A suggestion to avoid miss accident

Image 1

This was what I have encountered when the road from Kepong to LDP highway/Bandar Utama has been changed.

As you can see from the image above, the blue directory board has clearly written that if you want to go to LDP highway/Bandar Utama you have to take the left route. However, I found that although the blue directory board has clearly conveyed the message on how to go LDP highway/Bandar Utama, the blue directory board is not really effective in warning drivers of an approaching intersection because drivers are not given enough time to make the right decision especially for drivers who are too familiar of the initial LDP highway. According to Gutacher and Gutacher (2013), drivers who are familiar with the environment tend to retrieve information that is most readily available, which might unconsciously lead these drivers to use the initial route to LDP highway/Bandar Utama.

The initial common driving behavior from Kepong to LDP highway/Bandar Utama

Initially, drivers who come from Kepong, and want to use the LDP highway or go to the direction of Bandar Utama are more likely to keep on the lane B or C, rather than lane A that I have labeled in the image 1 because lane A is another connected road from Bandar Maluri, and it is more congested compared to the other lanes. Hence, if drivers are at the lane B they can directly go to LDP highway/Bandar Utama, but they will need to cut the lane to B if they are at the lane C; initially, an intersection point is at lane B and C.

Current road situation and behaviors exhibit from drivers who are familiar with the environment

However, now the intersection point has changed to lane A (refer to image 1). If the drivers have forgotten about the road changing, they are more likely to use the initial way to go to LDP highway/Bandar Utama, as mentioned by Gutacher and Gutacher (2013). The initial way for drivers to go to LDP highway/Bandar Utama was either staying at the lane B or C (refer to image 1). Since the drivers are too familiar with the initial route, they might not put much attention and alertness when they drive. Using the term from human factor, these drivers are in the state of mental underload; Gutacher and Gutacher (2013) explained that "mental underload is more likely to occur when the driving environment is predictable" (pg. 22) . Then, suddenly when they remember or see the blue directory board, they will take a sudden stop and turn left, which might cause many miss accidents that I have seen when I was the driver. 

To note that, most people, from my observation, will take a sudden stop when their vehicles are almost right at the intersection point of A and B because drivers will start to be alert when the vehicles of lane A starts to cut to lane B (refer to image 1).

Because of these miss accidents, I think that the blue directory board is not effective enough to assist and guide the drivers in changing their lane to LDP highway/Bandar Utama because the blue directory board was put too near to the intersection point to LDP highway/Bandar Utama. Also, only one directory board is provided for the drivers. Although the directory board is big enough for drivers to see it from the far, this directory board is being blocked by an overhead highway. When the drivers have passed over the overhead highway, they might not easily notice the directory board because the directory board is almost at the top of their vision, which means that if they want to look at the directory board, they might need to slightly raise their head, which leave drivers to have around a fraction of a second to turn left if they are at the lane B or C (refer to image 1). This might cause miss accidents or a car accident that endangers drivers.

Therefore, I think that the information that requires drivers to make decision to maneuver their vehicle in a particular lane should be also placed before the overhead highway. By having a directory board before the overhead highway can provide the drivers, especially drivers who are too familiar with the initial environment, a sufficient amount of time to make decision to maneuver their vehicle, as suggested by Gutacher and Gutacher (2013).

Reference:

Gutacher, E. & Gutacher, Z. (2013). Human factors as causes for road traffic accidents in the Sultanate of Oman under consideration of road construction design. Retrieved from http://epub.uni-regensburg.de/29768/1/Dissertation%20Kai%20Plankermann.pdf

Shelves that are hard to open

Image 1

Last week, when I went to IKEA with my family I saw this shelf unit. The appearance and color were really just nice by looking at it, and I almost bought it without checking at its usability; usability means the ease of use of the product. However, it was really fortunate that I did not bought it immediately because I have faced some difficulties while trying to open the doors of the shelves.

