Lecture 10 – User Experience Evaluation

The user experience really important. If the users experience of the product is bad it does not matter how good the usability are. The usability is included in the user experience. But there are some possibilities to hide a part of the usability with the user experience.

For example on the experience lecture if we compare the quad and the electric wheelchair. I experience that the quads user experience was a lot better then en electric wheelchairs user experience. The quad was fun and I felt that i can go anywhere, and I felt that the quad had a better usability and user experience. But when i think about it, the electric wheelchair have a better usability because it was possible to go where the quad went but no as fast and not everywhere but almost. Are the quad able to go where the electric wheelchair goes? outside probably everywhere, except where it is to narrow. How about inside the school, can the quad go where the electric wheelchair goes? In very few places such as the entrance yes, but it would not be socially accepted. Everywhere else it to big, loud or to clumsy to go.

This is an example of how the user experience can triumph the usability.

Experience day, reflections

My thought on electric wheelchairs before this lecture was that it would be easy to maneuver and good possibilities to turn the turning-wheels a lot to make it easy to navigate i narrow spaces like a forklift that can turn on dime. As it turns out I got i all wrong! The electric wheelchair was really hard to maneuver in small spaces. It was not possible to turn the turning-wheels more the forty five degrees or something like that. This made the wheelchair clumsy in tricky situations.

But I’m impressed by the off-road qualities of the electric wheelchair, it managed without problems to go off-road in the woods and in the field. An electric wheelchair that can manage that kind of terrain makes it possible for people with impairments to be more free and there by increase their quality of life.

The quad a few notch more powerful. But a few changes need to be make to make it available for as a compliment for an electric wheelchair. The steering is to heavy and there need to be some kind of support to help the person to stay seated on the quad. One bad ting that I noticed about the quad was the big turning radius. If you are not able to look backwards it will be hard to reverse so you need to go forward. How would you turn it around on a small track where is not possible to go off-road and without reversing? But with small changes the quad would make it possible for people with impairments to me even more free and increase their quality of life.

You can never judge a book by its cover, or a person by his legs.

A few days back, Lars offered us a great opportunity to experience what is it like to be in a wheel chair for some time. And all I can say about this extraordinary experience is that it is quite amazing how I had many different perceptions about being the person in the wheelchair. At first, I tried the electric wheelchair, which looked quite fascinating with pretty good capabilities & controllers. On the soft ground, it was very easy and nice to control; however, it also had several pitfalls. One of those pitfalls is that the late reaction time for the actions that you do. For instance, whenever I wanted to turn right, the system would take some time to respond after moving the controller that actually looked like a joystick. This might not be a good solution for someone who needs to immediately move in a certain situation. Another thing that I found quite disappointing, is the size of the electric wheelchair that made it a hassle to turn around, or even get into an elevator or door without hurting myself or scratching the wheelchair.

After trying to use the normal wheel chair on a soft ground, I was in utter amazement, and not in a good way. It takes so much effort and strength by the arm to move the chair, and I realized how it’s not as easy as it looks. When I tried it on the hard ground outside of the building, it was very hard to manage. We all come across a physically disabled person on the street that uses his or her wheelchair as his or her legs at one point, but you would never imagine how hard it is to be in one. Instead, people have uncanny stereotypes that depict the disabled as “less valuable” than people with no disabilities, and it’s quite shameful for our society to be this way. Once you try to be in the shoes of the other person, you start looking at things from a different perspectives, a different point of view, and this is exactly what happened to most of us whilst trying the wheelchairs. Another thing that raised my eyebrows is when I realized how unsafe the poorly designed ramps were in the only building that had ramps for wheelchairs. When you come across it, you would never scrutinize it and check if it’s actually useful to be used for people with wheelchairs, but when you use a wheelchair and try to get into the building using one, this leaves you in a state of disappointment and shock. The ramp was too inclined, which means that a great effort is needed in order to go up. Moreover, it had a rough surface with separated blocks on the ground which increases the friction between the wheels and the ground; and therefore, increases the strength needed to use it. The lack of consideration for disabled people in architectural designs is something that should not be neglected. We might not see these problems, but once you try to use that ramp using a wheel chair you will realize. It can get as small as the button that opens the automatic door, even those buttons are sometimes wrongly placed.

I really liked how Lars gave us a chance to use a 4×4 Motorbike so that we can experience the difference after trying both wheelchairs. It was an exciting thing to ride, which explains why most of us had a huge smile on our faces whilst riding it, including me. This forces us to question ourselves, why cannot we have that same smile while being on a wheel chair?

All in all, it can be concluded that the only way you can know how another person feels is to be in his or her shoes. And this is what changed my perspective in this case. I was not aware of the lack of proper ramps, or the many things that a disabled person face everyday. I had no idea that it takes so much effort to roll the wheels. I did not know how unstable a wheelchair can be when it comes to balancing yourself on it. As a result, at this point, I believe that everyone should get a chance to experience life using a wheelchair as a replacement of their legs, from my own personal experience, it can have a huge impact on your perspectives.