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Comment by gfodor | Hacker News Reader

I've never understood why they insist on having the device be visually asymmetric. Just put a piece of plastic on the other side that is non-functional, and the "cyborg effect" basically goes away. The human brain hates asymmetric faces. Such a stupid oversight, may have been enough to save the consumer effort if they did this from the get-go.

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Leave that 'piece o'plastic' stuff, the extra room can be utilized as extra battery.

Helps balance things too, you'll be less weight-constrained with symmetric design.

that'll increase the weight though.

I think it’s better to have balanced weight, even if it means more. While it might be annoying to have more weight on the bridge of your nose and over your ears, it’s even more annoying to have an off-center moment of force.

It’s like carrying one 12-pack of beer rather than two.

That's how the Snapchat Spectacles work: one side contains the camera, bluetooth and other electronics, the other side contains the battery.

I think having a piece of nonfunctional plastic on the other side would be silly and, by definition, useless. I think they look pretty sleek, especially in an industrial setting - also, asymmetry doesn't always look bad. I'm reminded of BMW motorcycles:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9SIS4izLqE

and:

http://www.motorcyclenews.com/news/2009/march/mar2709-histor...

No one (that I know of) is strapping BMW motorcycles to their faces, though.

I feel about 30% confident that a "silly" piece of plastic on one side would have made it possible for Glass to deliver on its original vision of a mainstream consumer device, since people would feel way less awkward using it if they didn't look like they were part of the Borg collective. (And before you say "but cost", most likely a mainstream consumer version of Glass would be priced way below the initial explorer versions.) In that sense, it isn't "silly", and my guess is that arguments like yours are the reason it was never attempted.

Design requires fitting form to function, and that often means you add non-functional, ie "useless", parts to ensure the interface between human and device is ideal. Aesthetic appeal is a huge part of that, one could argue any component put on a device strictly for aesthetic appeal is "useless." Yet, in many cases, this "useless" component is strictly necessary for a successful design. (Ie, one that people actually use.)

For something you wear on your face, Glass screams out that it was under-designed. Humans are hardwired to prefer symmetric human faces, studies have shown this. So why would you design a device you wear on your face to be asymmetric? Seems obvious.

This + strapping a goddamn camera to your face that could be recording all the time.

People walked into bars and clubs with these. Then bouncers kicked them off.

If people use your product and they are labelled assholes, clearly you have not done market research.

Apple would have made it aesthetic as hell before a rumour even got out.

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