Difficulties I faced in opening the doors of the shelves

When I wanted to open the shelf that has been labeled as “1”, I first put my finger into the spaces between the shelves, just like the image on the right. However, the spaces between shelves were too small that my finger could not fit into it. Thus, I had to open from the direction of the blue arrow, which was from the top right (refer to image 1), and the shelf was opened (refer to image 2). 

Then, I tried to open the door of the shelf that has been labeled as “2” (refer to image). Similarly, I opened the door from the direction of blue arrow (refer to image 1), but surprisingly, the shelf could not be opened, but it opened when I opened from the purple arrow (refer to image 1). 

Right after that, I thought that the shelves might be connected because from my past experience only when the shelves that are connected need us to open the shelves from right to left (refer to image 1 for blue arrow) and another that from left to right (refer to image 1 for purple arrow). In fact, as you can see from the images 

below you can clearly see that the shelf “1” and the shelf “2” were not connected. 

According to Reimann (2005), it is important to design a product that corresponds to users’ behaviors, implicit assumptions, and mental models because having a product that designed in a way that similar to how users construct their experience with the products can create more positive user experience. Thus, for shelves that are to open if they are connected then only they should be designed the way to open the shelf like the image below as opening in this way is mostly related to connected shelves. 

Image 2

Suggestion for the design of the shelves' doors  

Based on the statement by Reimann (2005), the suggestion for this shelf is that if the shelves are not connected, the way to open the shelf should be designed similarly, for example if shelf “1” is opened from right to left, the other shelves should also be opened from right to left.. However, this suggestion will only applicable for shelf “1” to “3” and the other three shelves below the drawer of “4” to “6”.

For the drawer of “4” to “6” (refer to image 2), it should have a handle for users to indicate pull as not all drawers are designed to be pulled; some are designed to be opened. Therefore, to easily help users to understand that the drawers are to be pulled, recommended that handles should be designed to use to open drawers. 

Recommendation in designing the "handle"

Other than that, I found that it was very difficult to open the shelf that I have labelled as “5” (refer to the image 2). Because the spaces between the drawers were too small that my finger could not even fit into it, I had to first open the shelf that was around the shelf “5”, such as open the shelf that has been labeled as “2” or has been labeled as “4”. It was so troublesome as I had to take an indirect route to achieve my final goal.

According to Scott and Erin (2006), finger clearance should be taken into account when designing the size of a handle; in this shelf, the handle will be the spaces between the shelves. Hence, recommended that a minimum clearance of the spaces between the shelves should be 1inch or 2.5cm to easily help users to open or pull the shelf, which this design of the shelf has violated the recommended design of handles where the spaces between the shelves were less than 1cm.

References:

Reimann, R. (2005). Personas, Goals and Emotional Design. Retrieved from http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2005/11/personas-goals-and-emotional-design.php

Scott, O., & Erin, T. (2006). Ergonomics and Design : A reference guide. Retrieved from http://www.allsteeloffice.com/synergydocuments/ergonomicsanddesignreferenceguidewhitepaper.pdf 

Discrepancy between real life and mental model

Norman (2013) stated that "mental models are the conceptual models in people’s minds that represent their understanding of how things work." (pg. 26). Thus, people may have different understanding of how a product will operate even though they have used the similar product everyday because every product might have different operations. Like the heater below, the operation is totally different from my heater; this heater requires simultaneous depression of two things, which have been labeled as "1" and "2". However, because my understanding of how heater works does not correspond to this heater when I used it, I could not figure out what to do when the heater did not operate well to my expectation. Therefore, the following paragraphs will clearly indicate my experience in using this heater,

Image 1

That day was the first time I used this kind of heater. My house, definitely, has a heater, but my heater is very simple because I only need to press on a red button to heat up the water, and I can use the hot water after that. 

Before using the heater, my friend has asked me if she needed to teach me how to use, but I rejected her kindness because after looking at the heater I thought that it would be very easy as I just needed to press the bottom silver button that has been labeled as “2” to turn on the heater and turn the tap that has been labeled as “1” and the water will come out itself. The reason I knew that I should press the bottom silver button was because the word “push on-off” on the bottom silver button has already communicated the message that the button is used to on or off something. 

