UCD: Touchscreen technologies

*There are actually more posts if you click older posts and scroll down. There is a great find I made in 2009.

This made my jaw dropped. It’s minority report happening in real, though it seemed like technology is improving and touchscreen tables, this was a really inspiring find.

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89sz8ExZndc

With the presence of the iPhone, we always thought that, yeah, amazing stuff with screens is bound to happen in the near future. Keyword, near future. However, I really deem this as a really amazing stuff. I mean, even though now it seemed to be only playing with multi touch and graphical elements, the potential in this is great.

I can seem to visualise us designer students modelling in Maya with a twiddle of our fingers (the pinch trick), no more difficulty with wacom when we have our fingers, some cool Minority Report stuff going on with the photos collection, zooming in and out of images (as seen from the iPhone).

We can watch 3D Movies on the iPhone now.

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_u9paWQJbs

This is an amazing program which allows characters to pop out from your iPhone screen (with the viewers keeping a constant 35-45 degrees view).

Now now, there’s no need for any more 3D glasses (hopefully) and soon we could have 3D movies available for download in iTunes store (hopefully).

Anyway, those are things we could look forward to for such technologies.

UCD: For your royal throne needs

Now we have a lot of dispensers, there is the soap dispenser, tissue dispenser, now we have the auto toilet paper dispenser!

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE7FLQF472I

I guess this is okay, but the bad point about this invention is that, isn’t this a little too, wasteful? Do you really need that much paper? It’ll be good if we could adjust the amount of paper set per dispense and it’ll be even better if there was no need to press a button to dispense.

It could be something like, when the paper is retrieved from the hook, the next paper automatically dispenses out.

Doing big business in the cubicle? Would like to kill some time? Fret not, there’s DROP, the horror novel on toilet paper.

Source: http://www.weirdasianews.com/2009/05/28/japanese-toilet-paper-creepy/

This is really useful to kill time. As in, if I were spending 10 minutes of my life in toilet, this is something that really motivates me to do my businesses, for the sake of reading a new chapter. However, it will get disappointing if another party went to pull the chapter off, it will feel like ripping a few pages out from a book.

However, this could be a new business opportunity for novelist, with people all converting to ebooks and giving up on paper books, this could be a new way to get the trend back, by writing on toilet paper!

An interesting invention, no doubt.

UCD: For the living room

Introducing Flexible Love, the all-changing chair.

Source: http://www.flexiblelove.com

I came across this product on YouTube a while back, and was kind of amazed by the, for the lack of a better word, flexibility of this product. It could be a one-seat, love seat, or maybe an 18 people seat.

In terms of aesthetic purposes, it has this very appealing design too, especially the rounded version of it, despite being just a honeycomb chair.

Integrity wise, it’s made from cardboard, fulfilling our clean and green needs.

This is a video of the flexible chair in action.

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9-8RkNdRWs

Next, we have a table with lots of compartments. Really lots of it. Easily to shift things around, and easy to forget where you put your things – but an interesting table, no less.

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6dktz_yyUw

I really liked this because it is always great for someone like me who always find that I have too many things and too little space. The demo looks interesting too, like how the users is able to take out a lot of things just from a single table with a large number of compartments.

This table would really be useful if they are able to allow users to remember where they put their stuff, and perhaps being able to provide a little bit more space for larger objects.

Lastly, we have a lamp which requires much love and attention, but it will be a helpful aid when you are reading.

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvffLmSsfVQ

This lamp is something that proves to be useful for many, in my personal opinion that is. This lamp is able to shift your light angles, and tracking the motion where the user reads, thus providing the constant light source. Yes, no more torchlight under bed covers, next time, just bring this lamp under your bed cover.

However, a part of this lamp which proves to be quite distasteful, is the fact that the lamp need some attention (love) from the user. One need to pet it on the head to get it working again. I mean, wouldn’t it be a hassle if I am on the part whereby the character is trying to make a life and death decision… but the lamp suddenly went off?

