Overview of system:
Publish
The system provides constant feedback to the user an example of when this feedback is provided is when the food is scanned it shows the name of the food and a picture of it and also it provides feedback in a "beep" in response to a complete scan. Having looked at the system maybe a list of all the screens they have gone through to get to the current one could be displayed as this would help the user know where abouts they are.
Language in the system tries to avoid any technical words and keeps the language relatively simple.
To keep the system consistent the colours and format of the different screen are consistent. The system also keep a main menu back and a next button on the bottom of the screen for all screens other than the main menu itself.
The ability to recognise what to do next is clear in most cases as constant feedback allow for the user to know what to do, but this really has to be put to the test in a user evaluation.
Our system is based on the principle of being able to correct mistakes made as we all make them. There is an undo button on the hardware and also a back button on the screen.
The system is relatively simple there are advanced functions that can be access as the system allows doctors, nutrition experts to view what a specific person has been eating. There are many many different forms which the user could possibly access so again it would be good if a user opinion could be obtained.
The system error recover built in occurs mainly in situations where a scan of the product hasn't been recognised. It prompts the user to scan the item again.
The documentation is mainly in the form of user prompts which allow the user to follow there process in the system and also alert them about what to do next.
The expert use needs to be improved or ignored as it maybe helpful to more technological minded elderly but, i would also say that the system is quite simple and relatively
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Responses to Questionnaire
The responses to the questionnaire:
Harold Carter
Eilleen Stone
Raven Miur
Arthur Rawlings
1) Which size of screen do you think is suitable for the product to display relevant information back to the user?
A - The design of the product is aesthetically pleasing. The colours in the other design confuse me somewhat
B
B or C - I believe that both the design are quite similar and i'm not too fussed as long is it looks similar to either of them
2) Which device has buttons which you feel more comfortable with?Mobile Phone TV HI-FI
Microwave
TV - As i spend a lot of my time watching TV i feel very comfortable using 'most' button on my TV remote.
TV
TV - Although i'm familiar with a HI-FI i still prefer the TV remote.
3) How would you prefer the device to be powered?
Rechargeable batteries - I would like these as it would save me money and when your my age you need all the money you have to spend on other things.
Rechargeable batteries
Batteries - it seems easier to change the batteries when they run out.
4) Which is the heaviest weight you would be comfortable carrying?
An orange - I don't really understand what the question is getting at, but i would prefer a bag to carry the milk and sugar in.
Bottle of milk - I could only hold a bottle of milk for a limited period of time though.
N/A - I don't really understand what relevance this has but i could carry the weight of a bottle of milk.
5) Which style menus would you prefer?
N/A - I can't figure out what the difference between the two.
Horizontal sliding menu
Vertical Sliding - i like the look of the menu but i don't really understand the question.
6) Would you have a problem with force feedback?
Yes - A flashing screen would irritate my eyes. A rumble pack would be suitable if that involved some sort of vibration alert like a mobile.
Yes
No - I would love the feedback idea as it gives me an indication that the device is working.
7) Picture yourself scanning an object, would you need one hand or two hands to manoeuvre the device?
One hand.
One hand.
One hand.
8) Would you like extra functionality if it could be plugged into a computer?
No - I don't own a computer and wouldn't know where to start, so that would be pretty useless for me.
No
No - I don't understand how to work a computer.
9) Would you follow the advice given if you had to eat food which you didn’t like, to keep in touch with your dietary needs?
No - Lifes to short.
No
No - If i don't like a food i will not eat it.
10) Would you follow the advice given if you had to eat food which you did not prefer, to keep in touch with your dietary needs?
Maybe - food is all about the mood
Yes
No
11) Would you be prepared to use the device daily so that it can store an accurate record of daily intake?
Maybe - but it does sounds like quite a bit of hassle
Yes
Yes
12) How useful do you think our product would be in the home environment?
I would use it for a week or so to test how useful it is.
I would try to use it daily in the hope that it might improve my diet.
I would try to use it daily in the hope that it might improve my diet.
General Comments
Sounds like a good idea but if the design is complicated i will not bother. I if gave alternative food ideas for cooking i would be very interested in purchasing the device.
