physical UX prototyping: 3D printing
By: Alissa Acheson
Tags: 3D Printing, Prototyping

This solo project was one of many in my HCDE 451: UX Prototyping class, the project was completed over a week or so, consisted of building/testing/receiving critique.

Create a useful item for your everyday life:

This project developed my ability to create 3D models for prototyping physical objects at medium fidelity.

My design needed to use all 3 of the following primitive operations:

· Extrusion

· Revolution

· Boolean (adding or subtracting one object from another)

It must serve some function rather than just being art or decoration.

ideation

The ideation part of this project was different than the previous project, having never worked in any 3D modeling software the learning curve was high. With the addition of the three requirements of revolution, extrusion, and Boolean and combination with the time constraint my creation’s shape felt limited. Additionally identifying a useful object for my everyday life added another layer of complexity, forcing a reflection on what I use regularly and what may be improved in existing interactions.

After thinking about what might be useful, I centered around a ring holder. A hobby of mine aside from designing is making rings out of silverware, and I have needed a place to store them. This is the idea I worked around, and where I felt limited what I could think about making due to the requirements of the assignment and time constraints. My original idea was a cactus-shaped holder but was reduced down due to balance concerns as well.

The base as a dome was chosen due to its stability as well as it would allow the rings to rest more naturally on the base. The tines were connected directly to the base to maintain balance with the ring weights.

prototype

The prototype ended up being a cylinder extruded from a revolved semi-circle with Boolean removals to create the tines. The base had a solid fill of 20% that printed effectively but the tines did not. The lack of solidity was due to printer error, and I was unable to reprint before critique. Luckily, there were three tines that were solid enough for use and so I used those to receive feedback.

user testing

The next step includes user testing, two tests were completed assessing the usability, feasibility, and desirability of the product. There were three parts to the user test, separated by these principles. The useability questions are focused on how error-tolerant the holder was, feasibility focused on how realistic and competitive the implementation was, last the desirability looks at the quality of the experience.

Useability

Take a moment to play around with the prototype, what do you think it is?

What would you use it for?

Feasibility

How would you rate the functionality of the ring holder?

Is there anything you wish it did?

What makes this ring holder unique to others you may have used in the past?

Desirability

How likely would you be to buy this ring holder based on your interactions with it today?

On a scale of 1–10 how likely would you be to recommend this ring holder to a friend? And why?

user testing: findings

peer critique

From critique from around 3–5 of my HCDE peers, I gained much insight on how my design could improve as well as how it succeeded. Some of the notes I took away from that session were:

The prong shape was intuitive that rings would be placed on them, but the rings tended to stack up on rings on neighboring prongs making access difficult

Improvement: space out the prongs to account for ring overlap, perhaps have fewer prongs as well to allow for more space and account for different ring sizes. Also to keep the prong shape intuitive change the shape from a square prism to a cylinder

There seems to be a lot of unused space in the base, it is round and dense, what else could be put there?

Improvement: Perhaps create indents for bracelets or necklaces, to wrap around the base.

There was a lot of joy associated with the shape, many liked the silhouette, a recommendation to enhance that would be making the shape more recognizable ex. make the shape look more like hair sticking out of a head or a deer with antlers.

user test findings

From my two user tests, I worked with two individuals who have never used the ring holder before and did not know the requirements of its functionality. I did provide rings nearby in addition to the prototype to prompt them. I found value in hearing what those unfamiliar with the project thought the ring holder would go together. The significant findings from those tests were:

The center hole feels like unused space could see being used to hold things like a toothbrush/pins/cuff links

Improvement: Either make the center useable for those types of objects or narrow/fill in the center to prevent misuse

Wished that the holder would do something in addition to holding rings, suggestions of lighting up like a night light, as well as adding wheels to it and having it follow the user via GPS were suggestions.

Improvement: Taking this suggestion to do more, perhaps with more of a connection to wearing rings, maybe making the center a ring cleaner, bristles surrounding the inside

Both cited concerns with the fragility of the prongs and problems with too high of a stack of rings on one prong (wouldn’t be able to reach the bottom ones)

Improvement: reprint the model without printer errors and widen the width of the prongs, as well as make them shorter, forcing the user not to stack them up too high

Appreciated the aesthetics and that the holder wouldn’t fall over with any type of weight, additionally the base was round, and any water would fall away from the rings. Also appreciated the unique shape and that it was not a cup.

process reflection

In this project, I felt limited in what I could ideate around because I didn’t understand what functionalities in the software I used. I wish I had a little bit more time to learn the software, with that time I could have made more deliberate choices in my final product. Additionally, I wish I knew that certain shapes or types of objects would take longer to print over others. I made my base solid which added significant time to my print that wasn’t necessary for its function. Also, the prevalence of errors in the printers we were using, after conversations with some of the technicians it was clear that every print has a high rate of error. These errors were based on the complexity of the object as well as how many pieces it’s printing, taking more time to account for these (such as the barely built prongs on my prototype) would have been a good idea.

Overall, working in the physical space has a dependence on materials being available and machines working at peak performance, in ways different than the digital world. Accounting for the extra time before deadlines is necessary and important to making a functioning product.