ContextualInquiry:Innoventions
From IEOR 170 Spring 2007
Contents |
[edit] Group Members and Contributions
Nicolas Suryono - Interviewed a college student, completed the Problem Context, compiled other member’s part into one final report (hardcopy) and uploaded group assignment to group wiki page.
Urvashi Gupta - Interviewed a Shipping Executive and completed the Proposed Design.
Monica Tanza - Interviewed a college student and completed the Task Analysis.
Hong How Quek - Interviewed a Port Operation Supervisor and completed the Target Users and Contextual Inquiry.
Raymond Kim - Completed the Analysis of Tasks.
[edit] Target Users
Our group decided that our target users should share the following needs:
1. They have to wake up on time for time-sensitive commitments on a regular basis.
This will allow us to sieve out people with the luxury of waking up as their biological clock dictates without having to meet a time-sensitive commitment (e.g. retired senior citizens who spend their days at their own leisure). These people are unlikely to appreciate a device that will help them wake up at a preset time, since it makes better sense for them to rely on their biological clock to regulate their waking hours that can also ensure that they get a good night’s sleep.
2. Waking up on time to meet their daily commitments is an agonizing procedure, as they are forced to wake up even though they did not have ample hours of sleep.
This will narrow our user group to a selection that may be disgruntled with the alarm clock that jolts them rudely and painfully out of sleep. This also gives us room for innovation, as we can explore creating a brand-new product not available in the market today that makes waking up a more comfortable and less frustrating process.
In the selection of our three users, we tried to cover a spectrum consisting of both college students and working professionals to fit this semester’s theme of designing for not just the campus, but also for the city and community. We also selected users with different waking patterns (waking up in the morning, at night, or at irregular hours) in order to get the best range of differing responses. More information on our three selected users is described as follows (note that all names are purely fictitious):
The first user is JENNY, a 19 year old American female college student studying in a single-sex college. She studies Civil Engineering and lives in a single room at the college dormitories. On Mondays through Wednesdays she has to get up around 9 am for class. However on Thursdays through Saturdays she has to get up even earlier to work the opening shift at a coffee shop (shifts can start as early as 4 a.m., however she usually starts around 5 am or 6 am). Jenny has no known disabilities, likes having a cup of coffee every morning and dislikes waking before the sun is up as it makes her feel sleep deprived. Her goal is to wake up on time for her classes and her work.
The second user is RAJOO, a 50 year old Indian working professional who has to wake up at 8 am in the mornings to leave for work by 9 am. Rajoo has no known disabilities. He works in a shipping company and is required to report to work at 9 am daily. He works till 8 pm at night, but his ending times can be pretty irregular as he is sometimes required to stay overnight to make sure is he onboard the vessels at early morning hours (e.g. 5 am). He enjoys watching the news on television, and dislikes loud noises. His goal is to get a good night’s rest before going to work every morning.
The third user is MONIQUE, a 23 year old Singaporean female college graduate who is now on her first job as a port operations supervisor who works 12-hour shifts (8 am to 8 pm. or 8pm to 8am). There is no regular pattern to her shift schedules (for example she could work two morning shifts and one night shift in one week, and work four straight night shifts the following week), and this combination of a hectic schedule and the constant changing of her biological clock has resulted in the severe lack of quality sleep, making her very exhausted and sleep-prone. Monique also suffers from eczema, a painful dry-skin condition that can be triggered by heat and lack of moisture. She wakes up at 6 a.m. for morning shifts, and wakes up by 7 p.m. to get ready for night shifts. She likes spending the day sleeping on her off-days and dislikes having her sleeping patterns constantly disrupted. Her goal is to get quality sleep as much as she can, so that she does not have to be exhausted at work. Another one of her goals is to make sure she wakes up on time for work, as her boss is particularly hung up about punctuality.
[edit] Problem and Solution Overview
Based on our interview results and analysis, we concluded that the problem we will be tackling is finding a solution to make our target users wake up on time pleasantly and effortlessly. In addition to that, we also want them to feel energized when waking up.
