How can we pay attention to the interaction dimension of our solution without a media & interaction student in our team?
June 5, 2020
Odeji, the meeting assistant Our object offers multiple interactions. They are first of all physical: it is by caressing Odeji that the meeting leader closes a point of the meeting… [...]
Odeji, the meeting assistant
Our object offers multiple interactions. They are first of all physical: it is by caressing Odeji that the meeting leader closes a point of the meeting and moves on to the next one. The movement of the human is accompanied by a light signal from the machine. The second type of interaction takes place in the application. The difficulties then increase tenfold, since it is necessary to ensure consistency between the two modes of interaction and the user’s daily life.
These concerns find little echo in our team. The engineers are busy already trying to make the product work. Once there, they are looking to optimize the solution by miniaturizing or reducing power consumption. Designers are concerned about the aesthetics and affordability of the object. Already more focused on the user’s experience, this work is done in close collaboration with the engineers because very practical considerations prevail. How do you get the electronics into the object? Won’t the object get too hot? Finally, the businessman looks for partners and makes cost calculations.
The problem defined, these are the resources on which we base our development process:
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Iteration: we proceed in stages and repetitions. For example, we decide to develop an object that is larger than desired, but which we miniaturize later.
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We rely on the heuristic evaluation grid. This grid would be prominently displayed in our workshop, if we had one.
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We rely at the software level on the material design proposed by Google.
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Last but not least: we test our developments with users.
Written by Mathieu Payn.