Also, I didn’t think that I should change the temperature of water because my friend likes to bath with hot water.  

Thus, I pressed the bottom silver button, and turned the tap but the water did not come out, and I was totally shocked because I believed that the method that I have figured out to on this heater was correct.  

Then, I tried to press other buttons, but nothing worked in my way. Although from the image on the right, you could have noticed that the heater has a power indicator that can allow me to see if I have on the heater properly. However, at that time I did not notice the power indicator as I did not know the heater will have the power indicator, which influence me not to focus on that part. Then, I simply pressed anything and turn the tap on and off and suddenly the water came out.

Looking at the image below, can you differentiate in which direction the tap is on? And in which direction the tap is off? 

Image A

Image B

For the water to come out from the shower, two conditions must be met: 1) The heater must be on, and 2) The tap must be at the right position (which is in the same direction in image A) instead of the left position.  Because these two conditions should be met at the same time, if you go in to the bathroom, and the tap is in the same direction as image, you will automatically turn it to the other direction because you might assume that the tap is off in that direction because other typical heaters only affects the water temperature and the only factor affecting water coming out from the shower is the tap. In my opinion, this heater should have been designed similarly to the other heaters to prevent confusion to other users. Also, my friend’s family will not develop the habit to just off the bottom silver button on the heater without closing the tap. And, if my friend has closed the tap properly I would have never faced any problem in using the heater that day. 

Reference:
Norman, D. (2013). The design of everyday things: revise and expanded edition. Available from http://cc.droolcup.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/The-Design-of-Everyday-Things-Revised-and-Expanded-Edition.pdf

Nice table lamp but...?

Table Lamp 2

Table Lamp 1

Just by looking at the image above, which of the table lamp could you quickly switch on?

If you think that both table lamps are equally quick for you to switch on, I could say that you are wrong because the table lamp 1 is not as simple as you see from the image.






When I wanted to use the table lamp 1, I just pressed on the button that I have circled in the image on the left, which most people will probably do as me, because the button was popped up, which usually indicates the action of pressing. However, pressing the button could not switch on the table lamp. Instead, I think that the button is actually a place to charge our device as you can see that there is a USB portal for us to plug in our charging cable. 






Then, I continuously looked at the table lamp to find if there was any button for me press after searching for a switch button on the cable line of the table lamp. I touched the table lamp while pressing as I could not see any visible cue to switch on the table lamp. Finally, I found that the top of the table lamp could be pressed (refer to image below). It was a bit ridiculous because I have used about 3 minutes to find the right button just to switch on a table lamp. 3 minutes does seem fast for us, but when it comes to a table lamp 3 minutes is perceived as long because usually for a table lamp that I have used the switch button can be visibly seen, and it will just take about 5 seconds to switch on a table lamp whereby I just need to see and click on the switch button. 

According to Natoli (2014), it is important to help people easily understand that the interaction with the product is available and that they should easily predict the result of interaction as a product will be perceived as easy to use when a visible cue is obviously present (Norman, 2013). Hence, the cue of a product that is designed to interact with the product should be obvious. For example, a table lamp that has a visible switch button can easily help users to understand that the button is to switch on the lamp and when they see the button they will immediately know that after pressing the button the lamp will be turned on or off. 

In conclusion, even if this table lamp is nice in term of perceived appearances, the actual ease of use is low because even if you have already know that the top of the table lamp is to switch on the button you have to stop in front of the table lamp and use one hand to hold the top of the lamp and another hand to press the button at the top of the lamp; using one hand to hold the top of the lamp is to prevent that the top of the lamp will drop off because a little bit of strength was used to push the button down. However, if a visible switch button is visibly present, I could just click the button while passing by the lamp, and no purposeful effort should be done.

References:

Natoli, J. (2014). Tips and advice, UI design. Retrieved from http://www.givegoodux.com/visibility-5-principles-interaction-design-supercharge-ui-2-5/

Norman, D. (2013). The design of everyday things: revise and expanded edition. Available from http://cc.droolcup.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/The-Design-of-Everyday-Things-Revised-and-Expanded-Edition.pdf

First time using oven

This afternoon, when I was struggling what I still can publish for this October blog my friend invited me to her house to make mini cupcakes. This was my first time to make mini cupcakes as my house does not have oven. Thus,I accepted my friend's spontaneous invitation. And, I was really happy that she had invited me when I saw her oven.

