Goals

• To understand users' discomfort with heat generated by laptops during normal workloads in different working conditions

• Ideate solutions to ease users' pain points 

Methodology & Procedure:

Survey - Qualtrics

• 60 adult participants recruited 

• Part-time and full-time students 

• 20 participants suffered from overheating laptops 

User Interview - Semi-Structured 

• 4 students from IUPUI

• Designed to learn about people's thoughts and struggles

Findings

Survey - Subset of 20 participants

• $800 - $1000 average Laptop Cost 

• 3.7/5 = Overall Experience Rating 

• 3.13 years = Average Laptop Age 

• 55% mentioned laptops were "often" or "always" hot

• 75% wrote laptops were hot at the "base" or "bottom" 

User Interview 

Pain Points: 

• Hot Laptops - Confirms Prediction

  • "It just gets hot and blows hot air" 

  • "Mostly gets hot when it is in my lap, especially when in use and charging"

• Loud Fan Noise

  •  "The hotter it gets, the louder the fan gets. Sometimes it's so loud I shut the lid and let it cool down before continuing"

  • "The fan starts working when it heats up" 

Circumstance for Pain Points: 

• Heavy activity: Zoom Calls, Gaming, Photo Editing, Multiple Chrome, and Excel tabs

• Setting on Soft Surfaces: Blankets, Couch, Thick Loungewear, and Cushion

Solutions

Internal Component Placement

Laptop manufacturers should create different component layouts

Most laptops have internals placed across the length of the laptop chassis which causes one’s lap to feel the heat. To solve this, manufacturers can either follow Microsoft’s Surface device design philosophy where the internals are actually placed behind the screen, or place the internals along the width in the middle. 

In Microsoft’s solution – primarily used in their Surface Book and Surface Pro lineup – essentially zero heat reaches the user’s lap. Placing the main heat-producing components in the middle will concentrate heat not where one’s laps touch the laptop

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Thermal Solution

One way to achieve better thermal management could be to use bigger fans (more air and less noise). Also, vents that suck cool air could be placed somewhere not near the bottom (bottom-facing vents suffocate if placed on a not-flat or thick, fluffy surface) 

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Increased Literacy about Computers

Learning about a laptop’s capabilities would lead to informed expectations. 

Understanding what a laptop can and cannot do based on its specification will help people understand what applications they can run.
For example, a cheap, old laptop may not be capable of running multiple chrome tabs and Netflix at the same time, thus it will start to struggle and use more energy – hence heat – to complete the task. If a user knew this, they would have realistic expectations and a not-so-poor experience.

Knowledge about laptops could help users make informed buying decisions. 

For example, there are many laptops in the $600 to $800 range, and they all compromise on different things. An engineering student’s needs may be different than someone who is using their laptop for content consumption, as such, they will need to buy laptops that compromise differently. 

The engineering student will want better, more powerful internals at the compromise of the display while the opposite is true for the content-consuming individual. In either case, if the user understands the basics of what parts are in the computer, then they will make an informed, confident decision, thus having appropriate expectations of how their laptop performs.