Reflection – Visualization

Challenge

I have defined a need together with a group of friends for a new hardware device for people with sight  loss or visually impaired people. After having conversation with the target group of people, we found  out that the technology has not been changed since more than 40 years. We wanted to change this  and come up with a solution using Visualization for a new concept of a device, which will include more  modern technologies and provide much better instructiveness and opportunities for self-development  of blind people.

Selection

We started with the Visualization tool in order to get and print photos of most of the current devices on  the market. By printing and adding them to a board we have created a visual representation of what  is the current situation of the market. Right next to the photographs we added photos of more modern  devices like tablets and smartphones which are more modern. We will use this approach to create a  Concept by showing the ideas that we generate in front of a small group of hardware device engineers  as well as describing the outcome with our target group.

Application

After adding the photos of the current devices and more modern next to each other we actually found  out that there are a lot of limitations with the older technologies and also a lot of physical buttons,  which are mostly removed in the modern smartphones or tablets. Also, we compared the functionalities  of both types of devices and noticed, that the audio and controlling functionalities are much more  advance in the smartphones and tablets. So, we have decided to Conceptualize a device combining  the touch screen device by also including the most important functions from the old devices. After we  came up with a proper design concept, we shared our insights with our target group and tweaked the  concept based on their feedback, which was very helpful. We than created a storyboard of how our  new concept device will be used with the enchanted options. After that we had a brainstorm session  with the hardware engineers if the concept will be feasible in the real-world scenario in terms of  manufacturing. We engaged them to create a storyboard with all of the steps needed for the  prototyping stage of the concept device. The outcome of the engineering storyboard was to add a  huge touchscreen and to remove most of the buttons, by implementation voice active controlling, but  also to keep core functionalities like having braille reading. Some of the suggestions were also to  extend the braille reading zone with more lines, so that we can output a full-page text, instead of only  current one-liner as in the most of the devices. We have than implemented some of the techniques  introduced in the Good Kitchen examples in the lectures, we tracked the user behavior with the old  devices and what kept them from using the current technologies more into their daily life. Some of the  outcomes were that some of the older devices were not battery operated and were very heavy to bring  them with them when they go out. We found out that the connectivity between a computer/PC and  their device is very important and currently this is not solved property. By asking them what would they  like to use the new device for, they appointed that it would be great to able to have groups, chats and  conference calls via the internet with their friends and families.

Insight

We were able to create a visual concept a new hardware device which not only will be useful but also  create a positive social impact in important group of our society. The reis a definite need from the  customer perspective, but also, we noticed from engineering stand point that there is a huge potential  and feasibility to be done. We also have a lot of future work to be done and next time we will continue  using other tools like Mind Mapping and Learning Launch in order to proof our User Journey process.