This was the oven. A new oven her mother has just bought three months ago.








What interested me was this! Look at the image below.

Looking from top to bottom, you can see that the top button was to adjust the temperature of the oven; the bottom button was to adjust the time to use to bake or make something; then how about the middle button?


What do you think the middle button is made for?  


























Actually, the middle button was used to adjust according to the food that you want to bake. For example, if you want to bake cake or make pizza, you need to turn the button clockwise (the button can only be turned in clockwise direction!) to the picture that has a fan in it. However, how do I know to operate the middle button? My friend asked her mother for the answer, and in fact her mother knew the operation of the middle button was because of experience. In other word, her mother had gone through many trials and errors, and that trials and errors gave her the knowledge of how to operate the button.

And fortunately this unclear middle button gave me the idea to write this post!

From the image above, (from top to bottom) the top and bottom buttons have clear and visible instructions on how to use the object. For example, when we want to adjust the time of 10 minutes to make mini cupcakes, we could clearly see that there was a timer icon beside the bottom button, which directly gave us the message that this button is to adjust the time to make things. However, the middle button did not convey such direct message to us. We could guess that the middle button is about heat, but how can people who are not experienced in baking know that if the food they are making needs a fan to heat the food. Preece, Rogers and Sharp (2002) stated that visible functions are more likely to allow the users to know how to use; however, when functions are not visible for users to understand, it makes users more difficult to know how to use. 

Thus, I think that the designer of the oven can try to make something similar to the image 1b for users to easily understand how to use the middle button. For example, if the users want to make pizza or bake cake, they can just turn the button clockwise to the pizza icon or cake icon. 

Image 1a: The Actual

Image 1b: My Suggestion

In conclusion, if the oven has the same function as image 1b, don't you think that it will be much better for all of us as we will not overheat our food, and the food will not burn due to the heat?

PS: Since earlier I mentioned that I went to my friend's house to make mini cupcakes, here is the cupcakes that we have made. They were delicious, in fact!

Reference: 
Preece, J., Rogers, Y., & Sharp, H. (2002), Interaction design: beyond Human-Computer Interaction, New York: Wiley, p.21

Bad experience with petrol station

Every day, most of us will be searching for a target amongst the distractors. Thus, the representations of the target should be able to facilitate our visual processing and attention as Eimer and Kiss (2008) stated that when targets that we are searching are defined by a specific characteristic, like color, we tend to focus towards the specific feature, which will then control our attention in visual search task.  

Then, in the real world, what will happen if the specific characteristics of the targeted object are different from what we are searching for?

Last two weeks, when my sister was driving my family and I to one of the dimsum's restaurant in Kuala Lumpur, the car almost ran out of oil. Then, she decided to go to the nearby Shell station to top up the oil. 

Speaking of which, I have been going to petrol station to top up the car oil for many times, even before I got my driving license. Therefore, going to a petrol station to top up for car oil is really an easy piece of work to be done. However, on that day other than topping up the car oil, I was asked to help looking for the petrol gun that we wanted to use because my sister and I did not know how to differentiate which is which unless i could see the word 97 from the small stations.

At the Shell station

There were so many cars in the Shell station, and only two small stations were emptied. Then, my sister drove straight to the direction. Meanwhile, she continuously asked me which one we were going to use. Honestly, I was in the exactly same situation as her; I did not know whether which we should go for.

Experience of looking for the right fuel 

I knew that we wanted to use the fuel 97, so I asked her to drive slightly closer for me to see the word next to the petrol gun, but it was really difficult to see the word in the car because the thick, black pipes was blocking our way to see the word clearly. The image below was not good in explaining the situation because i took this photo right in front the small station. So, please assume that if this small station was at the left hand side and my sister was driving to this small station, you might be able to imagine that how the black pipes will block our way to see the word 97 as the black pipes, rather at the side that do not have words, were right on the word that can help us to differentiate which oil pump was 95 or 97. 