We are proposing to design a device that is highly customizable for our user. It will have the ability to wake our user up based on their preferences (i.e. the user can set what method will be used to wake them up for example using sound, smell, music, light, etc.). We feel this is necessary because every person is has unique sense preferences (i.e. some people may be more sensitive to light than the other so they will be able to wake up easier when there is some change in lighting condition in their room). In addition to the preceding function, we will also make the device act as a programmable calendar for the user and the user will be able to sync it with their calendar software in their computer. This will allow the device to be able to wake the user up at different time during the week (e.g. the device will be able to wake the user up at 8 a.m on Monday, Wednesday and Friday; at 6 a.m on Tuesday and Thursday; and the device will not wake the user up on Saturday and Sunday).
[edit] Contextual Inquiries - Interview Descriptions
[edit] The Interview Process
Before we went on to conduct our individual interviews, our group convened to discuss the interview guidelines and steps that all members had to adhere strictly to. To begin with, we agreed to adopt the master/apprenticeship model and approach all interviews from the vantage of an apprentice and ask focused questions with humility, inquisitiveness and great attention to detail. This forms the core of our interviewing philosophy, together with a sense of mission, ethics and professionalism.
All our interviews begin in the way a conventional interview does, with each team member introducing himself or herself as a student from IEOR 170—a UC Berkeley industrial design and human factors class. We then moves on explain our project focus, which is trying to make the waking up experience a more pleasant one for people who have to wake up for a time-sensitive commitment. After securing the user’s permission to be interviewed and have the conversation taped or recorded down, we guaranteed that user identity will be kept confidential, and any data obtained from the interview is purely for research purposes and will only be documented within the confines of the project. In addition to that, we created a safety zone by reassuring the user that they can opt out of the interview anytime they wish to. Finally, we collected some background information about the user, including age, education, occupation, sleeping/waking patterns, desired waking outcomes, etc.
For the actual contextual interview, we wanted to follow the four principles of contextual inquiry taught in class as closely as possible. To give our interview sufficient context, we made sure we were physically present at our users’ bedsides when they woke up. Hence, we arranged to enter JENNY and RAJOO’s bedrooms 15 minutes before their alarm clocks were set to go off so that we could observe the actual waking process real-time. We could not be physically present with MONIQUE who is located in Singapore, so our team member observed her waking process via webcam. Our biggest problem in doing a contextual interview is the difficulty in interrupting the user with questions when we observe something interesting about his or her waking process, because not only is the waking process too short but also the user is also usually groggy with incoherent speech and thoughts. Also, our interruptions will adversely affect the authenticity of the waking process. Hence, we decided to silently observe the waking process, and conduct the interview only after the user has completely woken and freshened up. This may be a leap from the preferred contextual interview, but we feel that it serves our purposes well enough.
Throughout our interviews, we were also well aware of the danger of relying on summary data and carefully observed our user’s waking processes to obtain an accurate ongoing experience. For example, when RAJOO was asked what he does immediately after waking up, he merely answered “Oh, I just turn on the TV to watch the news for 15 minutes.” However our observations showed that before RAJOO turned on the TV, he lay erect in bed with his eyes wide open, and stayed in that position for 3 full minutes while stretching his arms and legs before finally lifting the covers and getting out of bed. RAJOO instinctively censored that detail in his description probably because he thought it was unimportant, and we would have missed that detail if we did not carefully observe his waking process.
In addition, we also made sure to avoid abstraction by constantly referring our users back to the waking process, replaying it over and over as we ask “what” “how” and “why” questions. For example, when MONIQUE told us she relied heavily on the snooze function, we asked her what she meant by “the snooze function”, why that was so important to her, and made her describe how she activates the snooze function on her cell phone. At the end of each interview, we thanked our user, queried him about his overall impression about the interview and asked him for additional details or interesting behaviors he will like to discuss. Individually, we summarized our data, convened as a group again and shared our findings and interpretations with one another.
[edit] Observations and Interpretations
Some common themes that the users shared are as follows:
1. The desire to spend more time sleeping than they could afford, which was in directly conflict with their desire to wake up early enough to allow them to get to school or to their workplace on time. 2. The initial grogginess, frustration and incoherence of speech and thought when they are first awoken by the alarm clock. 3. The tendency to laze in bed for a longer time when the weather was cold. 4. They all experience a significant degree of sleep deprivation. 5. They felt that noise and vibration were most likely to wake them up. 6. They all used an alarm to wake up them up, either in the form of a traditional alarm clock or as a feature embedded in their cell phones.