N/A
I would really like a device like the one proposed as it would massively benefit my life and stop my family giving me hassle about eating healthily
Harold Carter
Eilleen Stone
Raven Miur
Arthur Rawlings
1) Which size of screen do you think is suitable for the product to display relevant information back to the user?
A - The design of the product is aesthetically pleasing. The colours in the other design confuse me somewhat
B
B or C - I believe that both the design are quite similar and i'm not too fussed as long is it looks similar to either of them
2) Which device has buttons which you feel more comfortable with?Mobile Phone TV HI-FI
Microwave
TV - As i spend a lot of my time watching TV i feel very comfortable using 'most' button on my TV remote.
TV
TV - Although i'm familiar with a HI-FI i still prefer the TV remote.
3) How would you prefer the device to be powered?
Rechargeable batteries - I would like these as it would save me money and when your my age you need all the money you have to spend on other things.
Rechargeable batteries
Batteries - it seems easier to change the batteries when they run out.
4) Which is the heaviest weight you would be comfortable carrying?
An orange - I don't really understand what the question is getting at, but i would prefer a bag to carry the milk and sugar in.
Bottle of milk - I could only hold a bottle of milk for a limited period of time though.
N/A - I don't really understand what relevance this has but i could carry the weight of a bottle of milk.
5) Which style menus would you prefer?
N/A - I can't figure out what the difference between the two.
Horizontal sliding menu
Vertical Sliding - i like the look of the menu but i don't really understand the question.
6) Would you have a problem with force feedback?
Yes - A flashing screen would irritate my eyes. A rumble pack would be suitable if that involved some sort of vibration alert like a mobile.
Yes
No - I would love the feedback idea as it gives me an indication that the device is working.
7) Picture yourself scanning an object, would you need one hand or two hands to manoeuvre the device?
One hand.
One hand.
One hand.
8) Would you like extra functionality if it could be plugged into a computer?
No - I don't own a computer and wouldn't know where to start, so that would be pretty useless for me.
No
No - I don't understand how to work a computer.
9) Would you follow the advice given if you had to eat food which you didn’t like, to keep in touch with your dietary needs?
No - Lifes to short.
No
No - If i don't like a food i will not eat it.
10) Would you follow the advice given if you had to eat food which you did not prefer, to keep in touch with your dietary needs?
Maybe - food is all about the mood
Yes
No
11) Would you be prepared to use the device daily so that it can store an accurate record of daily intake?
Maybe - but it does sounds like quite a bit of hassle
Yes
Yes
12) How useful do you think our product would be in the home environment?
I would use it for a week or so to test how useful it is.
I would try to use it daily in the hope that it might improve my diet.
I would try to use it daily in the hope that it might improve my diet.
General Comments
Sounds like a good idea but if the design is complicated i will not bother. I if gave alternative food ideas for cooking i would be very interested in purchasing the device.
N/A
I would really like a device like the one proposed as it would massively benefit my life and stop my family giving me hassle about eating healthily
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Product Research
In order to begin the design process product research is vital to ensure that we can compare our features with other products where they have been implemented successfully. Viewing other similar products can also help in giving us inspiration for our own, ensuring that what we end up with is fully functioning and effective.
To begin the research i have looked into the top handheld devices out at the moment, extracting the dimensions from specifications and tabulating the results, allowing for us to decide what the most appropriate size of our product should be.
In the table above i have included two different types of handheld devices, 3 are PDA's and the other two are handheld gaming devices. The reason i have included the second two is that they are intended to be held with two hands and so give an indication of boundaries where a device becomes too large to use with only one hand. We must also keep in mind that we are dealing with elderly people who are going to have decreasing mobility, strength aswell as eyesight so keeping the screen as large as possible while the whole device as light as possible will certainly be high in the specifications.
