Category: [Old] Your Work

If a student wants to go into the dorm buildings on campus, he or she has to swipe the NYU ID to open the automatic gate. A security guard, always sitting behind the reception table, ensures that all people who wish to enter the building have swiped their IDs. However, today in A5B, I observed an incident in which a student passed the automatic gate without swiping her own ID. The student was carrying two bags of heavy books and slowly approached the gate. She had a friend coming with her. Her friend swiped her ID and opened the gate. Then the student carrying books walked past the gate. Before she went any further, however, the security guard immediately stopped her and asked for her own ID.

Of course, either the student carrying books or her friend meant no harm. However, the incident reveals some loopholes of the security system at the dorm entrance. If a person swipes an ID that belongs to someone else, the card reader would not notice and would let the person enter the building. It reminds me that the security system in the dorm of NYUNY is slightly different. At NYUNY, in addition to swiping the NYU ID, a student needs to enter his or her birth date in order to enter the dorm building. I’m not saying the setting at NYUNY could completely prevent people outside NYU from entering the building, but I would suggest adding some other verification method in addition to swiping NYU IDs at the dorm entrance. It could be as simple as entering birth date or scanning fingerprint.

Everyday, the dining staff interface with the cash register. The cash register is operated by a touch screen, and has a swipe card reader that records information from our ID cards. The first thing I notice as the dining staff interface with the cash register  is how hard each of them are tapping their fingers on the touch screen. It appears that the touch screen is not very sensitive. This kind of rough treatment is harmful both for the person using the machine and for the machine. Moreover, the use of touch screens is also unhygienic and unfitting for a setting where food is being prepared and served. I think that perhaps the input method of the cash register can be improved. For example, each item in the dining hall could have a barcode which can be scanned by the register. That barcode can even contain information other than cost, such as the nutritional value of the food or the origin of the ingredients. A different input method could utilize a camera that can recognize which food items are on a person’s plate—although the efficiency of this method depends heavily on the accuracy of the camera. Another thing I realize is that the sometimes the card reader cannot read the ID card, depending on how fast it is swiped. A contactless reader would be more efficient because there are less ways to touch a card than to swipe one, eliminating chances of bad input.

In the past few days of class, I observed a few students and professors interacting with their classroom settings. In particular, I paid attention to the “ classroom controller ” ( I haven’t learned its official name), which has a touch screen for people to adjust room light, sound volume, powerpoint screen, curtain slides and set up video conferences.

When I entered a classroom the other day, I walked around in it trying to press some light switches but failed to find the least traits where they might be. So I sat in the dim natural light waiting for another student to come in and do something. But she also had no idea how to light up the room. Then the third, fourth person arrived without looking for the switches. By the time the professor was prepared to begin class, the light was still off. However, after a few seconds, the room was gently filled with brightness. It turns out a guy in that class knew the existence of the controller and easily turned all the light on with it, meanwhile, the professor reacted by joking about how smart the room is. After class, I stayed behind and tried the controller myself. It has a clear display of functions, and controls different devices smoothly. But it took me some time to figure out where the light button is, since it was only displayed when I clicked on the left side arrow on screen, which can be easily overlooked at first by people who’ve never read the controller’s manual. 

Then in another class, I watched a couple of other people fumbling with the controller. Though they’ve successfully found the controller, figuring out how to adjust the light took them another minute or so, making them laugh and sigh at the same time.

After these initial observations, I think the classroom controller’s usability can be improved by making it easier to be located, for example, using magnets to stick it on the wall next to the entrance; and visualising some commonly used features, like adding physical light-control buttons on the side of the screen.

People interacting with physical interfaces are everywhere. Few examples I can recall from what I saw this couple of days are people swiping a card to get a meal, swiping it to gain access to a room, or something as simple as opening a faucet. But there are two examples I’d like to write about in more detail.

The first is door handles. Simple enough, people just turn them and voilà, door open. They might seem hard to improve, but in my experience some handles are more user-friendly than others. For instance, dorm handles are straight and close to the door itself, while handles in the staircase doors are curved outward. While that might seem like a small, mostly aesthetic difference, that curvature meant I could use my elbow to open the door when my hands were busy (something I can’t actually do to enter my dorm).

The second is the toilet buttons that control flushing. The dancing game example we saw in class made me think about visual cues that an interface gives an user for proper interaction. While the game’s builder admitted his game didn’t give cues as to how it worked, the toilet buttons are the opposite: the size of the buttons acts as a very simple cue of the amount of water each button would release.

But yeah, even simple things can give much food for thought.

The NYUAD campus is far big enough to where sometimes the campus feels rather empty. Only in specific meal times, like lunch in the Marketplace, really shows how many students live within the corners of the college. These clusters of individuals bunch together, leaving only a few students walking to and from class etc. Particularly when observing human interactions, I noticed the passersby talk. It’s a few brief comments with someone you’re acquainted with, but it simultaneously builds the relationship between the two people. If one person is worth recognition to the other in passing, this develops a growing bond. It’s either strengthened when the two meet up and spend more time together, or it dissipates into awkward eye contact.

Regardless, I further wondered in this interaction how a passersby communication between a person and a machine, perhaps when they’re on their way to class, will also harness a communication. Down to a basic ATM, this can become a daily habit of that person’s walk to use the ATM. Maybe even a screen showing what the weather is like outside. It’s brief, and in passing, but over time it becomes something one anticipates and looks for on their walk.

Small interactions build on themselves over time.

 

Today I watched a young lady try to enter the campus center by one of the side doors on the ground floor. The door had a sign posted indicating that users should enter through the main entrance. In spite of this sign, she forged ahead, presenting her NYU ID to the reader on the left side of the door frame, pulling at the smooth metal handle. After I saw her repeat this process three times, I stopped, mostly hidden behind a concrete pillar. As I watched, she tried to get through the side door another three times, without success. Apparently prior experience and the sign were not deterrents. Eventually she admitted defeat, and calmly headed towards the main entrance. The remarkable thing about this young lady was her casual demeanor. This situation did not appear to be frustrating to her. It looked as if each card swipe was a novel experience, an independent event. Maybe getting through the door was like rolling a die and getting a one; if you don’t get one after six tries, you might as well give up.

I can understand if someone feels compelled to swipe his or her card more than one time. I often find myself doing this, thinking that the reason I was barred entrance was due to a technical malfunction. Swiping a third time is usually an act of desperation; my degree of belief that a technical malfunction could occur two times consecutively is low. A failed third attempt means that my access is restricted by a higher power. I’m aware that the card reader makes a different sound if I’ve unlocked the door or if I’m not allowed access, but the sound indicating that I’m not allowed doesn’t feel distinct enough to convince me that I heard incorrectly on the first or second try. Perhaps the girl I saw thought she was hearing the right sound, but couldn’t get through the door. Perhaps she was just absentminded. She could also be a little nuts.