Team Holly

Introduction

Niki and Kayla visited Holly, our design client who is blind, at her apartment in Oakland, Pittsburgh, on Thursday, September 10th. Our purpose was to interview our design client to gather sufficient information about the client’s life to identify a need that could be resolved with a technological solution. We conducted a 40-minute interview with Holly on the daily workings of her life and what parts of her life could be made more convenient as an individual living with blindness.

Holly visited CMU on Thursday, September 24th to give feedback on our initial prototypes. We walked through usability testing, giving several versions of our prototype made with cardboard to receive feedback on her comfort and check for pain points.

Prototypes

Green, blue, and red button assembled vertically on a flat cardboard.

Modeling the interface where Holly will press buttons to dispense water: vertical orientation

Green, blue, and red button assembled vertically on a flat cardboard. A black power switch sits to the left of the blue button in the middle.

Vertical orientation of button with power switch in center

Holly's hands are pressing on 3 buttons orientated horizontally (from left to right): blue, green, and red buttons

Horizontal orientation of buttons

Holly sitting next to a blue bucket containing water, and covered with a cardboard lid with a clear tube running out of it.

Testing the balance between a comfortable carrying weight for the reservoir of water and holding a sufficient amount of water.

Holly feeling a funnel made out of cardboard

Mock-up of funnel used to fill reservoir

Holly testing out the nozzle and button interface of our product. Her right hand is directing a orange straw (serving as the nozzle) and her left hand is holding the handle with 3 buttons on it.

Mock-up of nozzle that Holly will use to direct water flow

Findings

During our prototype review with Holly, we learned that accessibility and physical comfort were the most important factors in the design of the watering device. Holly gave specific feedback on both the physical form of the device and how she would prefer to interact with its controls. We gained valuable insight into the beginning-to-end user flow of how Holly would theoretically use our prototype, informing us about the various product details and pain points we need to address.

One of the main findings was that the device should be easy to operate with one hand alone. Holly preferred larger buttons and wanted them to be oriented vertically so that they would be easier for her thumb to reach while holding the device. She also requested the buttons be labeled with Braille. Rather than having a complicated interface with small, medium, and large water output settings (for different amounts of water to be dispensed), she preferred a simple START/STOP interaction, where pressing START begins dispensing water and pressing STOP ends it.

She also liked the idea of having buttons to indicate the intensity of the water. She indicated that 2 liters would be a comfortable middle amount and 4 liters would be the maximum amount she could have the container hold. She was also interested in our idea to have an audible indicator, like a beep, to communicate the water level when filling up the container. Every beep would indicate one liter of water being filled. For long-term use, we discussed how this device would be cleaned; hence, we highlighted the need to make all relevant parts detachable for easy removal and cleaning (e.g., the tube).

Holly holding the handle with 3 buttons orientated vertically (from top to button): green, blue, and red. A black power switch sits to the left of the blue button.

Iterating between various button interfaces that is the most intuitive

Holly lifting the blue bucket filled with water to test the weight.

Testing for a comfortable carrying weight

Holly also emphasized physical comfort, she has some arthritis so the grip needs to be comfortable and easy to hold. This led us into a discussion about handles, which led us to talk about the “OXO Good Grips Swivel Peeler”. She preferred that the container had a handle and lid, so they could be lifted together. Her feedback showed that the device is not only accessible to someone who is visually impaired, but to anyone who has reduced hand strength and dexterity.

Holly gripping the handle with 3 buttons (blue, green, and red) to test for comfort

Testing the handle grip and button orientation

Next Steps & Reflection

Based on Holly’s feedback, our next step is to move from the cardboard prototypes toward a more functional one that incorporates the features she identified as important. We plan to focus on a comfortable, arthritis-friendly handle, larger vertically oriented buttons, and tactile labels. We also want to prototype the START/STOP interaction and the different water-output intensity settings so we can test how easy the controls are to understand and operate without relying on vision.
We also need to determine how the pumping system, water-level detection, and audible feedback will work together. Holly once mentioned the idea of a liquid level indicator, and a mechanism like that will work perfectly for our container. We also need to investigate how to make the internal tubing and other components detachable for cleaning while keeping the system secure during use.

The prototype critique went mostly as we expected; Holly has always provided us with useful and specific feedback. We finished our critique earlier than anticipated, so we were able to go back over the information we gathered and ask more targeted questions. Our team agreed on the consensus that the session went extremely well, and we could not ask for a better client and session because of how smoothly it went. One thing we wished could be different for next time is to have a larger variety of buttons and orientations already set up so we could reduce the time in throwing together our cardboard on the spot, which often resulted in the buttons falling out.

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