Embedded Files
1a Designs
1a Designs
Assumptions
Assumptions
Toilet tracks the amount of water per flush
Toilet detects medical anomalies in user's waste
Toilet can be used without interacting with the interface
Toilet can differentiate between users
Design Requirements
Design Requirements
The toilet needs to be accessible to everyone
The user wants to make using and maintaining smart toilet as convenient as possible
The user wants smart toilet to be environmentally friendly
The user wants smart toilet to be fun to use
User wants smart toilet to avoid incentivizing spending more time sitting on the toilet
Design Requirements Interview Questions
The design requirements interview gave me interesting feedback about what I might want to include in my project. I was expecting fairly similar answers but everyone's response to the interview questions were different. Additionally I got some insight on shortcomings that my interview questions had. I believe my first question was too open ended, one of my interviewees said that they didn't have any issues, so I could reword the question to elicit more detail. Additionally I thought that the interviewees would rank the items in the third question individually, but all three of them ranked the features against each other. I think it may have had to do with interviewing over text and the fact that I had them rank five items on a 1-5 scale.
What problems do you have with your current toilet?
A common issue for interviewees was clogging/plunging. Whether it be a weak flush or an old toilet being hard to plunge, there is clearly room for improvement for the smart toilet's convenience. Additionally, I received feedback of a toilet being too short which makes sitting down and standing up uncomfortable, and one subject saying that cleaning the toilet can be a pain. The most interesting feedback I got was from an offhand comment that their bathroom was small, meaning the toilet was also small. I hadn't considered the size of the toilet in the design process, which could be a serious barrier for entry for some prospective buyers.
Have you ever bought toilet accessories (bidet, squat stool, self cleaner, etc.)? How did you feel about them?
Only one interviewee had purchased any toilet accessory (a bidet), but they had high praise for the bidet's ability to help save money on toilet paper. Another interviewee said that they and used a friends bidet and it was "just okay," but they noted that if you are going to call your product a smart toilet, it has to have a bidet. The final interview subject was mroe interested in the health benefits of the squat stool as a "more natural way to use the bathroom."
How important on a scale of 1-5 (5 being the highest) would you rank each of these features of a smart toilet (Bidet, Self-cleaning, Automatic plunger, Height-adjustable, Phone charger)
The most universally highly ranked features were self-cleaning and automatic plunging, which were never ranked below a three. The bidet was ranked number one by two out of three interviewees, but the last ranked it as their lowest priority. Height adjustment was ranked fairly low, even by the subject who said that they have issues with their toilet's height. This is perhaps an issue with ranking the features against each other rather than as individual features. Height adjustment could be very important to some, but still be below the bidet, self cleaning, and automatic plunger. The phone charger was unanimously disliked, as it incentivizes sitting on the toilet longer, which can lead to hemorrhoids.
Sketching Design Alternatives
Sketching Design Alternatives
The user wants the toilet to be self cleaning.
Preliminary Sketches
Deeper Sketches: Cleaning Pack
The user wants the toilet to differentiate between different users.
Preliminary Sketches
Deeper Sketches: App Connection
The user wants the toilet to be accessible.
Preliminary Sketches
Deeper Sketches: Height-Adjustable
UI Design Sketch
UI Design Sketch
Prototype Sketch
Prototype Sketch
Prototype Feedback
Prototype Feedback
The most helpful piece of feedback I received was to add a light to indicate when the toilet has an issue (leak, clog, etc.) similar to a car's "check engine" light. I thought this was a great idea as a smart toilet should be able to let the user know about potential problems. An additional suggestion was to add modes to the flush button depending on whether more water was needed.
Color Palette
Color Palette
For this interface I decided to use a cool color palette. I find that warm colors can symbolize activity and stress, and I didn't want that to affect anyone's bathroom experience. I wanted to create a calm environment with my color choices.
C Goal Features
C Goal Features
As shown on the graphic to the left, the interface for the smart toilet sits on the right-hand side of the toilet at the height of the bowl. I modeled this after the placement for my bidet as well as several others currently on the market.
In my interface, I used sections to group relevant buttons together. The main functionality of the toilet is the first section on the interface so it catches the user's eye first. This section includes two buttons to flush (depending on the nature of the bathroom trip). This section also includes the controls for the bidet, where the user can set the temperature of the water and where the bidet will clean. The buttons on the interface change the text in the "Action" box (since I don't have a real toilet to flush).
The second and smallest section includes buttons for maintenance. These buttons unclog the toilet and automatically clean the bowl and the bidet. I made this section smaller because it will likely be used less often than the other two sections.
The third section includes all of the accessibility options offered by the smart toilet. These include buttons to change the bowl width and the height of the toilet. Additionally there are 3 switches that toggle safety rails, a squat stool, and a screen reader for the interface.
B Goal Features
B Goal Features
Design an interface for connecting to a secondary device.
Design an interface for connecting to a secondary device.
I knew from the beginning of the project that the smart toilet would be able to connect to a phone. My original thought for a smart toilet was being able to control it entirely from my phone. However, digging deeper into that idea revealed some issues. A toilet has to be accessible to everyone, including children and older adults, many of whom don't have smart phones. Those people still have to go to the bathroom, and who am I to gatekeep a toilet with an app? I shifted my thinking to figure out what functionality could be valuable for an app, and what functions could be excluded from the main interface to save space.
Health Statistics
Health Statistics
An early design idea for the smart toilet was to track a user's health and give an alert if anything worrying was detected. I decided that health statistics would be included in the app, because a phone alert is the easiest way to notify the user of an issue.
I would probably have added more to this section, but I felt a little uncomfortable going any deeper into health issues detected by a toilet.
Water Usage
Water Usage
This section of the app shows the user how much water their toilet has used within a week and compares it to the previous week. I originally wanted to add charts to this page to show usage over a longer period of time, but I had issues with the library I was trying to use.
If I worked more on this project I would add visualizations to this page as well as the health page to present more data.
LED Controls
LED Controls
What's a smart object without customizable LED lighting? This section of the interface is probably my favorite. The user can put in an RGB value into the app and the correct color pops up in the graphic.
Profile Defaults
Profile Defaults
Because the smart toilet needs to be usable for everyone, even those without smart phones, I added functionality to set default states for the smart toilet. This way a parent can set the height and bowl size for their child, and that child can just select their profile without having to change everything themselves.
If I were to go back to redesign this page, I would add an option to select which profile you are editing. That way it's more clear that a parent or caretaker can set defaults for other users.
A Goal Features
A Goal Features
Display information for different mock users or situations
Display information for different mock users or situations
Because multiple users in a household almost always use the same toilet, and those users all have different needs from the toilet, I knew that I needed to be able to show information for several different mock users. I decided on a profile system where each profile has different default settings for the toilet.
I decided on making a mock family with 2 parents, a young child, and a grandparent. Each user needs different settings for the smart toilet. The user that I chose to show here is Timo, the family's 4-year-old son. He needs the smallest size for both height and bowl width. He uses the screen reader to help him use the interface and the squat stool so his feet are on the ground.
Unfortunately, The screen reader switch isn't correctly connected to the defaults. If I were able to go back to fix this interface, I would make sure to set the variable correctly for that interface item.
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