Background
When using a safe box, people forget things: they forget keys, forget passwords and forget to change the batteries if the safe is electronic. To solve the problem, we designed a human-powered safe that doesn’t rely on batteries or utility power.
UX video with the prototype
This project involves contacting industry experts for advice, video prototyping, etc. But this article will focus on the ideation process, i.e how we designed the interaction between users and safe boxes via the human body. I participated in all the processes mentioned.
Keywords: ideation, body storming, sketching
Motivation
There are many ways to verify the user, via key, fingerprint, password, etc. And there are many gestures to power an interface, pulling, turning, cranking, etc. How these elements are combined greatly influence the usability.
Here’s an example showing why cranking+password entering reduces the speed of opening the safe.
Compared with the normal way of entering password, cranking adds extra burden to the user, since they are doing different tasks in different hands. If the interaction is not carefully designed, this can be quite annoying when the product is delivered to users.
Ideation
To find the right combination, we first opened up our mind via sketching. We tried to sketch all the interactions with hands in our daily life.
Then we experience how these will feel like using our hands.
Then it comes to the forms of interface, e.g thickness and material. We prototyped the interfaces using everyday materials such as umbrella, torch and pen.
To explore how the gestures, shape and material influence the experience, we ran a user test when users were asked to experience the controlled conditions respectively and to rate in terms of sense of security and comfort.
From the user test, we concluded that:
Material: solid/hard imply the box is safe.
Shape: easy to grip (neither too thin or thick).
Interaction:
Users prefer cranking, because it’s repeated movement.
Pushing via the palm is more engaging.
Rotating with all fingers is not comfortable.