The journey of transforming a concept into a tangible, functional reality is an exhilarating experience, with challenges and discoveries at every turn. The most enjoyable part of this adventure for me was definitely the user-testing phase of my final project. It’s one thing to nurture an idea in your mind or sketch it on paper, but watching real people interact with your creation adds a layer of excitement and invaluable insights.
A significant hurdle I faced was with the servos intended to be a key component of the project. Despite my efforts, I struggled immensely with integrating and programming them. The complexity proved to be beyond the scope of what could be managed within the time and resource constraints of the project I had to make the difficult decision to pivot and remove the servos entirely from the project. This decision, though tough, was necessary to maintain the project’s viability and ensure a smoother user experience.
Pivoting away from using servos forced me to rethink and simplify the design, focusing on what was most essential and functional. This redesign, though less complex, brought its own set of challenges and learning opportunities.
The insights gained from user-testing were invaluable. Observing how users interacted with the revised version of the project without the servos helped me understand the practicality and user-friendliness of my design. The feedback was instrumental in shaping the final tweaks:
Timer needs to be bigger: Users found the timer too small, highlighting the need for a more visible and accessible design. (Alongside that I believe I will increase the size of all text)
Add instructions page: User suggested that there be an instructions page to clarify the objective
Fix dog barking glitch: Dog barking would play over itself causing an awkward sound (potential solution is to increase the delay time between sounds