FYP: Usability & Blackboxing



The test of consumer technologies is ‘plug-and-ability’. I need to be able to do things (such as like 3D printing) as easily as I can go on to Drive and write this out now. Basically new technologies need to ‘just work’, without all the hassle of complicated set ups.
One example that springs to mind would be the lightswitch. Until recently, the core concept of how a lightswitch works hadn’t changed since the 1800s. The LIFX bulb is a relatively new product that allows the user to control the lights with their smartphone using a wifi-capable lightbulb. My dissertation will aim to discuss how emerging and existing technologies can and will optimize the way we interact with our environment, focusing primarily on the home.


I feel pseudo-blackboxing is an essential in good UX design - the average consumer really doesn’t need to know the backend goings on of a product, only inputs and outputs. However still retaining the option to remove the blackbox for development. For a product to be successful it needs to be able to be used by the average layman. As an example 3D printing is at the stage where it’s widely manufactured and affordable enough to be a desirable product for nearly everyone. However the limiting factor is ease of use. An example of a potentially successful 3D printer is the Zeus, marketed to be easy enough to use by an infant.
Continuing on with blackboxing. Blackboxing for a lot of users can reduce the number of processes involved in completing a task. This reduces the load on the user’s mind. This now unused portion of the mind can be re-focused on the task. This saves the user from spending valuable ‘thought cycles’ on thinking about the medium between them and the task, and more ‘thought cycles’ on the actual task at hand. On the contrary to this, blackboxing only really works when the blackboxed system works perfectly 100% of the time. When problems are encountered the task can stop to a halt until the system is replace, or a third party can fix it. In the opposing philosophy a user should understand the systems they work with, this allows them to gain a better understanding of the system, and how the system can potentially be improved.

I really wish to incorporate these ideas into my Final Project, and have one of my focuses be on this sort of psuedo-blackboxing.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Logitech G502 Proteus Core Teardown & Scroll Wheel Replacement

Image
So I recently acquired a Logitech  G502  mouse, and I have to say I absolutely love it. It's a beautiful mouse, and a worth upgrade to my old G500s mouse. However my one gripe was the new all-metal scroll wheel. While the weight was nice, I missed the rubber ring around my old 500s. This led me to attempt to replace the new 502 scroll wheel with the old one from my busted 500s. So let's get started shall we? So as you can see, these are what the mice look like side-by side. While they look drastically different, the ergonomics are actually very similar among the two. The first step was to take the mouse feet off and unscrew the screws that hold the chassis in place.  Lever the feet off gently with a flathead screwdriver. And they just peel right off. There's four screws on the underside of the mouse.  So the feet are layered. There's double-sided adhesive foam, with the feet on top. On the back foot, I managed to peel off th
Read more

Turning a laptop screen into an external monitor.

Image
So my old Dell L502x died. However most of the components were fine, it's just the motherboard that seemed to be down with a case of water damage. So along with turning the chassis of the laptop into a dock/stand for my new laptop I wanted to turn the laptop's screen into an external monitor. So the first thing I did was extract the panel from the housing to take a look at the model number and the interface. If you're looking to do this yourself just look up the documentation for your laptop or go to ifixit.com  and look it up. Fortunately Dell has excellent documentation and a pretty straightforward teardown process.
Read more

FYP: Working out Modules

Here's a little list of how I expect some of the modules to work: Master controller: Phone/Webapp -> PHP POST -> SQLdb entry Master receiver: Network capable Arduino/Pi sends several requests to the web DB per second.   Lights RGB bulb/strip along ceiling/wall join 4 pin input -> Arduino -> Wireless transimtter  (RasPI?/Wifi Sheild) -> Phone Sound Servo hooked up to volume knob 4 pin input -> Arduino -> Wireless transimtter  (RasPI?/Wifi Sheild) -> Phone Food Fridge Weight sensors under products to detect quantity and presence. Notification  when supplies are runing low Cooking Grill turns on at schedueled/dictated times. Leave food in grill in the morning Movement motion dectors door open /closed  sensors Security IP cameras - this will also help with keeping an eye on plants/oven/other time sensitive applications.
Read more