Dietry Websites Market Research
Diet Planners work on your suggested weight range, BMI and suggested calorie intakes, however, this varies massively from person to person which is why they are not too successful and can only be used as a guidline. Another problem is the time consuming manual input required in order to track the daily intake of food, especially as the age group we are aiming at are the elder generation who havent grown up with modern toys(internet, computers,PDA etc.). These packages also incure a monthly subscription ontop of the cost of the internet, which may not appear too appealing. http://www.startyourdiet.com/howitworks.htm
Instead of telling you what to eat with strict diets, some websites try to educate the users by offering alternatives, with recipes and indicating how much you should eat to what you do eat. These can actually lead to saving money as buying ingredients tends to be cheaper than buying processed or frozen food. http://www.weightwatchers.co.uk/index.aspx
There are a lot of theories about what to eat and which diets are the best, however, not many of them take into cosideration of allergy or health problems, which is vitally important with elderly people. Medication can also make a difference to the diet as some foods don't compliment your medication and can lead to making the client feel worse or have undesired side effects. http://www.freedclinic.co.uk/
With these sites come forum where expert advice is readily available, this obviously is included in the price however offers a valuable service that would be hard to implement in our device. Possibly a website for those who do know how to use the internet could be included, or a phone directory to important organisations that offer dietry advice may be a useful tool to include.
Instead of telling you what to eat with strict diets, some websites try to educate the users by offering alternatives, with recipes and indicating how much you should eat to what you do eat. These can actually lead to saving money as buying ingredients tends to be cheaper than buying processed or frozen food. http://www.weightwatchers.co.uk/index.aspx
There are a lot of theories about what to eat and which diets are the best, however, not many of them take into cosideration of allergy or health problems, which is vitally important with elderly people. Medication can also make a difference to the diet as some foods don't compliment your medication and can lead to making the client feel worse or have undesired side effects. http://www.freedclinic.co.uk/
With these sites come forum where expert advice is readily available, this obviously is included in the price however offers a valuable service that would be hard to implement in our device. Possibly a website for those who do know how to use the internet could be included, or a phone directory to important organisations that offer dietry advice may be a useful tool to include.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Meeting 13th March
Aims
- To encourage more posting on the blogs
- To make sure that the questionnaire is complete by persona's
- To discuss the next step in our user-centred design process
It has been a while since anything has been posted, i know we have a lot to do but we are now behind in our project. It has been noted that we should all be posting at least a couple of times a week only relevant material though.
The questionnaire has now been on the blog for well over a week, we discussed the need to complete this and I will analysis the data after putting it into graphs. We discussed the questions themselves and i still felt that the question on weight was a bit hazy but the others couldn't think of any other question to ask about the weight of the device. We decided that everyone should fill in the questionnaire by Wednesday evening latest and that it shouldn't be posted on the blog as it is useless information.
Finally we discussed where to go next in the design process. It was a case of discussing doing a case analysis using our persona's, also Dave said that he would be willing to try and create a prototype using Netbeans mobile device program. Shaun is going to come up with a design of our prototypes hardware as his previous designs using a CAD package were excellent. Simon will continue doing market research to see if that can aid our final prototype design, especially focusing on the graphical user interface side. Tris is going to start the case analysis of the persona and finally I'm going to analyse the data from the questionnaires and see if there are any similarities or a large contrast in answers.
- To encourage more posting on the blogs
- To make sure that the questionnaire is complete by persona's
- To discuss the next step in our user-centred design process
It has been a while since anything has been posted, i know we have a lot to do but we are now behind in our project. It has been noted that we should all be posting at least a couple of times a week only relevant material though.
The questionnaire has now been on the blog for well over a week, we discussed the need to complete this and I will analysis the data after putting it into graphs. We discussed the questions themselves and i still felt that the question on weight was a bit hazy but the others couldn't think of any other question to ask about the weight of the device. We decided that everyone should fill in the questionnaire by Wednesday evening latest and that it shouldn't be posted on the blog as it is useless information.
Finally we discussed where to go next in the design process. It was a case of discussing doing a case analysis using our persona's, also Dave said that he would be willing to try and create a prototype using Netbeans mobile device program. Shaun is going to come up with a design of our prototypes hardware as his previous designs using a CAD package were excellent. Simon will continue doing market research to see if that can aid our final prototype design, especially focusing on the graphical user interface side. Tris is going to start the case analysis of the persona and finally I'm going to analyse the data from the questionnaires and see if there are any similarities or a large contrast in answers.
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