Exercise 3.3: Speculation presentation link

Persona

Scenario

Christina has found a great solution to her shopping problem that will allow her more time with her family and children instead of shopping. She has found an app that she can order her grocery needs from her local grocery stores. After receiving her order will be delivered to her doorstep on the same day by the store for free.

This app is very simple and easy to use. All Christina needs to do is to enter her list and if she has already purchased an item, she can simply re-order the same product without browsing the stores. In the case that she needs to order a new item, she can browse the store to see more options. Christina can pay using an online check-out, and wait for the store to deliver her order to her doorstep.

Storyboard

It’s the day after Thanksgiving, and I am still thankful for the four day break I got from work and school. This is the time to sleep in. However, I am awake and trying very hard to go back to sleep. I am convincing myself that if I do not open my eyes, I can fall back in deep sleep. I’m trying! but its not working. The sun, shining through the blinds in my room, is not letting me to sleep in. “What time is it”, I wonder. It must be early. I roll around the bed to find a better position to fall asleep again. Also not working. With my eyes closed, I reach to the nightstand next to my bed in search of my phone. My hand slides across the wooden surface of the nightstand, but “no phone”. Where is my phone? I panic and opened my eyes. Ah! Right there, few inches away from my reach. I grabbed my phone and looked at the time, it’s 10:21 am.

Now it’s time for the usual ritual before getting up. Checking all the apps on my phone. My emails, text messages, Facebook, Instagram and looking at headline news. I’m done checking my phone, it took an hour. I’m getting out of the bed! I am not hungry , so no point in eating breakfast, more like lunch soon. I am telling myself, that I will eat lunch after my workout. It’s sunny outside with a cool breeze. It’s a mild manner weather, not burning hot or freezing cold, just a typical sunny California November. I am driving to the my favorite park to enjoy some late morning run. I end my run! I am not that much tired, but more hungary. Now, I am debating wether to go out to eat or go back home and make something to eat. Thoughts of making something at home, reminds me that I must do some grocery shopping. Naturally, that will be my next stop. Funny, how my Mom always says “never go grocery shopping when hungry.” I never knew why she says this. Maybe superstition, maybe just a saying she heard from somewhere.

I am putting together a list of things I need on the drive to the store. I don’t need much. Just milk, bread, eggs and maybe some onions. Before entering the store, I am examining the shopping carts to select the least noisy and shaky one. Now, I am pushing the cart in the store and am navigating through the aisles to get to the milk. On my way, I see a whole lot of cookies. They look delicious. I pick one, and before putting it in my basket, realized that the other one is on 2 for 1 sale. Naturally, I reach and pick two of them. Now, my large cart has three packets of cookies in it. I continue my shopping cart towards the milk aisle. I can see other deals all over the store. My favorite type of meat is on a 4 for 1 deal. This was enough to deviate me from my original goal of getting the milk. Now I am in the meat department, and putting packages of meat in my cart, thinking to myself that I will have steak for lunch. Next to the meat there is fish. They look fresh and on a daily deal. I grabbed two packs and though how I can have them for dinner or even lunch, either way they are in my cart. I cannot have steak without vegetables. I proceed to the vegetable section, and filled my cart with broccoli, carrots, cilantro, parsley, spinach, tomato and etc. While I am putting these in my cart, I am picturing the dishes that I can make with these for lunch and dinner.

I just felt very hungry, and noticed how full my cart is. It is time for me to checkout and go home to make the steak lunch I have been thinking about. Placing the items from my cart on the conveyor belt made me realize how much I shopped, but I was not surprised till I saw the final price the cashier rang up. $154.24! I walked into the store thinking that I only need some milk or bread, and left with eighty four items that were not even in my list.
I think this was due to my hunger. The picture of dishes I was craving pushed me to shop for things I really did not needed. Now I know why my Mom would say that you should not go shopping when hungry.

Story in Sequential Pictures

I began this exercise from my home, right after work. I have recently moved and fairly new to this area. I also barely walked around the neighborhood and mostly drive the distance between home and work. I began walking inside the parameter of my apartment community, and the exercise’s directions led me towards the streets outside of my residence community. The late hour, darkness and my unfamiliarity with the area made me scare a bit at first. At the beginning, wandering in the streets of Irvine was a little confusing, especially since I was trying very hard to identify something interesting to use as my decision point. Later, I decided to reduce my walking speed and began pacing with the intent to enjoy my surroundings.

Soon after changing my speed and spending some time pacing around I began noticing the buildings and structures that I have never paid attention to before. They all are designed beautifully and it surprised me how I have missed them during my daily commute to and from work. Most buildings near my neighborhood is very well designed (i.e. artistics arcs over the front gates and doorways, trees, plants and other greens in front of the buildings), and I am still in shock how I have missed these scenes while driving by them in daily bases. Soon after, I realized that I stopped following the original instructions from the exercise and am creating a path in the opposite direction of the suggested path. This was because I became curious to further explore beautiful things I saw, and I lost track of original instructions. Later, I returned to the point where I began deviating from the original instructions of the exercise and continued my path according to the exercise’s guidelines. This exercise was very useful to me when exploring my neighborhood, since I found places that I were not aware of at all and would have never find out about them if it was not for this exercise.