Other common tasks that users shared as are follows:
1. They set their alarm clock right before they went to bed on the previous night. 2. Both RAJOO AND MONIQUE relied heavily on the “snooze” function, hitting it at least a couple of times on average, and as many as 20 times (during cold weather for JENNY). 3. They stretch their limbs to “feel some life in (their) body” usually for a couple of minutes before getting out of bed.
It was interesting how JENNY, unlike RAJOO and MONIQUE never used the snooze function in her life, and unlike them, springs out of bed almost immediately after turning off the ringing alarm. Since all the users complained of sleep deprivation, it is probably not any easier biologically for JENNY’s body to snap into action compared to the others. The most logical explanation is that JENNY has far more discipline and determination when it comes to forcing herself out of bed, or that she has been conditioned to wake up immediately without lazing on bed by her parents while she was growing up.
During MONIQUE’s interview, she expressed concern when she was told about our initial idea of using heating pads to wake our users, not only because of safety reasons, but because of how the heat may exacerbate a problem unique to her—her skin eczema. She says, “The heat, even if it’s just a little bit and for just a short while can cause my skin to break into very itchy rashes. That is why I keep the air-conditioning at full blast every night when I sleep.” When coming up with our initial design, we never thought that heating pads could pose as a health hazard for some users, but after MONIQUE pointed this out, we are now more sensitive to the user’s health concerns when coming up with new designs.
RAJOO, at the end of his interview pointed out that we have considered causing discomfort to a variety of senses, such as sight (using flashing lights) and touch (heating pads, vibrating beds) to wake people up, but yet it seems that we failed to consider the sense of smell. “Aromatherapy is so popular these days, if lavender mist can induce sleep and citrus scents can make you more energetic, I would not be surprised if you can find a scent that can induce a person to wake up, even when used in small and safe doses.” We felt that was an original and creative idea certainly worth investigating. It was not a coincidence that RAJOO came up with this idea; RAJOO has always been a big fan of colognes, and therefore had a better understanding of scents and how the human body responds to it. Every user has unique experiences that can result in valuable contributions to a design process. Our contextual inquiry process has elucidated many useful observations that will help us better refine and further our initial design.
[edit] Task Analysis Questions
1. Who is going to use the system?
Our system will be used by any person who needs an alarm. This includes, but is not limited to, students, professionals, working parents, and shift workers. It can generally be assumed that they will have the ability of level of an eighth grade student. Alarm uses like to get up on time and comfortably. They also like feeling like they got a good night’s sleep. One of the only characteristics that they share is their age. It can be assumed that they are all in their late teens or onward (before that age, parents either wake up their children or they have no need for an alarm).
2. What tasks do they now perform?
The current tasks users perform are using their cell phone or a radio alarm clock to get up. They frequently use the snooze button. Some users even request that a friend or parent call them to ensure they get up if they have a big event, such as a final or job interview.
3. What tasks are desired?
The tasks that are desired by users are numerous. They would like a less abrasive wake up method. Ultimately, they’d want to not have to wake up to an alarm or be required to wake up at a certain time so that they could sleep to their hearts content. They’d like to not have to rush in the morning and not feel exhausted when they wake up. They’d also like to be able to make sure they have not confused the am with pm so that they can be assured their alarm will always go off.
4. How are the tasks learned?
The tasks needed to operate an alarm clock are learned through an instruction manual. If it is a complex system, they can also learn through infomercials.
5. Where are the tasks performed?
The tasks are performed in the bedroom or a hotel or any other place where a person is waking up. Sometimes users are very tired when setting an alarm. Also, sometimes the alarm is unnecessary if users are woken up from noise such as garbage men, loud neighbors or in Berkeley, the campanile ringing.
6. What’s the relationship between user & data?
As far as the relationship between user and date goes, users want to be bale to store different alarms for different days of the week, an alarm schedule. It needs to be custom to fit the needs of the user.
7. What other tools does the customer have?
The other tools of the customer vary. They could have schedules stored on their outlook or pda, in which case the system can synch with that schedule. However, the tools vary.
8. How do customers communicate with each other?
The communication between customers is irrelevant in this case since waking up is a personal affair.
9. How often are the tasks performed?
The frequency of the task also depends on the users. Some users may use it multiple times a day; some may use it only once a day or just a few times a week. It depends on the schedule of the user’s classes or shifts.
