This week, each of our groups conducted some evaluations of other groups. Although it is still taught online at this stage, the advantage of using miro is that it allows us to see some details of the installation. I mean, in the past, although we were able to communicate face-to-face in the classroom, in reality, we rarely had the opportunity to view the work of other groups, because the time in the classroom was limited. We had to concentrate on making our installations. After all the teams uploaded their assignments to miro, in addition to being able to comment on each other, we can also check those interesting devices in our spare time. You can also read some pdf documents, which makes it more convenient for us to understand the students' mechanisms. Similarly, I have received a lot of feedback, some of which can improve our product experience.

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Feedback 1:

We found your focus area intriguing and are happy to see that you have considered the safety of your users. Your scope and the intended functionally are clear and provide valuable information. It seems like you have a clear understanding of how Arduino’s work and utilise their potential effectively. With that said, you are lacking some background research. It would be useful to look into existing solutions that guide the visually impaired. Although the audio indicator that the user is outside of the safe zone is clear it is both loud and sharp and we can imagine it could become annoying. You could consider a milder or more pleasant sound without the indicator losing its core functionality. Some user research on what sounds would actually make sense for the users (do they understand what this loud annoying sound does?), would be great to see.

How I think about feedback 1

I entirely agree with some of the issues mentioned in this feedback. He was right. I did not do some background research when designing the safety alarm, such as reading relevant literature. The reason I used the Ultrasonic sensor is that I used it as a radar in a course last year. Since then, I have learned how this sensor works-detecting the distance between an object and the sensor. I used to spend a lot of time changing the code required by this sensor, so when I encountered this topic this time, I was able to think about it for the first time. So for this problem, I think, first of all, I want to figure out what I need to do with this device. I need a tool that can prompt the user. Specifically, users need to complete the tasks we designed within the prescribed scope. But because our equipment is for visually impaired people, we need to wear eye masks in our tests. This will cause a problem. People will quickly lose their sense of direction, which will lead to getting out of the safe range and causing some dangerous situations. For example, our sensors will be placed on some shelves. If people lose their sense of direction, they will easily trip over the shelves. As another example, we may choose to use a wooden stick as a sword. Therefore, it is even more necessary for the user to be within the venue at all times, because if people close their eyes to use it, it may hurt the surrounding crowd. This is what we don't want to see.

Feedback 2:

However, showing what will happen to the users when they cross the safe area might be more realistic for us to see how it would be like when users are playing the game. Having more distinct sound indication to tell the users that they are crossing the safe area rather than having beeps might be more beneficial to users as it will be easier for them to understand. In your documentation, potential risk like falling or tripping might be more prevalent for visually impaired users. How would your concept prevent this from happening as they are playing this game? It is good to consider the safety issues of this game to allow your target audience to have a safe and enjoyable experience.

How I think about feedback 2

If I understand correctly, this feedback is about our demo video. I showed in the video how the ultrasonic sensor detects people's location and how the buzzer works after people cross the safety line. This feedback mentions that it may be more beneficial to use more clear voices to prompt people, which will make them easier to understand. This suggestion is excellent, and indeed people may easily misunderstand the alarm sound. But I think it's the first reaction from people. Most people will stand on the spot when they hear the buzzer alarm and give up the actions they would have done. This will allow enough time for people around to remind the user to return to a safe location. But if the alarm sound is changed to a sentence, then when people realize the meaning of this sentence, it is very likely that the danger can no longer be avoided. So I may change the frequency of the buzzer instead of choosing other ways to replace it.

I found this video by searching related content. So in theory, we can set the tone of the buzzer ourselves.

My point of view：

These are two suggestions from two different groups. Both of these suggestions are related to my alarm system. You can see from the video that so far, the sound of the alarm is single, only the sound of the buzzer itself. In fact, this sound is very annoying and harsh. But in fact, our original design was to prompt people to return to safe places by playing people's voice prompts. But because we have not been able to solve the problem of using a memory card to play music. In the workshop, Ben suggested that we use buzzer temporarily.

Because our device is composed of many systems, for the moment I am only showing a part of our device, so it is not playable. In the next few weeks, our team will form the results of each person. Complete the device, then invite everyone to help test, and give some feedback.