One of three exercises during class this week was to design a 'text free search interface'. The exercises details can be found HERE.
In class, on a blank A4 sheet of paper, everyone sketched their ideas, this is called paper prototyping. This is my wonderful creation below :)
We then used Balsamiq software online to help 'mockup' our paper prototype.
Below is the Mockup I created using Balsamiq.
Reflection:
By drawing the ideas I had in my head, I felt that my ideas could be understood better to whoever I was explaining my thought process too. I have to admit that I preferred the digital mock-up of my idea as it seemed more like what was in my head. Then again my lack of drawing of skills may have influenced this favoritism. I know understand the value of the paper prototype, it gave me a point to build from and it's a lot easier and quicker to make changes; then in Balsamiq. Overall I found this exercise useful in understanding the importance of 'Quick and Dirty' prototyping in the design process, and it will come to my aid during the rest of time in Smurfit and in my future career.
"By wearing a prototype medical device throughout their daily activities, the team understood the physical, social, and emotional implications for patients who might use it"
I Andrew Desmond want to understand the Laptop rental scheme in the UCD James Joyce library.
My procedure will be:
To try the product myself, in order to appreciate the actual experience a real user has. I will use the product over the course of the day and record my findings and suggest recommendations based on these findings. I also plan to record my use of the product.
I found the Following:
I found that swiping the UCard for a second time, seemed like a redundant step. While observing, I noticed that swiping your UCard the second time tended to be the source of many errors for first time users.
You have to wait a minute until after the person in front of you has closed the laptop drawer. This was annoying at times.
The system was easy to use, fast and all the laptops were in excellent condition.
The ability to connect to the printers form the laptop was a huge benefit, it saved me having to queue to print my files.
I felt under pressure, and I was always checking the time, with the 3 hour time limit.
Their was no machine in the Blackrock Library.
I didn't read the T&C as I didn't feel comfortable standing in front of the machine reading the T&C.
The first time I went to rent a laptop, they were all gone; this was on a Thursday at 18:00, during the second week of college, which suggests that they may need to invest in more laptops.
Not a great start :)
Recommendations:
The second swiping of the UCard should be removed. It is a redundant step.
The system shouldn't need to slow down between users, this task should be performed in the background. This would speed up the borrowing and returning process.
More physical laptops are needed.
This service needs to be available in all 5 of the UCD library's.
Their should be a countdown timer or pop-up when you are near the end of your rental time.
The Terms and Conditions should be somewhere on the laptop, possible as a background on the home screen.
"In order to understand 4 different types of customers and how to target them, IDEO developed 4 different characters for a pharmacy wanting to reach the male-beauty product market"
I Andrew Desmond want to understand the Laptop rental scheme in the UCD James Joyce library.
My Procedure will be:
To observe real people using the product, to develop, character profiles to represent archetypes and the details of their behavior and lifestyle. This will bring a typical customer to life and the value of different needs to different users. I stood next to the machine in the library and whenever someone rented out or returned a laptop I got them to fill out a short survey, so I could create character profiles. In total I observed 84 people over three days and below in the "I found the following" section, you can see my results form the procedure.
The survey I used to help build my character profiles!
I Found the Following:
Below are 2 character profiles I built as a result of my observations.
Character Profile 1. Click on the Picture for a closer look!
Character Profile 2. Click on the Picture for a closer look!
Recommendations
Over 75% of people observed, need pre-installed software to help them complete projects.
This service is only available in the James Joyce library in UCD, but not in any of the other 4 UCD libraries. It seems that UCD should look at setting up a laptop rental scheme in the Health Sciences Library (Profile 2) and have pre-installed software on some but not all the laptops. (Profile 1 & 2).
Also looking at 'Usage' figures from Profiles 1 & 2, the rental time should be increased form 3 hours to 4-5 hours.
"By understanding the role and the mindset of the youngest family member, the IDEO team uncovered new product design opportunities for household cleaning."
I Andrew Desmond, want to understand the laptop rental scheme in the UCD James Joyce library.
My procedure will be:
To identify individuals who are extremely familiar and unfamiliar with the laptop rental scheme in the library. I will then interview them about their experience with the product. I also plan to record the users interaction with the product.
I found the following:
I will first describe my interview with Richard who is extremely familiar with the product. Richard has been using the product for a year. He uses the product 5-days a week, and rents a laptop for an average of 3 hours a day. During study week, he rents a laptop for 12 hours a day.
Richard using the Laptop Rental Scheme in the UCD James Joyce library.
After my interview with Richard, I found the following:
The 3 hour rent limit influenced how long Richard would rent out a laptop; it was also an inconvenience to his daily routine as he would like to rent the laptop from 09:00 - 13:00 and again from 14:00 - 18:00, but this is not possible with the 3 time limit.
When the laptop is returned or restarted, the laptop wipes everything that was saved to it.
Sometimes the system does not work.
Their are not enough laptops at peak times. * Peak Times 13:00-15:00 Mon-Thur and Study Week.
Software which is freely available for UCD students, was not installed on the laptop. This meant that Richard had to use his own laptop for certain modules due to software requirements.
Richard found the system easy to use, quick and that all the laptops were in 'excellent working condition'.
Out of 5, Richard gave the overall experience 3.5/5.
Richard Using the Product
My Second interview was with Craig, who is extremely unfamiliar with the product. Craig has only used the product once before and that was on the Thursday (17/09/2015). Craig used the laptop for 90 minutes.
After my interview with Craig, I found the following:
Craig using the product
He didn't read the Terms and Conditions page before renting the laptop.
The 3 hour time limit did influence how long he used the laptop, as he had forgotten what time the laptop was due back and was therefore afraid of getting fined for keeping the laptop over the allotted 3 hours.
He thought that having to plug the laptop back in as a means of 'clocking back in' the laptop, was risky as the charger may fall out or not register properly.
He's initial thoughts were that the system was, efficient, quick and that the laptops were in an excellent condition.
Although he did suggest that their should be more information online on how the system works for first time users.
Out of 5, Craig gave the overall experience 5/5.
Craig using the product (for the first time)
Recommendations (as a result of both interviews):
The time limit for the laptop rental should be extended to 4 hours.
Their should be a period of grace before all the information is deleted from the laptop.
The software which is freely available on UCD connect should be pre-installed on the laptops.
The Terms and Conditions should be set as the laptop's background.
When you Log-in, you should be able to have all your pervious files, that are stored in an internal UCD cloud.
Their should be a step by step video online for first time users.
A pop-up should appear when you have 30 minutes of rental time remaining.
IDEO are a design and innovation consulting firm best known for their human centered design based approach. IDEO developed a set of cards, while not exhaustive, they help designers approach problems from a human centered point of view. There are 51 cards split over 4 ‘suits’ , similar to a set of playing cards. The 4 suits are Watch, Ask, Learn, Try. These cards are best used to explore new approaches to problem solving. They are called Method Cards.
For our Managing Design and Development class we were tasked to use 3 of these cards ‘in the wild’. Our first plenary was focused on the question, what is a system? Simply, as a class, our general agreement was; input, process and then outputs. You can find the classes answers HERE. This test ‘in the wild’ builds upon on our learning from the first plenary. Focusing mainly on the human interaction with the system.
For my project, I chose the Laptop Rental System in the James Joyce library UCD. (Picture Below)
After choosing the technology I decided on the three IDEO method cards I would use. I chose;‘Extreme User interview’s‘, ‘Character Profile’ and ‘Try it yourself ’. I will post my method and analysis on this ‘Field’ experiment shortly.
