Design Assignment 1

Design Assignment 1.2

Brainstorm

Collaborated with: Erica Yin

Office Applications

• Inventory list: Listing of available stock in the office currently
• Check in/ Check out system: System to check items in and out and send personal reminders when item is due; also updating the inventory list application (see prior application idea)
• Email Notifier: Sends text messages to you when you receive certain emails
• Universal remote: Controls appliances such as air conditioner, house appliances, etc all throughout the office
• Video messaging: Send video messages back and forth with the ability to draw on the video directly or insert text directly into the video; similar to sending screencasts.
• Printing from iPad via USB Cable

Home Applications

• Laundry Notifications: Syncs with laundry machine and sends notifications when laundry is done
• Laundry Money: Application that keeps track of how much money you've used when washing clothes and sends you a bill so you no longer have to get quarters to do laundry
• RFID Door Opener: RFID scanner to open doors in case you forget your key
• Sprinkler Remote: Ability to turn your sprinkler system on using a mobile application
  
• Lights Remote: Turning on/off lights of all the rooms in the house
• Energy Saver Notifier: Notifies you when something is still off when no one is in the room; or when an application is not used for a long time but is still turned on to help save energy
• Locks Controller: Locking doors remotely in case you forgot when you left the house
• Security Checker: Ability to check whether or not you have locked all doors and whether or not the garage is closed; else, it sends a notification reminding you to lock the door.
• Car Alerter: Notifies you if you forgot to lock doors or if any other lights are still on
• Stove Notifier: Allows you to check whether or not the stove is turned on or off and also allows you to turn off your stove in case you forgot to turn it off

Favorite Idea

I would chose to create the Laundry Application notifier because it would prove to be the most useful to me, as a college student who has had to make one too many trips to the laundry room to check whether or not my laundry has finished.

Rapid Prototype

Testing my Prototype

** My subject chose not to have her photo taken

Who Did I Test This Prototype On? Middle Aged African American woman who works at Student Affairs Information Technology. She has worked there for 2 years and manages the Academic Center at the University Village in Albany.

Notes

After explaining the application to the user, she was confused at the overall purpose because she wouldn't need an application like this in her house since she has her own washing machine. 

She noted that the home page was relatively straight forward, but was immediately confused at the scanner and how to use it. 

She noted that it would be simpler if the laundry had some sort of Bluetooth/wifi setting that could automatically be detected by my phone. It was also confusing that the scanner/hardware was not right in front of her. These notes also pertain to the scanner for the dryer.

As for the "Is My Laundry Done?" page, she noted that the current video of the laundry was unnecessary and she didn't really care about watching her laundry in real-time.

Lastly, she noted that she probably wouldn't use this application because it is not really necessary in a home setting.

Insights

I noticed that users are easily confused. What made sense to me doesn't necessarily make sense to the user. Adding unnecessary hardware, such as the camera and the scanner will confuse the user. I also think adding first time user flow of instructions is important. For example, the application should know whether or not this is the user's first time using this application and if it is, walk them through a wizard of how to set everything. Users often don't like to read and will not click the Question Mark help button on the bottom.

Secondly, I mostly catered my application to college students because students have complained about other students forgetting their clothes in the washing machine for extended periods of time. So, this application to my test user was pretty irrelevant because she has her own washing machine and would not really need to be notified to take out her clothes immediately. In any case, she said she would maybe find some use in it if she wanted to know in real time whether her laundry was done. I noticed that as a college student, I was mostly drawn to making applications to a very narrow audience, which isn't necessarily a good thing. I need to learn to brainstorm broader ideas in order to encompass a larger audience.