Saturday, November 24, 2007

Studio Interface: Mirror Project

Group Members:
Rohini Metharam
Melissa Marcus
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The goal of this project was to create combine the user qualities of several products into a new object. My group's products were a toothbrush, high heel shoes, and an alarm clock.

While these products seemingly have nothing in common, we found several qualities that could be combined into something new. The qualities we focused on were:
Alarm Clock Qualities:
Time keeping, Scheduling, Waking up, Radio, Compact/small, Time Management, Everyday use, many styles/varieties, Can be modern design

High Heels Qualities:
Fashionable, Contemporary, Haute couture, Accessory, Health Concerns/problems, Everyday use ? Event Use ?, Compact/small, many styles/varieties, Name Brand recognition, Confident, Sexy, Can be Modern Design

Toothbrush Qualities:
Hygiene, Compact/small, Everyday use, many styles/varieties, Health improvement, Clean, Confident, Modern Design, Name brand recognition

Existing Similarities:
Compact/small, Everyday use, Modern Design

With such a wide scope, we brainstormed what type of product could fit the bill. In the end of the session the group decided to make a new product. The idea was a touchscreen interface used for time management/scheduling and everyday self maintenance was interesting. This evolved from a conversation about the toothbrush, then morning activities, then how can you save time in the morning, then what could we make to help with time management in the context of regular morning activities.

From this conversation we all came up ideas for this interface. Here is my mockup of what it could be, a combination of iGoogle and a touchscreen mirror.


















User Scenario 1:
  • Wake up
  • Go to restroom, interface turns on when he switches on the light in the bathroom
  • He will choose his user profile
  • Customized mirror interface turns on
  • Features include e-mail, sports, & music
  • While brushing teeth he gets an alert that he has received new e-mail messages
    • we purposely did not include a keyboard because it distracts the user and it would be time consuming to respond to messages, etc.
  • When done brush teeth he turns on the water to take a shower, while waiting for the water to heat up he chooses the top 20 countdown so he can listen to music while showering
  • After showering, he is now ready and brushing his hair and chooses the option to look at sport scores
  • Now he wants to be able to just see himself in the mirror so he taps the screen and all of the functions go away, and logs off the interface
  • Next, he goes to get dressed, grabs coffee & breakfast, and heads out the door
  • The mirror interface has allowed him to get ready in half the time.
User Scenario 2:
Sally’s really busy with her professional career and her a pursuit of an acting career. Her schedule is always full and changes frequently. Often she must prepare for several activities and meetings that occur after a full day of work.
  • Calendar feature sinks with existing digital calendars on PC or PDA.
  • Can prioritize with color coding, giving a easy to read glimpse of the day.
  • Clicking on a meeting will show details
    • Time and Date
    • Location
    • Who its with
    • Possibly Directions (from an earlier meeting’s location)
  • If she needs to move an appointment, she can drag it to a new timeslot.
  • This then updates her other calendars.
  • She can set alerts to remind herself of important events.
So the group was really coming together and fine-tuning the details of the mirror interface. We were having some trouble with how much and what kind of information should be made available to the user. In the end we decided the information needs to be concise, not engaging, only informative enough to easily glimpse the big picture not details, almost be in the background so as not to interfere with the morning activities.
Here is the mockup of our design:



















Widgets Closed


















Widgets Open

And a video mockup of the finished design:

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