User Analysis parts A&B: ViewSonic PJ558D
Tasks:
1) Move projector from ‘on’ state to power off and disconnected state.
Method:
Press and release power button once on either remote or projector, wait at least .5 second and press and release power button again. Then wait around 90 seconds until fan stops. Finally, unplug power chord.
Notation:
[PWR DWN] [PWR UP] [WAIT > .5 seconds && WAIT < 10 seconds] [PWR DWN] [PWR UP] [WAIT until fan turns off (about 90 seconds)] [UNPLUG CHORD]
Analysis:
Turning off the ViewSonic pj558d is far more confusing than it needs to be. When a user wants to end their projection session and put the projector away he/she has to wait almost two minutes in total and has minimal feedback on when to do which step. The process goes like this: To turn off the projector screen the user presses and releases the power button on either the remote or the projector body. When he/she does this, a grey message box appears in the lower right-hand corner of the screen asking them to press the power button again to turn off the projector. He/shes does this and light stops coming out of the projector and an audible fan starts in the projector body. Thus far the process works well, there is feedback for the user and he/she knows something happened, and its easy to assume the power turned off because light stops coming out of the projector lens. But unfortunately the process takes a turn for the worse. The fan stays on for a full 90 seconds with no sign that it will ever stop. I sat there nervously waiting wondering if it will ever stop… did I need to press the power button again? Another button? Eventually though, the minute and a half pass and the fan stops. And now the green LED on the projector body starts to blink where before it was solid. The projector will sit in this state forever… blinking a green LED, but alas, the user needs to put the projector in its case and go home… what is to be done? I for one was puzzled; I tried pressing the power button again… but that turned the thing on and I had to wait another two minutes to get it back to the blinking LED state. Then I tried to hold the power button down to see it that turned the machine off, but same thing… wait another two minutes to get it back to the ‘off’ state. Then I decided to nervously pull out the power cable. Now that is something I was taught never to do when the power is on… so why is that the only way to get the power totally off… seems dangerous. I imagine it is in fact not dangerous to pull the chord out because the projector is almost off… but its the blinking LED that throws my senses off. Silly.
User Tests Round 1:
For the user test I asked each user to pretend as if they had just finished a presentation and they needed to turn off the projector and put it in a bag to take home. I said they could use the controls on the projector or the remote.
The results where mostly similar across the three users I tested. All of them managed to turn off the lamp with not much confusion… although two out of three looked toward the projector when pressing the power button and missed the ‘press power again’ message on the screen… but they quickly got it after the first try. When the fan came on however, things got confusing. Matt and Thomas both almost gave up while the fan was running during the 90 seconds; but they did wait long enough for the fan to turn off, but were then confused because a light was still on. At this point Matt hit the power button again… the projector turned on… then he turned it off.. realized the fan was going to be on for another few minutes and then really gave up. His conclusion was to finally unplug the projector. Thomas had similar misgivings about the blinking LED once the fan had stopped, but was quicker to unplug the projector. (Although I would mention that both Matt and Thomas did not actually unplug the projector… they seemed scared to actually do it. Mike seemed more confident once the fan went off. He still looked around the machine for sign of another button to press, but he eventually decided to unplug the projector… and he actually did. This would make some sense because he said he owned a similar projector and knew how it worked.