10. What are the time constraints on the tasks?
While setting the alarm, there are no time constraints. However, as far as being successful in waking up the user, the system needs to wake user up during a certain time interval so that they don’t miss their appointment, class, bus or work. They need to have sufficient time to get ready, eat breakfast, or take a shower.
11. What happens when things go wrong?
If things go wrong, the user could potentially miss their appointment or class, or be late. It might also force them to skip a daily ritual such as showering or eating breakfast to make up for lost time.
[edit] Analysis of Tasks
Analysis of Tasks
[edit] A. Easy
Set Alarm On/Off
The first and easiest task supported by our product is the ability to allow the user to set his/her alarm time and turn off the alarm as well, identical to that of an average alarm clock. While the possibility of having an automated alarm input system such as reading from a computer is possible, it is still very important to have this simple feature available as it is a familiar and simple starting point.
Snooze Feature
A second “easy” task that users will perform with our product is the ability to “snooze” by pressing a button when the alarm is triggered, which will then postpone the alarm for a specified period of time. Default settings can be anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes, but there also exists the possibility for a custom input from the user directly. At first this feature may seem counterintuitive since our device is meant to wake up users peacefully, which renders the “snooze” button unnecessary. However, in order to maintain familiar standards and also provide for the widest range of sleep habits, we believe it is necessary to include this feature.
[edit] B. Moderate
Set Alarm Schedule (Daily, weekly, etc.)
Basic alarm clocks usually allow the user to only specify one time to trigger an alarm. If one had an inconsistent wakeup schedule, he/she would have to reset the alarm each night. This however leaves room for unintentional user error such as forgetting to set the alarm time, which can be a great nuisance. As a result, our product will allow users to set a day-to-day or perhaps week-by-week schedule to avoid the possibility of forgetting to set the alarm.
Synchronization with Scheduling Devices (PDA, Microsoft Outlook)
Following the same line of automation as presented above, users will also be able to have their alarm clock synchronize with various devices that contain schedule information such as Microsoft Outlook or a PDA device. The user will be able to specify whether they would like to have external devices automatically synch with the alarm to change the time if necessary (i.e. a meeting is scheduled for 8am when the normal alarm is set for 8:30am). This grants the user the assurance that they will always wake up on time.
[edit] C. Difficult
Wake Up Peacefully
The main point of difference in our alarm is that users will be able to wake up in a non-abrasive manner by using several different “wake up” methods. Our alarm will not only possess the traditional alarm noises, but will also include scents and lights as alternate or simultaneous alarm options. Scents such as citrus tend to trigger alertness within humans, and can be released when the alarm is triggered. Users will then be able to wake up to a pleasant scent rather than a loud noise. Visual stimulus is another option in which a flashing light can wake the user. All of these options are also customizable (Different scents, different light colors, etc.) and can be combined or used separately.
Get a Good Night’s Sleep
The final feature of our alarm is one that goes above and beyond traditional alarm clock standards. Not only will our alarm wake the user peacefully, it will also take measures to ensure that the user has a peaceful night’s sleep. By applying customized music along with scents such as lavender, our alarm will grant the user the ability to fall asleep more easily and stay asleep throughout the night.
[edit] Proposed Design
Wake up peacefully
We plan to have a lamp that makes use of flashing lights to wake the user up at the time the alarm is supposed to go off. We chose the idea of flashing lights over other similar ideas like using a heated blanket that would either gradually heat up or cool to make the temperature of the surroundings uncomfortable enough for the user that he would be woken up from sleep. This is because the safety issues that came into consideration. We did not want to take the chance that the user would not wake up in time and an accident occurs in case the blanket became over heated. Other ideas included having a blanket that just rolls up and slides off the user at a particular time thus causing him to feel cold and wake him up, and spraying small jets of water at the user to wake him up. The idea of spraying jets of water was rejected as we felt it would be rather messy if the user had to dry his sheets every morning. Hence, we picked the idea of flashing lights in the end as we were looking for the most peaceful and soothing way to wake a person up and we decided that flashing lights thought mildly annoying, are probably the most effective way to achieve this objective.
Also, after a certain time our alarm unit will start to emit a sound (just like an alarm clock) to wake the person up by adding slightly to the discomfort. This is in case the flashing lights fail to wake the user up. Hence it can be programmed by the user to not sound an alarm at all, or sound it after the user has hit “snooze” a particular number of times. This option will be left open to the user’s discretion. Alternatively it can start playing the news (a built in radio) and the control can be set off after the snooze button has been hit by the user a certain number of times.
