My interface of choice was a fire extiguisher. I was drawn to this interface because of the life saving protection that it offers. The interface is a crucial part of being able to protect oneself and therefore has to be clearly understood not only quickly, but also while its user is in distress. I chose the fire extinguisher housed in my apartment building and interviewed three of my roomates.
Interview With Braden
Braden valued ease of use and reliability in his fire extinguishers, he had not used a fire extinguisher before and thought that at first glance the device seemed complex. Braden said that he would not have read the manual in the case of a fire. Braden had not noticed the PSI meter and thought that it should be made significantly more obvious as the entire device was not usable if PSI was not accurate. Braden would simplify design, brighten the color of the device and make the PSI meter more apparent.
Interview With Maxine
Maxine valued ease of use and access in a fire extinguisher. She thought the the clamp on top of the fire extinguisher was intuitive because it presented a ‘squeeze like motion’ that she had been confronted with in other interfaces. She noted that the fire extinguisher was extremely heavy and thought this was an inaccessible design. Additionally the various tags and other accompanying accessories could be removed to simplify the design
Interview With Hannah
Hannah valued accessibility of use in her fire extinguisher - specifically that it was easy to know how to use - and had not used a fire extinguisher before. Hannah thought the manual should be even easier to read. Hannah instinctively grabbed the clamp of the fire extinguisher and the hose because she said that the fact that those parts had movement (were mobile) indicated to her that they were meant to be manipulated by her. Did not notice the PSI meter and thought that it should be made more obvious. Hannah noted that the PSI meter would need to be checked far in advance in order for it to be useful and that should be made obvious
Here I have constructed two personas by creating four-quadrant empathy maps, describing what users think, feel, say, and do for an archetypal character that represents part of the spectrum of users I observed. Read the diagram below to learn about Careless Carl and Anxious Annie.
The final step in my portfolio was to create a storyboard representing one of the personas I created, I chose Careless Carl. The storyboard depicts Carl using a fire extinguisher with a new and improved interface, an interactive PSI gage, which was based on the data I collected.