Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
It Ends with the Stuff You Touch
Though most of this topic is about the fascinating world of making things talk to each
other, it's important to remember that you're most likely building your project for the
enjoyment of someone who doesn't care about the technical details under the hood.
Even if you're building it only for yourself, you don't want
to have to fix it all the time. All that matters to the person
using your system are the parts that she can see, hear,
and touch. All the inner details are irrelevant if the physical
interface doesn't work. So don't spend all of your time
focusing on the communication between devices and
leave out the communication with people. In fact, it's best
to think about the specifics of what the person does and
sees first.
By including the person's behavior in your system planning,
you solve some problems that are computationally difficult
but easy for human intelligence. Ultimately, the best reason
to make things talk to each other is to give people more
reasons to talk to each other.
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There are a number of details that are easy to overlook
but are very important to humans. For example, many
network communications can take several seconds or
more. In a screen-based operating system, progress bars
acknowledge a person's input and keep him informed as to
the task's progress. Physical objects don't have progress
bars, but they should incorporate some indicator as to
what they're doing—perhaps as simple as playing a tune
or pulsing an LED gently while the network transfer's
happening.
Find your own solution, but make sure you give some
physical indication as to the invisible activities of your
objects.
Don't forget the basic elements, either. Build in a power
switch or a reset button. Include a power indicator. Design
the shape of the object so that it's clear which end is up.
Make your physical controls clearly visible and easy to
operate. Plan the sequence of actions you expect a person
to take, and lay out the physical affordances for those
actions sensibly. You can't tell people what to think about
your object—you can only show them how to interact with
it through its physical form. There may be times when you
violate convention in the way you design your controls—
perhaps in order to create a challenging game or to make
the object seem more “magical"—but make sure you're
doing it intentionally. Always think about the participant's
expectations first.
