As technology becomes more and more integrated into our daily lives, the internet of things becomes a more valued and efficient way of interacting with our surroundings. Connecting different appliances and tools, especially with a mobile device, can create interesting challenges regarding user experience. Your task in Part 1 of this assignment is to learn about the difficulties people face utilizing technology in their homes or offices and to document your findings. In Part 2, for next week, you will then brainstorm ideas to overcome those difficulties and redesign one particular application. You will evaluate your design by obtaining feedback from potential target users.
37 years old Paralegal who really loves to use friendly computer programs.
She uses technology principally during office hours because she needs to keep track of everything in her office. She uses Microsoft Office suit in the daily basis, in special Word and Excel. She enjoys the fact the user interface because it is really intuitive and she can do basic stuff almost like following her instincts. For the most complicated things, she use google to look for different tutorials. Likewise, the browser she prefers is Mozilla Firefox, in fact she uses the internet during office hours to check her email, Facebook and occasionally call her parents through Skype. Also, she likes to streams music with Pandora. Another devices she uses are the copy/printer machine.
Among the difficulties she faces using this kind of technology are:
- Sometimes is difficult to keep track of the documents she create at the office, when she tries to open the same document on her phone, it seems like a completely different document.
- She have experienced some problems with a voice recognition tool used in the company where she works. This tools does not work properly and just make things more complicated. For her is easier to do things manually rather than using this tool.
- She have serious problems using her copy/printer machine because the interface (screen) to configure it is too complicated: it has too many tools and you can’t recognize which tool you need to use for a required task.
- About the email she does not like to use mobile application to read it. The application only shows the last emails in your inbox, but how about read an email sent by a customer last week? You need to use a navigator to do it, and it is kind of a waste of time. So she prefers to read her email on a laptop or desktop.
- She would like an application on her desktop that quickly access Facebook, twitter, email, all in just one application, so she does not need to open any browser to follow her friends. Thus, she can work more efficiently at office.
30 years old Game Designer who is passionate about innovative applications.
- The difficulty that he faces with technology is when he needs to do some updates to the computer. The updates of the different software packages that he has installed are very annoying because some of them take too long, require passwords, uninstall-install, or pay for the update. It is very frustrated because it is a time consuming and distracts him from his 3D projects.
- Another challenge is when he has to work with multiple 3D software at the same time. They are very heavy and consume all the Memory Ram of his computer. The device works very slowly, so he can’t do anything until the computer finishes its last task; it is very boring to wait for several minutes. Unfortunately, 3D software will not reduce their functions requirements to make them more efficient. Moreover, he has realized that every year the new software is more complex and need a computer with more features.
- It will be very helpful for 3D modeler like him, if the programs have voice recognition. Instead of looking and creating different shortcuts for the multiple tools he uses, he prefer to speak with the idea that software finds and loads it for him. That would be great because he could save time and space in his artwork.
- For him is really difficult the amount of different software packages he needs to use to develop a 3D model. Each program has unique commands and keyboard shortcuts, so is confusing because the shortcuts for one program do different things in another one. Its time consuming swap between programs just to make little changes to a 3D model. So, it will be great to have a common application that gather all the programs I need to develop a 3D model.
Commonalities
Overall, both people agreed that friendly technology is what they need to make their time at work more pleasant. Also they both agreed that it will be nice to have an app at their desktops that gather all the main application they use: for person one is the social media, for person two is the interaction between different applications he uses to develop 3D models.
What did I learn from my conversations?
It was an interesting experience because allowed me to know what people think about the technology we as engineers are designing and developing. It is really important to think outside of the box and focus on developing technology that solve the needs of the people, instead of developing technology because one thinks it is a good idea. Likewise is necessary to costume the application to the needs of a specific public. For example the voice recognition that for person one it was an annoying tool, for person 2 will be a fantastic tool that will make more easy and efficient his work.
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