The world has moved on, but I’m sure Jeffrey Toobin still remembers that horrific day when he got caught in an indecent act on a video call because he accidentally left his camera open. The CNN anchor came under the ire of the internet that day, and to be honest, I don’t blame him – I blame the tech. Each video app has a separate UI, each one requires understanding and mastering, and you really can’t expect non-tech-personnel to master the interface of multiple different video chatting apps.
For news anchors, their job is to be in front of the camera… not control it. However, the pandemic forced a lot of people to have to learn new apps to navigate the new WFH lifestyle. Even today, boomers struggle with new technology that updates every month, if not every week. So that’s why the Google Boomer is the perfect device for the tech-illiterate (that isn’t a bad thing, btw). It puts physical controls in the hands of users, so switching on or off the mic or the video is as easy as switching on a light or fan at home. It’s tactile, intuitive, and doesn’t rely on the coldness of virtual interfaces.
Designer: Silvia Caracristi
The entire device can be boiled down to 4 sliders. That’s all you really need. One controls system volume, the others are like switches that you can toggle on or off. The top handles video, the middle handles screen-sharing, and the bottom handles the microphone. You can visually tell if a switch is on or off, helping you troubleshoot during video calls without peering into a screen or looking for a setting that you accidentally touched without realizing.
If the iconography of the buttons wasn’t intuitive enough, the macro-pad comes with a lid that has instructions printed on it too. Open the lid, and it literally becomes a user manual of sorts, helping users understand what button does what. Foolproof in every possible way, so that you don’t accidentally go through an entire meeting with the mic off and no way of knowing the mic’s off.
The macro-pad was designed by Silvia Caracristi, following probably a lot of failed attempts at video calls with their relatives or older colleagues at work. The product’s four-button layout pairs with the four-color Google logo perfectly, which, against the macro-pad’s white background, stands out wonderfully… while also simultaneously looking like something Google would absolutely launch! (In fact, they should)
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