aram’s blog

I did user testing to three candidates with Samsung NV15 digital camera which is not very popular in compact digital camera market nowadays. What’s unique about this product is ‘multiple control buttons’ named SMART BUTTON on the back, in both vertically and horizontally. Overall online users’ verdict was either bad for too many confusing button’s or good for usefulness and even quickness of those buttons. Therefore, I decided to concentrate more on how users will grasp the sense of using buttons to manipulate several functions from easy level to rather difficult level.

Given tasks are taking picture of coin in both AUTO and P(Programmed) modes and save/protect the image.

–>click to view the manual

[MD]=Mode Dial [A]=Auto [P]=Programmed [V]=Vertical Smart Button [H]=Horizontal SB [F]=Focus [FL]=Flash [S]=Size [Q]=Quarlity [PM]=PlayMode Button [PT]=Protect [WB]=White Balance

• go to ‘auto’ mode [MD][A]
• change the resolution/quality of photo (i.e. 1m to 5m/ normal to superfine)[H]3(3rd button from left)[V]4(4th from top)/[H]7(7th is ’shift’ to see hidden layer)[H]3[Q][V]5
• disable ‘flash’ mode [H]2[FL][V]5
• go to ‘auto macro’(flower icon) mode [H]1[F][V]4
• take a picture of a coin Press Shutter
• go to ‘view’ and ‘protect’ the image [PM][V]3[H]5[V]3

• go to ‘programmed’ mode [MD][P]
• change ‘WB- white balance’ from cloudy to whatever is appropriate under the circumstance. [V]2[WB]and select by sliding left - right
• change ‘ISO’ from 80 to auto [V]3[ISO][H]6
• diable ‘flash’ [H]2[FL][V]5
• auto macro(from AF) [H]1[F][V]4
• FIND a ‘timer’ mode which is hidden in another layer of function and set it to 2sec timer [H]7[H]4[V]3
• take a picture of a coin by using of timer

A. Predict:

• Problem of the appliance.–> In one word, this camera is ‘too much’ at every aspect. The camera has total of fourteen buttons on the back to execute any function. They are touch-sensitive but too ’sensitive’ when touched, causing inaccuracy. Users will find this very annoying when they attempt to navigate tons of features and functions.
• The typical ways that this task can be achieved, using a notation schema.–> Users should figure out how to execute any function clicking ‘cross point’. Once a user grasps the sense of touching the buttons in ‘proper’ way, they will also get the ‘next’ sense of ignoring inaccuracy of them. For example, the touch button tends to show very next function when pushed, however you should be courageous to press the exact function you desire to get no matter what.
• Demonstration Video

B. Observe:

• Users were not told about any information, that made most of them embarassed when they realized many buttons on the back. First user rushed to finish the tasks the most, but he managed to accomplish it in almost five minutes which is two minutes longer than my guess for average. Second user was Japanese who took the longest time to get it done. As soon as he noticed that this camera’s operation is not easy at all, he started feeling more nervous even about available language which wasn’t his first language.(Samsung NV15 doesn’t support Japanese.) It took him for more than ten minutes to finish. Interestingly, he got stuck in ’slide show’ mode when trying to save an image and ‘protect’ it while others didn’t go there at all. He spent five minutes in MANUAL MODE testing many buttons without realizing he’s in wrong menu. Third female user was winner. Her record for first mission was three minutes and forty three seconds.
• Most interesting thing was two of users kept touching LCD panel at the beginning. They seemed ‘touch-sensitive buttons’ also means that operation should be possible through ‘touch screen LCD’, as well.
• Second user attempts to use MODE DIAL even though the task had nothing to do with it. Now I think it’s reasonable to think both dial and buttons as related combination.
• User 1 - Task 1 video
• User 2 - Task 1 video
• User 3 - Task 1 video

C. Analysis

• Despite many other great features of this camera, SMART BUTTON turns out to be ‘not-smart’ by three users almost painful trials to accomplish two different type of shooting. It requires quite a bit of ‘learning curve’ to learn the following mechanisms: 1. selecting - by touching the button 2. confirming - by pressing 3.to move left /right by sliding finger 4. ’some’ sub menus are hidden in layer and it will be displayed when extension menu button is pressed.
• In detail, I found following inconsistancy in terms of unified interface. First, in [PM] play mode, it only shows icons, not the name of the function when the button is half-pressed in touch-sensitive way. This could be against the users’ expectation now showing the function name so that users should take a guess only by looking at the icon itself. In given task to protect the image, the icon appears to be a ‘key’, when pressed, then it shows next two steps. Requiring more than two steps to protect an image could be ‘too much’, as well.