UCD: Objective and Task Analysis

Objective

Lack of understanding

• Leads to children spending lesser time with breadwinner(s)

Thus our objective is to:

Encourage breadwinners to spend more time with their children.

Target Audience: Children aged 13-21 and Parents

The reason for the target audience is due to the fact that it is the age range whereby children will start to develop their individuality, together with the fact that they wanted to make choices on their own.

The reason for the age range is to address the fact that, if to go without attention, it will further develop into a problem.  It also shows contrast as pertaining to how as age increases, impact caused also increases.

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Brainstorming

Upon researching Generation Gap, we came about a series of problems that is primarily concerned with it.  We further elaborated on the topics we deemed as interesting to work on, marked with a *.

• No more traditions

• Loving Parents/ Family
  Attitude, Assumption, Belief. Hard to say ILOVEYOU.
• ** Lack of understanding
  • Parents don’t really understand child’s needs.
  • They assume that it is for the best for the child.
  • Experiences of parent’s past are different from the present.
  • Forgot about the conflicts they had when they was young.
  • When children voiced out needs, parents feel that they no longer listen to them.

• Sharing Experiences (b/w older and younger)
• **Teacher and student
  • “I just want to pass that subject…”
    Shows the lack of passion. Attitudes and thinking have changed, and teacher finds it hard to adjust to students. Teachers don’t have the motivation to teach anymore.

However, we chose to work on Lack of understanding.
Thus, relating back to our main objective,
“Encourage breadwinners to spend more time with their children.”

Survey Template

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Task Analysis

Woon Chee – Things parent/child do as they return from home

Working Adult – Daughter (20)

1. Close shoe rack’s door
2. Head to bedroom
3. Put bag down
4. Charge handphone
5. On air-con
6. Closes door
7. On Television

Working Adult – Male parent (49)

1. Goes to kitchen
2. Switch on lights
3. Puts down bottle
4. Checks the fishes in tank
5. On air-con
6. Keeps item in drawer
7. Charges handphone

Working Adult – Female parent (48)

1. Goes to kitchen
2. Wash cup and pour water
3. Calls for daughter to take the clothes down from pole
4. Eats medicine
5. Feed fishes
6. Pull up curtains
7. Charge handphone

UCD: DIY Solar Oven

Now we have solar powered cars, solar powered battery charger, but nowww, we have the solar powered DIY oven!

Amazing stuff, I could almost foresee that in the near future, there will be a decreased amount of air pollution due to lesser energy consumption!

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKE9tG6mqmU

It’s actually quite an ingenious idea though, next time we could just bring our mini DIY portable oven to picnic without the need for an electrical plug. A pity that it needs a very long time to cook though, but I’m sure it’ll improve due to the passing of time… This shall be the ancestor of soon-to-come solar ovens.

UCD: Persona – “My parents are my ATM Machine.”

UCD: General Research on Generation Gap

·         What is Generation Gap?

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_gap

“The generational gap refers to differences between people of a younger generation and their elders, especially between a child and their parent‘s generation.”

When/Why does it exist?

Generation Gap is something that is, and will exist as society progresses. It’s not something we can cure, but we could simply try to bridge up the connection that is being lost.

What caused the differences -  or rather, the gap?

§  Environment that both the young and the old was brought up in.

§  The development of society – Society Progression.

§  Experiences that both parties went through.

o   “Particularly the impressions formed in the earlier years of the life are more enduring than the ones formed later in life. Thus the impressions and feelings developed by older generation do not change that easily with changing times.”
- krishna-agrawala
http://www.enotes.com/essay/group/discuss/reason-generation-gap-caused-by-young-old-74471

§  Personal problems, such as the differences in Interests due to technological progression.

§  Both parties not understanding each other due to having difference in opinions, habits, lifestyles and behavior.

·         Common parties involved in a Gen. Gap?

“…a child and their parent‘s generation.”

It is often related to a child and parent. However, in this case, one doesn’t really have a specific age whereby the generation gap will occur.

An example is that, even when a child is 30 and a parent is 70, the gap will still occur, due to differences in generation – the environment whereby they grew up in.