(Image above is labeled as image 1)

But, please bear with me that I did not take the side of this picture to explain the situation clearer. 

Then, I asked her to reverse her car as I saw a guidance board (refer to the image beside) that could guide us from differentiating between fuel 97 and fuel 95. Right after looking at the board, I told my sister that fuel 97 might have the red color pump. Thus, both of us just focus on deliberately finding the red color pump. Yet, none of the oil pump was red in color. Instead, they were either yellow color or green color as you can see from the image 1. 

             

           

Based on the statement of Eimer and Kiss (2008), I could say that "The different colors of two information, Shell V-Power 97 (red in color) and Shell Fuel Save 95 (green in color), on the guidance board are the specific characteristics that have been defined by the Shell management".

Thus, after looking at this board, we tend to focus on the define characteristics on the board, which is the red color information to the similar characteristic of the target we were searching for, which is the oil pump as our attention is unconsciously controlled by the color we saw on the board.

Then, my sister drove back and forth, and a little closer than just now so that I could see the little white English word that states 97 and 95 (refer to image 1 for the little white English word that states 97 and 95). Unfortunately, I still couldn’t read the word distantly as the black pipes were blocking our way to look at the words accurately (which I already have explained earlier).

Eventually, I woke my father up and asked him which to go, and he directly pointed us to the right station. When I walked down from the car, I finally understand why the word of fuel 97 on the guidance board was red in color as from image 1 you can see that the sticker that stated 97 was red in color, rather than the oil pump itself was red in color.

Conclusion

Even though the color of the information on the board is equally the same as the color of the word beside the two pumps, because the former does not correspond to the color of the gas pumps, this might increase the time and effort of people in finding their target because color information will contribute to object recognition (Nako, Grubert, & Eimer, 2016). 

Recommendation

Thus, I think that if the color on the board is correspondent to the color of the oil pump, the other users will not experience the same difficulty as me when they are searching for their target in Shell station. In addition, having a high similarity color feature between the oil pump and the information on the board can help us to easily recognize our target. Otherwise, the Shell management could make the sticker bigger for everyone to look at it easily. Also, (looking at image 1) instead of putting the stickers beside the oil pump, the management can put the stickers sticker right above the oil pump for users to easily look at the word, fuel 97 or 95.  

References:

Eimer, M., & Kiss, M. (2008). Involuntary attentional capture is determined by task set: Evidence from event-related brain potentials. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 20, 1423–1433. http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/ jocn.2008.20099

Nako, R., Grubert, A., & Eimer, M. (2016). Category-based guidance of spatial attention during visual search for feature conjunctions. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human perception and performance, 42(10), 1571-1586. doi:10.1037/xhp0000244

Have you ever wondered...

Have you ever wondered how you can accurately open the car window without looking at the car window button? 

The pictures below are examples of the window buttons in two different cars. 

Although these two cars have slight different designs of car window buttons, I think that layout of controls and displays of the car window buttons are good examples of mapping because the (layout of) the buttons and displays are spatially correspondent to the devices being controlled, which are the car windows (Norman, 2013). Due to the mapping, users will easily know how to use the them. 

So, to give you a more vivid image in your head of why the car windown buttons are the good examples of mapping, I would slowly explain a step-by-step procedure of you driving the car while opening the windows. Before explaining the procedures, please look at the picture below. 

Image 1

Then, now assume that you are sitting in the driver seat (remember that in Malaysia the driver seat is always at the front right hand side, so imagine that you are sitting in the front right hand side), and you want to open the window that you are sitting at. To open the window, you have to either look at the buttons and put your hand to the window button or just touch the buttons and guess which button is correspondent to which window. Thus, to illustrate on the good examples of mapping, I would like you to assume that you are now busy looking at the road outside while touching the window buttons, Then, when you have put your hand on the window buttons, try to locate the button which is at the upper right end, which has been labeled as “A” in the image above. After locating the upper right end button, press on it, and your side of the window will open!

