What’s something (not mentioned in the reading) that drives you crazy and how could it be improved?
Something that drives me crazy is some of the dryers in the laundry rooms on campus, specifically the ones that don’t have a screen! How am I supposed to know when my laundry will be ready? This system could make sense if this machine was just used by one person in their house, and they could just check on the machine whenever (or maybe there’s some sound that plays when a cycle is done). However, for a machine that’s shared by a whole building, it’s so inconvenient that you kinda have to just guess when your laundry would be ready. And if you’re too late, your laundry might just be tossed on the floor! This can be blamed on either university facilities for purchasing machines that do not have screens (since a few do, it’s just some that don’t have screens) or we can just blame the machines, because why can’t I know how long my clothes will take? So the improvement from my perspective is to add a screen!
How can you apply some of the author’s principles of design to interactive media?
Instructions! But, simple ones. Ones that build on what user’s are used to. For example, users are now used to pressing on the right side of their screen to speed up videos as that is how you do it on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. Instead of trying to reinvent wheel, sometimes it’s best to use what already exists.