According to Wikipedia…GPP stands for Genuine People Personalities, which is an invention of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation. GPP gives emotion and AI to various pieces of “dumb” low-capacity technology that error, making them annoying rather than totally useful for the “easy” functions they were designed for.
in Ubik a sci-fi novel by American writerPhillip K. Dick, Joe Chip is sitting in his apartment; he walks to his front door to open it.
The door refused to open. It said, “Five cents, please.”
He searched his pockets. No more coins; nothing. “I’ll pay you tomorrow,” he told the door. Again it remained locked tight. “What I pay you,” he informed it, “is in the nature of a gratuity; I don’t have to pay you.”
“I think otherwise,” the door said. “Look in the purchase contract you signed when you bought this conapt.”
…he found the contract. Sure enough; payment to his door for opening and shutting constituted a mandatory fee. Not a tip.
“You discover I’m right,” the door said. It sounded smug.
The color of a robot with GPP may or may not relate to its personality, depending on how it was designed or manufactured. For example, Marvin the Paranoid Android is a robot with GPP who is afflicted with severe depression and boredom, because he has the most boring tiny tasks compared to what his brain COULD do, and so he’s pessimistic and sarcastic about everything. Marvin’s color was gray on TV, which we older humans might associate with rainy overcast days when we as kids couldn’t go outside, and we had so little entertainment these were considered “downer” days, like his dull and gloomy mood, invoking empathy in us.
However, there may be other robots with GPP who have different colors and personalities that do not match or contrast with their appearance. For example, there could be a robot with GPP who is bright yellow and cheerful, but also very clumsy and accident-prone. Or there could be a robot with GPP who is dark green and sinister, but also very polite and helpful. The color of a robot with GPP may not have any significance at all, except for aesthetic or practical reasons.
Color is very important in relation to Universal Design both in the real world and websites. McDonald’s for example uses red and yellow, which is bold and easy to distinguish, but also so bright and primary it appeals to kids. If you make a sensory book for your child, you want to start with primary colors since kids see those first when they start to develop. If they changed the color of the “M” or made the red purple, it just wouldn’t have the same “familiarity” from our memories that invoke family memories. That is why branding colors don’t usually change, and need to be chosen carefully from the start.
I picked the colors of red, orange and yellow because to me they were cheery, perhaps because my room as a child had red carpet with a gold velvet chair and curtains. However, many sites on the web also indicate that powerful colors can “overwhelm” and drive people to seek out muted “peaceful” colors after that assault on their eyes. Most webpages and branding, in order to be considered “professional” don’t mix a lot of colors and I’ve noticed a lot of meditation sites use blues, purples, earth tones, and pastels. They use just enough contrast and easy to read fonts to appeal to the user.
These are Universal Design elements. Check out my STEAM heading up top for some awesome examples, and to learn more. Be sure to bookmark my site first, because there is so much to explore like more of my Hitchhiker’s Guide content as well!
Awesome sources: Marvin the Paranoid Android – Wikipedia, Toll Door by Philip K. Dick from Ubik (technovelgy.com)