Later I arrived at an apartment community not far from where I currently live, realizing that I have been walking around this neighborhood for nearly 3 hours, without realizing it.

My Apartment:

My Office:

My Neighborhood and Daily Route:

This is an Orange County guide map published by Automobile Club of Southern California (AAA).

Simplicity:  Since the focus of this map is to provide driving direction, the design is focused on roads and streets. For this reason, the designer used simplicity and removed all the unnecessary information such as buildings, businesses and other structures to simplify the map.

Consistency: One of the features that makes reading this map easy, is the use of elements in consistent manner. For example, all freeways in this map are presented in red, toll roads are shown as green, the total area of parks and gardens are marked by light green while their border are shown by series of  dashed lines throughout the map.  

Iconic Representation : In this map the designer used iconic representation to represent variety of information using symbols and icons. For example, using the AAA’s logo to highlighting AAA’s branches on the map or using icon of a boat to represent deep sea sport-fishing landings.

Mental Model: People understand and interact with the world and their environment via their own lens which is developed based on their previous experiences. This map is using mental model approach when illustrating elements. For example, in our mental model, color blue is associated with water, hence, the designer used blue when representing a lake, a river and an ocean. Similarly, green was used to mark parks and gardens while shades of  brown was used to represent mountains .

Legibility: The legibility of the elements in the map is important since map’s readability is the key to its proper use. Hence, paying attention to the distance between the words, the font, its size as well as its color are extremely important. The font size and color should be carefully considered and chosen to make any map legible. By using the proper font, font size and color this map has become clear and easy to read.

Shirin_Juan

 Dining Table Chair

This is our dining room chair. I sit on it multiple times a day beginning with having breakfast and usually ending with having dinner. Although the back of the chair is made out of wood, and it does not have a soft fabric cover, it still feels soft and comfortable. I can seat, lay back and chat with people present around the table for hours. The chair provide a great support.

Office Chair

This is my office chair in my cubicle. Over the course of years, I have noticed that I constantly adjust my chair (often during the day) to find more comfortable positions when working with keyboard and staring at the monitor from more suitable angles. These adjust and re-adjustments might be due to my general tiredness and time of the day. The back of chair provides a good support for my back, but I can feel that the chair has been design for a person who is larger than me. The seat itself is much wider than I can fill, hence, I need to use a pillow to find a better and more supportive position. Since the chair’s arms are not adjustable and fixed, they hit my desk when I am moving my chair around. This chair allows me to sit up straight and help me to feel very productive and comfortable.

Sofa

This is our living room sofa which is my favorite spot in the house. It is directly in front of the TV. This is where I sit to relax. Most days when come home after work I sit there to enjoy a cup of tea while watching my favorite shows, and become more relax. Sometimes, I am tired of sitting, since I have been sitting all day at work, hence, I lay down on the sofa to rest.

During weekend this sofa doubles as my relaxation corner. Due to its position and relation to the window, the sun shines on the sofa during the day, especially in late mornings. On does days I wake up and lay down on the sofa to enjoy the sunshine while enjoying the view out of the window.

Car Seat

This is my car seat. This seat is very supportive, soft and very comfortable. The seat itself offers numerous adjustable positions which makes it more comfortable to anyone who is driving this car regardless of height. The seat is made of materials that does not get cold in winters and not too hot in summer, which is perfect for me since I do not like to sit on a cold or hot chair. This seat is very comfortable which makes driving in morning and evening traffic bearable.

An Object I Love: Dishwasher

I like our dishwashing machine very much. It is very simple in design,  yet it has all visibility features. Without reading the instruction one can understand the steps that need to be taken in order to set the machine up for a specific task.  The machine provides the user with feedback using lights. When a function or an option has been selected the LEDs next to that very option will light up. In addition to the light function, every click will be accompanied with a light beep acknowledging that the function was pushed. The system is using mapping principles very well.  The labels are short, but understandable which makes it easy to build habitation from the first time you are using the system.

An Object I Hate: Climate Control Unit

This climate control unit, helps us control the heating and cooling systems of our home, and so far, to me it is one the worst units that I have used in my entire life.

It becomes apparent when one begins using this device that there are no visibility in this unit. This means that one can not understand the system’s status and its sequences. Additionally, there are no feedback from the system which makes it extremely hard to know if you have been successful in adjusting the temperature or have made the desirable changes to the schedule of home climate.

Since there are no clear feedback from the system,  we often just keep pushing the buttons till we notice some changes (i.e. fan starting). This has contributed to my family’s habituation of the current system which I think eventually will result in the untimely breakdown of the system. For example, once we were pushing so many buttons that the system just locked itself away and we were unable to do anything else.