Prompt:
- What’s something (not mentioned in the reading) that drives you crazy and how could it be improved?
- How can you apply some of the author’s principles of design to interactive media?
Response:
One of the inventions that drives me crazy on weekly basis is the washing machine. When I tried to do laundry, I am always confused on multiple options that are provided on the panel.
As demonstrated by the picture above, I am confused by the information presented. What is easy care? what is its difference with skin care? when should I choose easy care? When choosing the temperature, how will different temperature affect the washing effect? As a result, I need to go through multiple websites to look for my answer. To improve on this process, I believe the machine could be more interactive. For example, using a display screen to ask users to choose what type of clothes are they washing and then asking how long would they want to wait, etc.. To save the machine from asking repeated question, the screen could provide a default option for users if users have found the best washing mode.
I want to focus on HCD later on for my interactive media works. I always admire how Steve Jobs design the iPad. He successfully incorporated the touch screen technology with very intuitive human interaction as he stated that a 6-year-old could start playing games on iPad without any instruction(visual, text, etc.) (https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelnoer/2010/09/08/the-stable-boy-and-the-ipad/). Everything should be intuitive and audience could receive very clear feedback after they interact.