FourLeaves

Final Project Proposal

2007-02-19T19:45:00.000-08:00

Visual Sound
I will build an interactive sculpture to create visual symphony. The sculpture will respond to sound in the environment. I have attached a user and production scenario diagrams.
I am interested in building this because I am curious about sound, color, and shape correlation and also wanted to work on an interactive project related to visual sound before I graduate from ITP.

User Scenario

Production Plan

Emotional States

The Sculpture

Clock-Operation User Test

2007-02-19T19:16:00.000-08:00

I have completed the first draft of the clock-operation assignment. I still have some problems/bugs to fix with my code but below are few picures and user test video of my first attempt to re-create an alarm clock.

The Link to the Video
The Link to the Video

Processing Code of The Clock
Clock_test

Paper Cut Clock Operation Video

2007-01-28T11:03:00.000-08:00

Here is the video to demonstrate how my solution would improve the time and user experience.

Paper_Cut Video Demo

My Improvement if I want to set the time to 2:30pm and alarm to 7:30am

11 seconds for am/pm both using the am/pm button and rewind button-only one press switch from am to pm or vice versa
11 seconds for hour change to set time by using rewind button-one press to rewind will bring me back from 3 to 2 if I skip
59 seconds for minute to set time by using rewind button-one press will bring me back from 31 to 30 if I skip the minute
11 seconds for hour change to set alarm by using rewind button-one press to rewind will bring me back from 8 to 7 if I skip
59 seconds for minute to set alarm by using rewind button-one press to rewind will bring me back from 31 to 30 if I skip

My total saving for this kind of operation would be 146 seconds

Clock Operation Analysis

2007-01-26T19:56:00.000-08:00

I have examined my alarm clock. There are many problems but I picked two important ones. Below is the video demo of the problems.

Video Demo

The first problem is am and pm. I have to hold down the time button untill I reach 12 then I can switch from am to pm or the other way around.

The second problem is skipping the numbers while holding hour and minute buttons. If I skip the number then I have to go all the way to the end then come back to desired number.

My aproach solving these problems is adding buttons. If I add am and pm button I will save 11 steps for hour ( minutes do not matter for am and pm switch).
If I add back button to set the time and the alarm I will save 11 steps for the hour and 59 steps for the minute.

The notation of the Problem

My Solution

Seconds I will save is

11 seconds for am/pm both using the am/pm button and rewind button
11 seconds for hour change to set time by using rewind button
59 seconds for minute to set time by using rewind button
11 seconds for hour change to set alarm by using rewind button
59 seconds for minute to set alarm by using rewind button

My total saving for this kind of operation would be 151 seconds

My emotional state using this kind of alarm clock would be frustration. I would mostlikely stop using the clock which I have been doing for a while and use different clock such as my cell phone.

I will post a video of using paper-cut clock operation tomorrow.

Watch Prototype for Visual Impairments

2007-01-23T08:08:00.000-08:00

Here are few pictures of the prototype. I have used braille numbers to indicate the hour and minutes and half and full moon in the center of the watch to diffirenciate am and pm. Speaker system is on the wrist of the belt and activated by pushing/touching the button. User can only hear the sound by raising her/his arm close to his ear. The main design(touch part) consists of two layers. The top layer has holes for each braille number. Numbers fo hour are arranged around the circle shape and minutes are placed to the top and buttom of the am/pm indicator. Top braille number is the first number and buttom is the second number. Let say if the top indicates 10 and buttom indicates 7 the current minute is 17. The second layer has the texture/bumps so the user can learn the time by touching the surface of the watch and feeling the bumps that are being elevated up through the holes on the tope layer at current time.

I have also thought of using smell to design a clock. Different smell would be released to differentiate am/pm and the clock would be outside of its traditional shape. So you would touch each individual part. Below drawing is regarding this idea. I liked using smell and breaking traditional clock design idea but my concern was the usability part of this design so I have decided not to go with it at least for this assignment.

Wacth Design For Visual Impairments

2007-01-18T17:12:00.000-08:00

These are few links to the similar products (watch for blinds using audio and braille tecnique)

http://seiko-kinetic-watches.watch-universe.com/seiko_products_pages/braille_watches.htm

http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2007/01/08/wrist-watch-for-the-blind/

http://www.musketeer.ch/watches/blind_mans_watch.html

http://www.maxiaids.com/store/prodList.asp?idCategory=73&idstore=0

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00013KTVQ/nextag-hpc-20/ref=nosim

Braille Numbers
http://www.afb.org/braillebug/braille_deciphering.asp

Watch Design for Visual Impairments

2007-01-18T16:46:00.000-08:00

Below are some research and sketches that I have done so far. I have decided to use braille technique with few changes and audio system to allow user to hear the time if they want to. ( Almost as using Talking Tactile Tablets ) Numbers will be represented by using dots which will be elevated up to indicate the current time. So basically when user touch surface of the watch only texture he/she will sense is the current time. There are no time indicator arrows in the center of the watch instead there is a speaker system (small holes) to hear the time if it is desired and the button will be placed on the clasp of the wrist belt to turn the sound on and off. I have come up with this solution because for a visual impaired person touch, smell and audio are very important to sense the environment and the objects in the environment. Since there are some difficulties using smell ----such as it might be disturbing to release different types of smells for different times of the day for time indication purposes and also it is difficult to keep any kind of smell for longer period of time plus there is a need for placeholders(containers) to keep the liquid for releasing odor and watch is a small equipment to have this kind of system altough it might work if let say I was designing a clock almost like an art intallation type of clock for visual impairments,---- I have decided to use only touch and audio. I have done some experimentation to finalize the design idea --below is the process
I have turned the lights off
Closed my eyes
And tried to figure out what time it was by touching my watch
Ofcourse I was not successfull because my watch has a flat surface and there is no texture or audio to help me learn the time
I will start working on the prototype tomorrow and continue with my experimentation