Derek Schutz Blog #7

I am not an I300 loser.

Nick Swan (Blog 7)

I am not an I300 loser.

Chambers - Week 7

I am not an I300 loser.

L. Smith - Blog 7

I am not an I300 loser.

Kevin Noone Blog 7

I am not an I300 loser.

Josh Roberson Blog 7

I am not an I300 loser.

Nathan Potts's Blog Post #7

I am not an I300 Loser. Rawr

Horstman Blog 7

I am not an I300 loser.

Week 07 Blog Assignment

This is a very easy assignment.

I want you to take a look at the way points are distributed for this course. See pages 8-9 of the syllabus. Look at your grades in the Oncourse gradebook and enter them into the Personal I300 Gradebook (it's an Excel file that you can download from Oncourse resources; it's at the bottom of the resource list of files).

If you think you’re in trouble, please make an appointment to see me. I will help you recover through the “Professor Siegel’s Academic Recovery Stimulus Package!” Note, however, that the stimulus package will not be available throughout the semester. This is a mid-semester correction. So take action now if your grades in this class need a bail-out.

If you’ve calculated your personal grade and decided if you need to make an appointment with me or not, then all you need to do to get 15 points on this blog assignment is to write a post simply with the words “I am not an I300 loser.” Feel free to say more, but this assignment only requires you to do this. That’s it!  

Cory Worland - Blog 6

For project number four, my partner and I designed a new and "improved" refrigerator. The technique I think would be a good thing to use on our design would be to use Up-to-Speed aids. We put a touch screen on our fridge and with that we can install a "Getting Started" guide for new users, as well as video tour to show the user all of the features and some simple processes that the everyday user should pick up on quite quickly.

Kevin Noone Blog #6

The technique that I would go back and use for project 4 is the Choose Good defaults, specifically the integrate preferences technique. The use of a refrigerator is going to vary from user to user, by designing good defaults and allowing the user to integrate their own personal preferences into the design, it creates a design that is easily understood from the beginning of use, but also creates a design that is flexible enough to adapt to each different user.

Also the book is great. It is an easy read and gives great examples to help us further understand his theories. Great choice!

Elaine Fath Blog #6

The technique that jumped out at me immediately is the "use up-to-speed aids." This is for a variety of reasons--our project, which involved the fridge, is primarily a single touch-screen built into the fridge door, and most of the interaction is visually based. Additionally, I'm a very visual learner--once I see something done once on a screen, I can usually remember it better than someone telling me about it or reading about it. I could see an "I'm new" button where the fridge took you through some of its basic features as well as how to access them in a kind of "get acquainted" session with extra hints that can be turned off at will.

Nathan Potts's Blog Post #6

For our project 4, we designed a key fob that held keys and popped them out upon a user's request when he or she cycled through a list of locations and then pushed a button that extended the key. Thus solving the problem of people fumbling and trying each and every key as they try to unlock the door.

While reading Chapter 5, I thought the best technique that was to give tips on how to use the device. These tips would be listed on the box or as scrolling text across the LED screen when you first start the device.

Blog 6 Austin Frink

For the "ChillBox," our refrigerator from project 4, it may be useful to use the "give instructive hints" technique to help beginner users quickly become intermediate level users. To control the built-in sound system, it is necessary to manipulate the freezer touchscreen menu. It may be helpful if a prompt such as "Select your track" was displayed above the list of tracks to guide the user to touch the desired track.

Nick Swan (Blog 6)

For project 4, on of the techniques that I think could be applied would be the "offer tips" option. Our keys are already an item that are very interactive while also offering useful options, but these options may be things that the user doesn't know about or effectively know how to use. A good way to implement this would be for the keys to periodically ask the user if they want to hear about an option they have never used. If they reply back saying saying, "yes" the keys will tell them this feature and how to use it. This could also be disabled as well for the more experience user by telling the keys they do not want to be notified about tips any more.

Daniel Lee Blog 6

As I was paying my credit bills online on chase.com, I thought the design by Chase used some of the techniques described in chapter five of our textbook. First is that the website provides instructive design. On the first step page of the credit card payment page, the user is only required to fill out or choose 3 fields. These fields include pay from, payment amount, and payment date. Pay from section is default to your chase bank account so the users really do not have to worry about. Payment amount has four different options to choose from and each option has instructive text on the right side of the option that teaches the users how to fill in that field. Payment date automatically default as the current date but user can change easily. By having the default current day, the user can see what format of the date is required to fill in.

Chase also provides help documents for the users to fully understand. Next to every required field, there is a picture of a question mark in a green box. Once the user clicks this box, help center on a new window pops up and the users are able to read more in detail about the field user have questions about.

Derek Schutz Blog #6

In chapter 5 of Designing the Obvious, Robert Hoekman talks about getting users up to speed with applications in a way called "up to speed" aids. For project 4, we designed a fridge that could interact with its users. For a beginner or a first time user, the way the fridge works, and how the fridge is working and interacting could be very confusing. Users are going to want to know what the fridge is capable of, how to maneuver around it, and what it is actually doing. A good way to update and inform the users of this information it to use the "up to speed" aid. Simply installing a short video guide that is initiated as soon as the fridge is first used, and is accessible at anytime, would benefit the user immensely. The video could show the user how the device operates, along with how to get started, and what its capabilities are.

Tarana Patel (Blog 6)

Designing the obvious book is very interesting. I am learning lots from the book that will help me in future. This book is very easy to read, useful information and very well organized by step by step with lots of examples this will help reader to follow easily.

After reading chapter 5 in Designing the Obvious, for our refrigerator the techniques I would apply to our project 4 the category of using an Up-to-speed aid. Users might face problem like how to start, how it’s work, what to do and so on and on because they don’t know how to use it. Use Up-to-speed Aids can provide a video tour that shows users a quick overview of the how product work and product’s main feature and also will provide a getting starting point to users and tell how they can log in and log out and all other important information.

--- Tarana Patel

Chambers - Blog 6

Because our refrigerator in project 4 does mostly everything automatically and without user commands, it doesn't leave a lot of room for helping the user out. Though if I had to choose, I would pick the "fill the blank slate with something useful" or "provide helpful tips." Perhaps by pressing a button on the side of the refrigerator, the refrigerator could state its functions and suggest activities to the user such as "try opening the refrigerator when you don't know what to eat!" This seems to be the only way to give the user something to start with given the lack of interface.

L. Smith - Blog 6

For Project 4, our set of keys offered some security settings that may frustrate some users if they were unsure how to modify or properly use them. Our device was operated by a touchscreen. After reading Chapter 5, I believe offering tips in the form of a question mark icon would be the best solution. This would make it clear and simple for a user to touch the icon which would bring up tips and hints. These would be concise but very helpful in explaining how the device operates.

By the way, this book isn't too bad. I usually find myself reading for this class before I do my others because it is easier to follow along and stay awake.