When I was brainstorming, the ideas that I finally came up with were as follows:
- Mobile app for scanning while not in front of your own computer, sends data through the network to either your phone, computer, or database (Drive, Dropbox, Box) account
- Millenium library system held books summary – sort books, filter by library, due date etc
- Bluetooth universal remote on phone rather than separate device with quick set up, though this would require use of newer technology
- Device tracking app – would need a sticky tracking hardware, could include non-internet connected item like keys
- Wireless home printer with a paper tray contained on the inside of the bottom of the printer for a streamlined appearance; take a page out of the industrial printer’s book in terms of paper layout
- Inductive charging pads/centers instead of power strips and tons of chargers; flat panels installed into desks and carried around instead of cables
- Health app with focus on or an addition for mental health and energy, specifically in the incorporation of spoons theory in the interface; this could be useful for also making the concept more mainstream and fighting the stigma against introverted people
- Projection with mobile devices via projector or wireless connection to a TV should be more streamlined; alternatively, an interface upgrade for how Youtube mobile remote functions work on various entertainment systems such as the Wii or PS3
- Calorie tracker app with a more graph-like interface, more customizable calorie count entry additions because most are not very intuitive if they exist; sometimes we just want to put in a number pulled from a menu, not search through other options forever
- Currency conversion apps entirely reliant on the internet, so it would be nice to have a currency conversion app that checks once a day and keeps that measurement with a warning about its potential inaccuracy (along with the date of the last check)
- App that compares prices for various products at various locations, especially if they deliver, to make for a more efficient online shopping experience; high priority on food, and maybe incorporate updates for modern coupons
- There are multiple recipe app that will output recipes based on ingredients you have, but their databases do not pull from each other, so it would be good to integrate the databases into a single interface somehow
I decided to go with the mobile scanning app because I found it interesting, and it stemmed from a conversation I had with my boss about an email conversation about the precise but mind-numbing process for digitizing old research materials via scanning, which involved a lot of back and forth input and checking between computer and scanners from the employees at times. It also helps that I have interest, since I like to scan my own work, and I would hate to have to constantly be going back and forth.
---------- The Interview ----------
My interviewee was a 22-year old clerical worker and ex-library employee. He worked a lot with old books and digitizing resources behind the scenes, so making scanning functionality more streamlined was definitely of interest to him personally.
The first thing he brought up was that on the primary scanning screen, the “scan” button is at the top of the app, but this is a far reach for the average person’s thumb since most people hold their phone or mobile device from the lower half of the screen. It was a good reminder that we have to consider what is most streamlined for the action; if a person plans on scanning many things, the less stretching or going out of their way they have to do, the better.
My interviewee also pointed out the redundancy of a clear function and selecting which documents are for saving; it would be more useful to be able to check off which images are to be deleted and bring up a delete button than to . He reminded me that leaving clutter from unnecessary files was bad, and the it would be more beneficial to simply just assume we wanted to save everything scanned in except for those that were removed and therefore not accessible.
Office settings generally like to have accounts already pre-saved on their devices, because we tend to give up security for convenience, and generally only one person will use a specific device. There should be the opportunity to remove this saving option though, since not everyone wants to give up said security. My interviewee also noted that he would personally prefer to set up the save location and/or account data for saving before actually beginning the scan; once all the set up was finished, it would be nice to not have to worry about any technical details beyond perhaps rotating or deleting an image. We discussed how many people will prefer all the “difficult” or at least more mentally engaging tasks all at once, and getting the account and scan settings set up before the scan left less of an impression of difficulty on the user than having to set things up both at the beginning and the end of the scan.
Comments