We considered doing away with the “snooze” button feature completely from our product as the point of our product is to make waking up a more pleasant experience and hence the snooze button should not be necessary. However, we realize it is too ambitious to completely remove it as many people are used to using the “snooze” button and it may be a while before they manage to wake up without having to use that button. Hence, we feel that the snooze button should still be available for people who are uncomfortable buying something without one.
The last task we have is for people to get a good night’s sleep. For this we decided to make use of scents. Our product will have a nozzle affixed on it so that it can periodically spray out certain scents and sends out smells that help people have a better night’s sleep. Research has shown that lavender slows the activity of the nervous system, improves sleep quality, promotes relaxation, and lifts mood in people suffering from sleep disorders. Studies suggest that these essential oils, particularly lavender, may result in improved sleep quality, more stable mood. This is in line with precisely what we are aiming for. If we can help people have a more satisfying sleep, then the less resentful they will be of waking up in the morning and hence the process of waking up will become much easier for them.
This feature of our product actually has a lot of potential for solving other sleep related problems as well. For example, some people are asthmatic so certain scents can help them breathe better and all they have to do is simply replace the scents in the nozzle to suit their needs and hence get a better night’s sleep.
The alarm unit can have a wall mount or it can just have a base so that users can choose to place it anywhere that’s comfortable for them. Our alarm unit will be such that it can be synced with a PDA or with a built in Bluetooth receiver. Hence can people can synchronize their alarm unit with their daily schedule that is stored in their PDA or from Microsoft outlook or whatever program they use as their daily planner and sync it to the alarm clock so alarm unit knows when to wake person up. This will remove the problem of having to set the alarm everyday. Also people will no longer be unnecessarily woken up on days they do not need to as the alarm unit will store different alarms for different days.
User interface design
The alarm unit is such that it can stand on its own on any even surface or alternatively can be mounted on a wall if the user wishes. There is a vial on top of the unit that can be filled with any scent the user desires and there are nozzles all around the rim of the conical shaped lamp holders. Hence these will emit the sleep promoting scent at periodic intervals when activated by the user before he goes to sleep. There is also a dial that can be used to adjust the times and there are LCD displays for showing the time and to make adjustments to the intensity level of the flashing lights and the volume of the alarm or the radio that the alarm unit plays. We also have CD slots in the alarm unit, which can hold 2 CDs, so users can choose to wake up and sleep to the music of their own choice instead of the radio or a shrill alarm tone. This also helps the user get a better sleep as studies have shown that some types of soothing music are conducive to sleep. There are two large speakers located in the front of the alarm unit so that they can play the music, radio or alarm to wake the user up if the flashing lights fail to. The two big lamps are protruding from the top of the unit and will flash the lights onto user at the time he is supposed to wake up. The lamps are connected to the unit by flexible metal connecters, so the user can adjust the position of the bulbs to have it shine light exactly where they want it.
Solution Sketch
Three scenarios to accomplish each of the three tasks
1. Setting the alarm to wake at a certain time
First the user decides how he wants to operate his alarm unit. He can either choose to manually set the alarm everyday by turning the dials on the clock. Alternatively if he has a PDA or a computer program that stores his daily schedules and the times he needs to wake up everyday then he can sync that with out alarm unit. This is simply done by hooking up the chosen device to out alarm unit. Then he just has to press the “activate” button on the alarm unit and he can go to sleep.
1. User is adjusting a dial on the alarm unit. 2. User goes to sleep
2. Wake up peacefully
When it’s time for the user to wake up the lights from our alarm unit will start flashing and this will wake up the user up. He gets woken up and turns around to hit the snooze button and goes back to sleep. Then the alarm starts sounding and he wakes up again. This time he gets out of bed.
1. Lights start flashing onto user 2. User turns around, hits snooze button. 3. User goes back to sleep. 4. Alarm starts ringing. 5. User wakes up and gets out of bed
3. Get a good night’s sleep
To get a good night’s sleep, the user has the option of getting the alarm unit to periodically emit the scent of whatever helps him sleep better. He turns a dial on the alarm unit so the nozzles turn on and then he just goes to sleep.
1. User is adjusting dial on nozzle so spray is emitted 2. User goes to sleep, with picture of the nozzle emitting scents 3. User wakes up looking refreshed.