Since you have successfully open your side of the window, now assume that you want to open the window of the left passenger’s seat while still busy looking at the road outside. Similarly, you need to put your hand on the window buttons, but now rather locating the upper right end button you need to locate the bottom left button, which the button has been labeled as “C” in image 1. Press on it and the window of the left passenger’s seat will open. Thus, even if you want to open the window of the right passenger’s seat or front left seat, you just need to try to touch where the four buttons are, and just press on the particular button according to the layout of the car window because the layout of the car windows are correspondent to the layout of the buttons. Hence, if you want the front left window to open, just press on the top left button; if you want the right passenger's car window to open, just press on the bottom right button; if you want the front right window (which is the driver seat's window) to open, just press on the top right button; lastly, if you want the left passenger's car window to open, just press on the bottom left button. 

However, even though the buttons have good mapping design, the buttons are not effective enough for everyone to use them effortlessly because the four buttons are almost similar to each other (refer to the image 1); unless you are looking at buttons directly, with the sense of touch many users are highly unlikely to effortlessly distinguish the differences, and you can see that most users, including me will just simply press the buttons until their goal has achieved. For example, sometimes, ridiculously, I will open all the four windows, but in fact I may just want to open the window of the left passenger’s seat. 

Reference:
Norman, D. (2013). The design of everyday things: revise and expanded edition. Available from http://cc.droolcup.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/The-Design-of-Everyday-Things-Revised-and-Expanded-Edition.pdf

User experience (UX) of online shopping

I think that it really is important to have a confirmation option before users commit to an irreversible action, like making a payment or sending an email because people sometimes will be distracted by other stimulus even though they are focusing on a task (Nielsen, 1995). Thus, having a confirmation option can prevent users' to make error.

However, the idea of "confirmation option is important" emerged only after I have had the bad experience of committing the irreversible mistake that I would never forget.

Past experience of using a website that does not have confirmation option
I clearly remember that few months ago while I was trying to check out the items that I wanted to buy from ZALORA (a online shopping website), my sister was talking to me. Unconsciously, I had pressed the button of "confirm" without checking my course of action. Then, when I checked back my order status, I only realized that I had chosen cash on delivery as my payment of method. Yet, this is not the worst.

Supposedly, I could cancel the order in one call; unfortunately, their office working hour is from 9am to 6pm, and the time I realized was already 6:30pm. Thus, I decided to cancel my order tomorrow, but tomorrow was a Saturday, and I thought that ZALORA would not work on weekends. Then, I decided to call them on the coming Monday. However, on Sunday, I had already received an e-mail stated that my order had been processing, and waiting to be delivered, but I could not allow my order to be delivered to my doorstep because I would not be at home before evening. Due to this circumstance, I still decided to call ZALORA and expected that they would help me to cancel the order. Yet, they could not help me because the order had been delivered.

Conclusion
This experience taught me to understand that if I want to talk to someone I should have either stop my current task or ask the person to wait for me to finish my current task so that the same mistake will not re-occur. Nonetheless, most importantly I found that presenting users with a confirmation option can not only prevent user from conducting an error but also indirectly encourage users to check for potential errors (Nielsen, 1995).

Suggestion
ZALORA should add a confirmation dialog box especially when the consumers have chosen the cash on delivery as their method of payment because cash on delivery is different from online banking; when people choose online banking they will be directed to the page which they need to choose the type of bank before giving their bank account. Thus, even if the consumer has accidentally chosen online banking as their method of payment their order will not immediately be processed as the procedure of payment is not completed unless they have logged in to their online banking website. Since using online banking as a payment method needs a longer process, even if people are distracted from the current task, they would not unconsciously pay their order. Unlike cash on delivery, once consumers have chosen the option, there is only one way that they can undo their action, which is call to ZALORA to cancel the order immediately; otherwise, when the order has been processed and delivered, consumers would have no choice, but to stay at the address that they have put in their personal information.

Reference
Nielsen, J. (1995). 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design. Retrieved from https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/