D. Improvement

1. Putting each function’s short name on buttons (i.e: F - Focus, Q- Quarlity)
2. Indicating both Horizontal and Vertical rows by putting [V], [H]
3. Differentiating ‘top’ and ‘bottom(hidden layer)’ row’s function
4. On LCD screen, eliminating ‘current’ view which causes more confusion when users are navigating

Main idea to improve current UI of the camera is simply give more ‘kind’ things such as printed letter on top of each button. I could immediately notice that Samsung pushed more on design aspect, that’s why this model has very minimal printing on the back, which might give sophisticated ‘look’ of the camera, not user-friendly ‘function’.

First available user was third user of previous testing.

–>see video
It took far much less time to complete the improved-task than previous one, she felt more comfortable using ‘numbered’ and ‘printed-letter on top’ type of new buttons. One problem occurred was that she skipped pressing ‘view’ button to protect the image, as well as going into sub-menu by pressing ’shift’ button (this shows as escalator-looking icon, not the letter ’shift’). However, she immediately found ‘protect’ button because I altered it from ‘key-looking’ icon. It is interesting to find that few users could tell those picture icon to execute any function. Some got confused and lost confidence using them.

Second video shown is from first user of previous testing. He was able to finish the task in almost same amount of time that second user’s, but showed identical pattern in skipping ‘view’ button.

–>see video_2

First week’s assignment - making pixel by non-computer way.

Magnets are interesting material when it comes to ‘pixel’. They exist in certain size in industrial standard so look generic, they compel when attracting nearby, and most importantly to me, they ‘compose’ something- pixels- by artists’ choice. I prepare 11×17 inch magnetic pad with a number of two different size magnets, and started ‘drawing’ a drooling dog. Arranging them in my own grid was difficult because, again, they attract each other sometimes I had to give up drawing continuous line, leaving some space between each magnet group.

Additionally, I tried not to consider ‘pixel’ as square,

modular, tedious

First, I had(and am still) a hard time figuring out basic know-how to use Eclipse, however, struggling back and forth with Terminal and plain text editor combo also taught me some sense of doing Java, thank god….

For wk1 assignment, I decide to start with really simple code: reversing characters and here’ the result and code.

beyond processing and into java
the string class
file io
simple analysis
info about class cvs for downloading example and uploading assignments
characters and strings tutorial
sun string tutorial
what is electronic writing?

Result:

?gnitirw cinortcele si tahw
lairotut gnirts nus
lairotut sgnirts dna sretcarahc
stnemngissa gnidaolpu dna elpmaxe gnidaolnwod rof svc ssalc tuoba ofni
sisylana elpmis
oi elif
ssalc gnirts eht
avaj otni dna gnissecorp dnoyeb
Code

import java.io.*;
import java.nio.*;
import java.nio.channels.*;

public class ReverseCharacters {
public static void main (String[] args) throws IOException {

// Create an input stream and file channel
// Using first arguemnt as file name to read in
FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream(”mytext.txt”);
FileChannel fc = fis.getChannel();

// Read the contents of a file into a ByteBuffer
ByteBuffer bb = ByteBuffer.allocate((int)fc.size());
fc.read(bb);
fc.close();

// Convert ByteBuffer to one long String
String content = new String(bb.array());

System.out.println(”Read ” + content.length() + ” characters from ” + “mytext.txt”);
StringBuffer reverse = new StringBuffer();
for (int i = content.length()-1; i >= 0; i–) {
char c = content.charAt(i);
reverse.append(c);
}

String output = reverse.toString();

// Create an output stream and file channel to write out a report
// (Also print out report to screen)
FileOutputStream fos = new FileOutputStream(”mytext.txt”);
FileChannel outfc = fos.getChannel();

// Convert content String into ByteBuffer and write out to file
bb = ByteBuffer.wrap(output.getBytes());
outfc.write(bb);
outfc.close();

System.out.println(”Reversed text written to ” + “output.txt”);

}
}

First mission - Designing a clock/watch for blind personal

During the class time, I came up with several quick ideas within 10 minutes.

1. First picture: Palm-sized clock with conductive metal parts sticking out(i.e. brail). This is basically a clock without lid, users can put their hands on the surface and ‘feel’ the hour through conductive metal pieces. An example time shown is 9:21(doesn’t support am/pm function yet) and the clock is supposed to work as typical analog clock does. Electricity supplied by built-in battery should not be a large amount, users will only ‘feel’ the mild electricity in order to realize the time. On design aspects, the surface of the clock is desired to be rounded(see the elevation view) for better grip.
2. Second picture: On the same design base, I added some more features such as leather(or any stretch fabric) cover and wheel+crank combo. The combo slowly moves back and forth just like a massage chair’s when users apply their palm on the clock surface. Hour and minute parts are separated into two motors and power source.
3. ANOTHER THOUGHT: This is, so far, rather ‘conceptual’ idea without specific direction to make it work. Away from above two ideas, I also thought of creating ‘temperature-driven’ clock which gets more sense of AM/PM. It should be placed around window area to charge sunlight to make brails warm, and as times goes by(and sun goes down, also) all brails start to be colder than before so the users can feel it’s moving to night time. This idea only aims to totally blind people, not vision-impaired.