Think of a product that would not work for a subset of users:
- Define the user group
- Explain the problem(s)
- Explain how you would re-design the product, following UD principles, so that it would work for these end users.
*Be sure to include your name in your comment.
Mike Cressey
Recently, we purchased a home security system from ADT. It consists of a downstairs “perimeter” detection system consisting a set of wireless sensors that detect opening/closing and vibrations of all the downstairs windows and doors. It also includes a wireless indoor motion sensor for the upstairs open areas and a fire detector. The system is controlled by a main controller box which is attached to the phone line. To operate the system, there is a wireless WT5500 keypad controller mounted on the wall of the doorway coming in from the garage.
In general, this system is fairly easy to use but the user group would not be well served by this system is the visually impaired or blind.
There are several problems with this system. When a window or door is opened, there is a chime that rings from the controllers that you can hear fairly well. However, you cannot tell from the chime which window or door was opened and the system does not distinguish between a door or window, which is probably desirable. To find out this information, you have to go the wireless controller and scroll several times using a scroll button to see on an LCD display which door/window was opened.
The other main problem(s) lie with the keypad controller itself. Below the LCD display is a standard 3 x 4 keypad (10 digits with an asterisk (*) and a pound (#) key. This keypad has 2 raised dots on the middle key (5) and I don’t know if this the correct design for visually impaired. To the right of the keypad, are 5 function keys labelled Stay, Away, Chime, Bypass and Exit which are the main functions of the system. These keys are not marked in any other way so a visually impaired person would have to memorize the order. Stay and Away are the arming keys of the system. Stay arms the perimeter sensors and Away arms all the sensors and you would arm that only if you intended to leave your house. The Stay key does not have an auditory component whereas the Away key does, i.e., it beeps for 45 seconds giving you time to leave the house. However, you still have to type in your 4-digit passcode to actually start the arming process. The Stay key gives you no such confirmation. In addition the sounds are always the same. When you re-enter the house, the system does beep until you disarm it by again, typing in your passcode. There is a visual confirmation on the LCD and there is an auditory component to disarming which is good. There are 3 other “Emergency” keys to the left of the keypad, Fire, Auxillary and Alarm, which are important the system as well. They are labelled with an icon but the keys are smooth, so you would need to memorize their order. ADT also thought that the icons were too small and put little stickers with larger icons, beside the keys but this is obviously of no help to a blind person.
The entire system doesn’t need to be re-designed to assist the visually impaired but there needs to be more multi-model (auditory) features added. There also need to be patterns added to the surface of the Function and Emergency keys. Perhaps the keypad should have embossed letters or something on the keys.
As I was attempting to figure this one out I went and made myself a cup of coffee with my amazing Keurig. And it hit me. This wonderful machine is a perfect example of a product that is missing a user group. I realized as I made my coffee how much I relied on the visual prompts. Now I know there is most likely a newer version out there that may have a beep or something, but this one doesn’t even have anything to let you know the coffee is done except flashing text asking you to enjoy your coffee. You also have to insert the fillable K-cup a certain way or you risk damaging it, as my father found out the other day. The product doesn’t even have mention of this on it, just a small arrow that you must line up to the arrow on the Keurig.
So, defining the user group, I see two possibilities here. Those with sight impairments and those that have never seen a Keurig before and have little technological exposure.
The issues are, there is little to no instructions on the products, this being the Keurig and the multiple use K-cup. Also only having one output for users to know when input has been successful or when tasks are complete. The user interface is also touchscreen which can be difficult for users to see to make the correct selections.
I very much love voice activation with confirmation. Though this may not be a great UD choice for this product, at least having some sort of auditory return when a selection is made would be helpful. If the user selects coffee, and meant to select hot cocoa, a voice stating ‘coffee’ would prevent the user from continuing with the incorrect settings. Also, when the coffee is done, a simple beep, or even ‘done’, would be wonderous. As for the instructions for the multiple use K-cup, there is a small arrow that shows where to line up the cup. Add text to the products and make the arrow on both products tactile so users with sight issues can still line them up.
Anyways, if Keurig added these features I would totally get behind that, if only to keep my dad from making me interesting cups of coffee and destroying my multiple use K-cups.
My parents have a fridge that would likely prove troublesome to someone who could not see. This fridge has a water and ice dispenser in the door, along with all of the controls to adjust the temperature of the fridge/freezer. These controls present as buttons, but they do not move, instead behaving more like a touch screen. There is also a screen which shows the temperature settings, filter status and the time. This fridge is also one which will begin to play a loud beeping noise if the doors are left open too long.
The problem with this interface is that there is absolutely no feedback from the buttons. They don’t press, there are no beeps, they all feel like a smooth piece of metal, and they only distinction between them is the printed image (which has worn off). The lack of feedback to the user makes the fridge challenging to use for a sighted person, and I suspect it would be extremely frustrating, if not impossible, for a vision impaired person.
I would fix this by having the buttons be differential by touch. Some bumps to indicate which is which, or perhaps a more distinct separation so the user could feel when they leave one button and begin the next. I would also make the buttons click or beep or somehow indicate to the user that they have been pressed. A beep would probably be best, since that would allow different beeps for each button, further allowing the user to recognize which button had been pressed. Having both is probably ideal to be more universal.
