BRIEF 2 : REDESIGNING A PRODUCT

NAME: VIVIAN VAN DER SANDT
ST NO 06003781
viviensandt@yahoo.co.uk

16 October 2006

Re-mapping Music:
Redesign suggestions for Techniquest's World Music exhibit

In Assignment 1, I discussed Techniquest's World Music exhibit: how it presented itself, how it worked, how it looked, how it was used, the HCI, and so on. In considering the requirements of Brief 1, it also became clear that the exhibit could be improved if a few changes were made. These are my suggestions for a redesign that would make the exhibit more user-friendly for the target audience.
To recap, the World Music exhibit is a large, flat board (240cm across and 120cm high) featuring a map of the world (oval shaped). The map is flanked by two monitors with buttons, left and right of where the User stands. Two headphones hang from hooks. Text on the monitor indicates what the User should do to activate the display: headphones need to be donned, the puck (akin to a stethoscope, attached to the headphones) needs to be placed anywhere on the map. Then the traditional music of the country touched on may be heard through the headphones. (The music of 63 countries - out of the 190-odd countries of the world - is featured). When the User has activated a recording, explanatory text about the music/country appears on one of the monitors. The monitors have four selection buttons, taking the User into: (Top Left) The introduction/Instructions to the exhibit; (Top Right) language preference - English/Welsh; (Bottom Left) a category labelled Why Science (which explains the science behind the exhibit); and lastly, the Bottom Right button, which takes the User into a category headed Why Music (more information on world music).
Design guru Donald A. Norman exalts the importance of design in our everyday lives, and the consequences of errors caused by bad design. He uses the term "user-centered design" to describe design based on the needs of the user, leaving aside what he considers to be secondary issues like aesthetics. User-centered design involves simplifying the structure of tasks, making things visible, getting the mapping right, exploiting the powers of constraint, and designing for error. (Information from Wikipedia).
The World Music exhibit, I thought, had several problems which suggested it had not entirely thought these principles through.
Some of these have already been referred to in Assignment 1: Because of its dimensions (240cm across, substantially more than a child's arm reach) a child would not be able to read the monitor from all points of the map. This could be corrected by providing swivelling monitors (that is, they could swivel inwards, towards the viewer). Another option would be to place the monitors right ahead of the User, not left and right (that is, on top of the display, rather than to the side). A related problem is that the shape of the button obscured the bottom left of the text. If the shape were changed from an oval to a round, that problem would be solved.
Another problem I raised was that children did not seem particularly drawn to the exhibit (in clear contrast to, for instance, a nearby exhibit featuring a dance routine). A map of the world is not the most exciting thing visually,. The display may attract more children if, for instance, it featured a few ethnic faces/ figures in national dress, to provide a visual hook for passers by. Or possibly a bright, representational (maybe ethnic-art inspired) map would be more attractive. Also, the display does not immediately, in appearance, promise a musical experience. It would probably attract more users if there was some indication that it is a musical exhibit; visual cues such as pictures of musical instruments or musical notes (quavers, etc) - even a well-placed CD or DVD - would indicate this.
The young of today are very au fait with computer games, and these tend to have strong incentives (mainly a ruthless scoring system - even if that in real life, sadly, translates into the number of 'kills' in a game). The Techniquest exhibit gives no indication of progress or score, therefore there is no real incentive for the user to try and find as many of the 63 music snippets as possible. A scoring system, even a bar chart or pie chart showing progress, may be the answer to improving usage and engaging the young.
A technical problem affecting the use of the exhibit was the size of the puck, which measures 5cm across. When placed over the Balkans, for instance, the User could not target one individual country, the puck covered at least six - an area from Italy to Macedonia, in fact. The music of Albania came up while the puck straddled these six countries, which would be confusing for a child. A smaller puck or a puck with a finer point would solve this problem.
For large countries like Russia and Canada, the problem was the opposite - the musical snippet was not always triggered if the puck was placed within the country's boundaries, the User had to find a particular spot in the country to trigger the music. Many a User may have moved on without hearing the musical snippet. To solve this problem, the alternating current needs to be extended to run right across the bigger countries. This is a technical problem, not a design problem, which affects usability.
The volume control between different snippets was uneven, some being loud, others soft and one or two barely audible. In one case, there was no sound at all (the corresponding text came up on the monitor, which was the only indication that it was one of the 63 featured countries). This is surely a recording problem, and could be corrected. As for all displays, the exhibit needs to be constantly tested, maintained and repaired.
It would be possible to make this an exhibit attracting both children and adults, if the dimensions and instructions enabled duel-level use. In the areas visible to children, the information presented could be simpler.
Donald Norman would probably approve of all the above suggestions, except possibly the suggestion to improve the aesthetics (that is, visual appearance); he considered aethetics a secondary issue in user-centred design. However, for children I think appearance can be an attraction or a repellent, and aid or hinder usability. Norman's principles seem devised for mainly adult, functional (work) objects - not play objects aimed at children. Most of my suggestions are aimed at making the design more user-centred. In terms of memory and learning, this is not a complex device. The information displayed on the monitors is the most complex, and that is where the main user problems occur.