However, the more obvious generation gap which brought up concerns of Generation Gap usually occurs between

§  Teenagers (aged 16 – 20)

§  Elderly (aged 50 – 70)

·         What are some commonly observed problems due to Gen. Gap?

Specific Local Problems

§  Lack of communication between grandparents and child

o    Child feels that they have no related topic with their grandparents, because what they are exposed to in life is different.

E.g. Child prefers to play computer, which he will feel that grandparents could not understand them even if they tried to explain, thus feel no point in explaining.

“They don’t understand even if I tried to explain, no point trying to talk right?”
- Nelson, 16, computer gamer

§  Priorities shift – Lack of bonding between grandparents/parents and child

o    Child is spending lesser and lesser time with their grandparents/parents, due to studies, work, and even personal hobbies.

E.g. Chang, 23, working adult, felt that it’s more productive if she settles the extra works she brought home from company rather than to sit down and have dinner/ watch TV with her parents/grandparents.

§  “Huh? Go out with them? So embarrassing!”

o   Child feels that bonding sessions with parents/grandparents held in public is very ‘malu’, too much of an embarrassment.

E.g. Ming Hao, 14, feels that going out with parents/grandparents make him looks uncool because he feels that his friends will laugh at him for being too much of a “mama’s boy”, a ‘guai guai’ type of child who will adhere to their parents.

§  Differences in tastes – Food aspect

o   Child don’t get why her grandparent is so attached to a particular food, because of the experiences her grandparent has went through during their childhood.

E.g. Hui Ting, 19, student, feels very sick and tired of the food her grandma cooks. An example of such food is Han Zhi Porridge (Sweet Potato Porridge).

However, she realized that her grandmother is so attached to such food is because she have went through WW2 in her childhood eating the porridge and they felt a sentimental attachment – which Hui Ting said that she could not understand.

UCD: iPhone Armed With Facial Recognition App Lets Cops ID Perps on the Street

Why need some wacky ID invention when you have an iPhone? Beware, the ultimate iPhone application for the cops…

A facial recognition app.

I stumbled onto this article on the web and found it immensely interesting. iPhone can do ANYTHING! The designers really understood the pain and agony for the cops to ID a certain individual.

No more taking down IC numbers and checking with the database! Hurray for cops, booray for us, does that mean that the cops could just snap snap snap on the street?

What about our human (privacy) rights?

Anyway, this is just a nifty little something that makes life very much easier for the cops. Now all cops should just get an iPhone together with their pistol and stuff.

See it in action!

Ref: http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-06/police-get-facial-recognition-iphone-app-id-perps-field

UCD Survey Compilation

1) How often do you visit HMV?

* Daily
* Weekly
* Monthly
* Annually

2) What time of the day do you often visit?

* Morning
* Afternoon
* Evening
* Night

3) How long do you shop in the store?

* an hour
* _______________

4) What is the first thing you do when you enter into HMV?

5) What do you do in the store? (e.g Sampling and browsing)

6) Do you buy anything? [What do you buy? (elaborate based on his/her questions)]

7) How much do you spend on an average in the HMV?

* $100

8) How do you find about the prices of the products?

9) How long do you spend to find what you want?

* 10min
* _______________

Why?

10) What do you do if you can’t find what you want?

11) Are there any difficulties or problems faced during your visit? (What is it? Eg. Certain albums you can’t listen)

12) How would you rate the following categories? (1-Bad, 5-Excellent)

a) Ambience: 1 2 3 4 5

Suggestion for improvements:

b) Arrangement of the products: 1 2 3 4 5

Suggestion for improvements:

c) Customer Service: 1 2 3 4 5

Suggestion for improvements:

d) Choice of music played: 1 2 3 4 5

Suggestion for improvements:

13) Have you visited other music stores? If yes, can you list them?

a) Is there anything unique about those stores? What is it?

Your Particulars:

Name:

Age: 11-16 / 17-21/ 22-30 / 30 – 40 / >40

Gender: M/F

Marital Status: Married/Single

Occupation:



UCD Persona (Edited)