Analysizing our TUI

We employed Don Norman’s concepts of evocative design in the creation of the inTUIton cube. The cube is reminiscent of the Lego toy. The evocative design and the product semantics facilitate comfortable student interaction, because students are already familiar with the Lego design. This is important because the inTUItion cube is a completely new interaction for students to come to understand.

In being a newly design interaction, cuing and affording interaction became very important. Our design affords most functionality, except for the hidden slider. There are physical constraints that prevent misuse: there are very ways to incorrectly press a button or slide a slider. In addition, the use of the slider relies on the use of image schema in which higher indicates better/more positive emotions and lower indicates negative emotions.

Although a highly tangible system, we engage our users in cognitive activities, which include tangible thinking. We allow students to emotionally and cognitively offload student worries and concerns in class, because the student can immediately communicate her problems or worries to the teacher through the inTUItion cube.

However, there is no visual feedback for the students, as interface has what Fiskin would describe as distant embodiment. The functionality does not map for students. Their input does not give them an immediate output. This is worrisome, in addition to the fact that this interface is a completely new set of interactions, without any connections to reality based interaction or any familiar interactions. We also sacrificed expressive power and versatility for practicality. Students have very few emotions and concerns that can express, but this limitation allows clear and easy information for the teacher to practically receive.    

If I would do this again, I would have looked more into the product design. The hidden slider is interesting (in its implications that emotions are private) but it hides an important interaction. The lack of visual feedback is also very important to change. Users today are very used to immediate and accurate feedback. This being said, I am very proud of our system because it solves a real problem in a relatively simple way.