Project one observations
Project One Observations
The main observation about my project is that it is difficult to get people to use LOCKBOX in the first place. The aesthetics of my design suffered due to time constraints and limited access to resources. A lot of people glaze over my project and walk away. It is incredibly difficult to create a design that people want to use for a variety of reasons.
First of all, Working with a 6 and a half inch long breadboard makes it difficult to slim down down the size of my device. Second of all, plug in wires is not useful for the fact that they will fall out if not placed correctly. They also stick up a couple of inches, so this also creates size constraints. Third, the Arduino itself is finicky, has to be powered through the wall or my laptop, because I do not have the parts to convert to a 9V battery. To make it worse, the servo has to be placed at the opening of the box, so it is virtually impossible to hide. If you hide the servo, the box wouldn’t be able to open because whatever the servo is hiding in will prevent the servo from swinging. One possible solution to this is using the servo as a lock instead of the mode of opening the box, but that seems less fun to make people manually open the box.
If I could make LOCKBOX perfect, it would, first of all, be smaller. The servo would be well hidden and the opening door would be made out of a material you couldn’t just lift. The lights would be mounted rather than shoved through. The buttons would be large and not tiny Arduino buttons that no one can see. The box would be made from plastic, and the device would run on batteries. The box would have its own circuit board rather than be run on Arduino since Arduino is a tool for LEARNING and PROTOTYPING and not for making FINISHED PRODUCTS.
Without access to resources and funding, it would be next to impossible to actually design the device to entice users into interacting with it. You NEED money to buy wood, 3D filament, etc. You even need money to buy cardboard. You have to buy paint, you have to create multiple prototypes, and for the case of creating a device that you can actually make look good, you would have to not use Arduino and build your own circuit board. The size that the Arduino occupies is the major hindrance. So I don’t understand where you are coming from when you say good design doesn’t cost money. Everything in this world costs money, and the services at the IMRC are outrageously priced because the folks that run it are abusing and controlling the resources so they can make a quick buck off of students. 3D printing is out of the question because LOCKBOX is too big and printing multiple prototypes and forms would take weeks.
Conceptually, there is nothing wrong with my design for the interaction itself. There are 4 buttons and 4 lights. I have arranged the lights so the user has the signifier that the lights must lit from left to right in order to be considered a success. The user gets feedback for a failure when all the lights shut off, and get feedback for success when the box opens. I do not have too little feedback, nor an annoying amount of too much. The user is taught by interacting how the mapping of the buttons to lights work. This interaction develops the user’s conceptual model of how to box operates. The user first develops the goal of lighting the lights left to right, interact to discover the mapping, and are given feedback for their success. After this model is developed through a successful attempt, I designed the box to re-map. This gives LOCKBOX value in re-playability because the users have to develop new mappings and conceptual models each play.
For those who interacted with the box, success was eventually reached almost every time. So when actually used, the design works exactly as intended. The only issue with LOCKBOX is its physical appearance and build. The appearance is why LOCKBOX and I have been LAUGHED AT and TEASED simply for walking around campus with it. After someone interacts with the box, they finally understand it. However, since I cannot access or afford proper materials in order to make LOCKBOX look, I cannot get enough people to test LOCKBOX further. I’ve read the book and listened to what it said, and have proven that with the few people willing to use my design, but I cannot make the thing aesthetically pleasing enough for people to understand that it is a toy, rather than a makeshift explosive.
I knew this going into class Thursday. I knew what was wrong with my design going into this. However, I don’t have the means to fix the aesthetics of my design. But nice of you to send us all out to be ridiculed anyway. Given the fact that we were all supposed to confuse potential users anyway though, I think we were successful in that way since nobody wanted to use our devices unless we forced them.
The main observation about my project is that it is difficult to get people to use LOCKBOX in the first place. The aesthetics of my design suffered due to time constraints and limited access to resources. A lot of people glaze over my project and walk away. It is incredibly difficult to create a design that people want to use for a variety of reasons.
First of all, Working with a 6 and a half inch long breadboard makes it difficult to slim down down the size of my device. Second of all, plug in wires is not useful for the fact that they will fall out if not placed correctly. They also stick up a couple of inches, so this also creates size constraints. Third, the Arduino itself is finicky, has to be powered through the wall or my laptop, because I do not have the parts to convert to a 9V battery. To make it worse, the servo has to be placed at the opening of the box, so it is virtually impossible to hide. If you hide the servo, the box wouldn’t be able to open because whatever the servo is hiding in will prevent the servo from swinging. One possible solution to this is using the servo as a lock instead of the mode of opening the box, but that seems less fun to make people manually open the box.
If I could make LOCKBOX perfect, it would, first of all, be smaller. The servo would be well hidden and the opening door would be made out of a material you couldn’t just lift. The lights would be mounted rather than shoved through. The buttons would be large and not tiny Arduino buttons that no one can see. The box would be made from plastic, and the device would run on batteries. The box would have its own circuit board rather than be run on Arduino since Arduino is a tool for LEARNING and PROTOTYPING and not for making FINISHED PRODUCTS.
Without access to resources and funding, it would be next to impossible to actually design the device to entice users into interacting with it. You NEED money to buy wood, 3D filament, etc. You even need money to buy cardboard. You have to buy paint, you have to create multiple prototypes, and for the case of creating a device that you can actually make look good, you would have to not use Arduino and build your own circuit board. The size that the Arduino occupies is the major hindrance. So I don’t understand where you are coming from when you say good design doesn’t cost money. Everything in this world costs money, and the services at the IMRC are outrageously priced because the folks that run it are abusing and controlling the resources so they can make a quick buck off of students. 3D printing is out of the question because LOCKBOX is too big and printing multiple prototypes and forms would take weeks.
Conceptually, there is nothing wrong with my design for the interaction itself. There are 4 buttons and 4 lights. I have arranged the lights so the user has the signifier that the lights must lit from left to right in order to be considered a success. The user gets feedback for a failure when all the lights shut off, and get feedback for success when the box opens. I do not have too little feedback, nor an annoying amount of too much. The user is taught by interacting how the mapping of the buttons to lights work. This interaction develops the user’s conceptual model of how to box operates. The user first develops the goal of lighting the lights left to right, interact to discover the mapping, and are given feedback for their success. After this model is developed through a successful attempt, I designed the box to re-map. This gives LOCKBOX value in re-playability because the users have to develop new mappings and conceptual models each play.
For those who interacted with the box, success was eventually reached almost every time. So when actually used, the design works exactly as intended. The only issue with LOCKBOX is its physical appearance and build. The appearance is why LOCKBOX and I have been LAUGHED AT and TEASED simply for walking around campus with it. After someone interacts with the box, they finally understand it. However, since I cannot access or afford proper materials in order to make LOCKBOX look, I cannot get enough people to test LOCKBOX further. I’ve read the book and listened to what it said, and have proven that with the few people willing to use my design, but I cannot make the thing aesthetically pleasing enough for people to understand that it is a toy, rather than a makeshift explosive.
I knew this going into class Thursday. I knew what was wrong with my design going into this. However, I don’t have the means to fix the aesthetics of my design. But nice of you to send us all out to be ridiculed anyway. Given the fact that we were all supposed to confuse potential users anyway though, I think we were successful in that way since nobody wanted to use our devices unless we forced them.
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