleanup’s 100th garbage extraction streamed live across the world. On top of that, they focus their efforts more on results and numbers over the technology itself, while still making sure to explain it in detail once people are already interested. They’ve taken something simple and blown it up to a huge scale.
These were three different approaches to making simple tech interesting for the target audience but it’s not an exhaustive list. Remember, some of the most important technology in the world is often the simplest, and we encourage everyone to find their own examples.