I would also replace the button interface for temperature control with a knob interface. These knobs should have discrete levels, and there should be a tactile click when moving from one level to another.
Something I saw recently comes to mind. I have been traveling a lot lately and have logged a lot of miles on trains, long distance and commuter style. The user group I want to target with this solution is anyone who would struggle to lift 10-20 kilos while trying to navigate a ladder.
Recently I was noticing that whenever a train pulls into the platform and passengers unload, there is a huge throng of people of course waiting to push their way into the train to get the best seats before it fills up. Passengers are still trying to deboard the train, often with large suitcases or other baggage, and often with a push from behind by all the other folks who are anxious to get to their connections. So let’s say there is a bit of tension in the air and everyone is impatient. The floor level of these trains is quite a bit higher than the platform, with 2 or 3 narrow, almost ladder-style steps to get down from the train. They are badly spaced, the last one is precarious and if you step wrong you will break your leg in the gap. If you skip the last one, for a more sure-footed landing, you will land hard, especially if you are carrying a giant suitcase that you had to wrangle through the door without letting it drag you straight off the train in one fell swoop. This is awkward and uncomfortable for someone like me, with a bad shoulder but reasonably strong and good balance, but it’s absolutely dangerous for older folks with poor proprioception or less physical strength, or anyone else who has trouble with balance, strength, staying focused under pressure, injuries, or other disabilities. I’m sure somewhere on the train is a wheelchair lift, but it’s not an option if you aren’t driving a wheelchair.
My redesign would make sure that anyone who could otherwise navigate the platform and the station would find it just as easy to get off (and on) the train. A solution might be to equip the train with vertically opening doors, that turn into ramps. The ramps should be at an ergonomic angle, have simple railings, be wide enough for full size luggage or medical equipment, and have a finely textured surface for safety and sightless navigation, but not so much as to make a rolling suitcase difficult to tow. The ramp might also have indicator lights built in along the edges for better visibility and soundless signaling, and I’m sure it will be equipped with the requisite alarm sounds for when it is opening and closing. These signals (lights and sounds) could also be employed to signal when disembarking is done and boarding is allowed. Adding a ramp is clearly not just a good idea to prevent people falling on the ladder, but it also affords multiple opportunities to build in redundancies for navigation without sight or hearing.
The concept that I have for a design is geared toward males both young and old who desire the skill to tie a tie, either a bowtie or necktie. While at first blush this seems a very simple undertaking, however according to Popular Science there are 177,147 variations to tie a tie. I would sooner pick the mathematician answer of 85 possible variations. Either way there are an inordinate amount of ways to tie a length of cloth around someone’s neck. What I would propose, as a time and effort saver, is to place a QR code on the inside of every tie embedded with the code to access not only the various knots, but also artistic renderings of how to complete each of the knots. By including the QR code on every tie anyone that purchases a tie would have access to the code. With the directions drawn in a step-by-step fashion should allow for the least number of questions and provide the largest audience to be able to utilize the design.
Currently networking equipment does not work for a very large subset of users, based on means of access, standardization, and many other factors.
While there are many user groups that cannot effectively use networking equipment, I will focus on the visually impaired. This extends beyond those that are considered legally blind, and includes all those with even slight visual impairments. This is a fairly large segment of the human population.
The issues generally revolve around visual information being the most common method of configuration and feedback. This information is usually in the form of indicator lights, text labels, text configuration with very long commands, and very non standard user interfaces. The hardware limitations are the most apparent, where the feedback for which slot to plug a cable in is usually very small text with bad contrast. This makes it very easy to plug into an incorrect slot, which is very hard to diagnose by any method other than visual inspection. Also, most of the tools for indicating if a cable has made good connection and is transmitting, or if the cable itself is good, is a small LED indication. The software is often command line, which should theoretically be helpful because text to speech interpreters could be used. Unfortunately, the text commands and file paths are generally very complicated and non standard, so make it hard for audio interpretation. Also, if a GUI does exist it is usually very proprietary, is visual data centric, and not well designed.
Many improvements could be made. First, an audio feedback when you plug in a cable could indicate what port you just plugged in to. Standard UI design could fix many more issues, such as providing all of the feedback that the indicator LED’s normally provide, and having a set list of commands that work across all models of networking devices. This would require creating a standardized networking API, but this would actually be a huge benefit in the long term, as a user could create a generic profile that could be loaded onto devices dependent on what features it had available. This is an example of universal design having benefits for the design as a whole.
Podcasts. I have heard people recently talk about this a lot. People hear podcasts when then are at home, when they are driving to work and other times. Podcasts are a great way to keep a person entertained and informed. Podcasts are available for different genres. It goes from stories to detailed analysis of current news.
Though Podcasts are good to keep people occupied, it is not useable by people are deaf or have hearing impairment. Since there is no visual element to the podcasts, this subset of people are not able to use it.
To improve this system, There can be a special feature that automatically translates the voice track to a video sign language animation which can be viewed by deaf people. To develop a software to translate the voice track to video sign language signals might be quite a task as a lot of time there will be slangs and fillers that might not be translated easily. But if this is developed, it can be applied to a lot of applications like youtube, TV channels stream etc. This will be a Shared purpose Universal design concept which is simple and intuitive.