I asked my parents to try my Arduino project without giving them any prompts or instructions at first, to see if they could understand how to use it by themselves.
At the beginning, they could not figure out what the project was or what they needed to do. They did not know they needed to clap to trigger the LED light effect. They were confused about the relationship between the sound sensor and the changing lights. There was no clear visual clue to tell them what action would make the project work, so they did not understand the mapping between their behaviour and the project’s reaction.
Even though they did not understand it at first, they thought the project was new, interesting and fun after I showed them how it worked. The part that worked well was the light reaction: once they clapped, the LED changed colour immediately, and they could easily see the interactive effect clearly.
The main parts I had to explain to them were what the project was for and what action they needed to take to trigger the lights. To make it clearer for first-time users, I want to improve the project in two main ways.
First, I will improve the physical packaging and appearance of my project, so it looks more complete and clearer to understand at a glance. Second, I want to make the project functions more complex and more entertaining, so the interaction is more fun for users.
One important reason why my project is still simple is that my real Arduino board only arrived recently. Before this, I only practiced on Tinkercad. I found that virtual simulation on Tinkercad is very different from using real Arduino hardware, so I needed extra time to adapt and test the actual circuits and code. In the next steps, I will continue to upgrade my project to make the overall experience more interesting and interactive.
https://vimeo.com/1189334984