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