Shake, Rattle and Roll

More Interesting Things

I was recently confronted with this Interface. In a quick expert evaluation I performed, it came up shockingly short in terms of intuitive use and user feedback. It needs to be urgently redesigned. I will contact the manufacturer and offer my expertise. Maybe I can get them to add a touch screen.

Volkswagen Interactive Interior

Research Projects

The concept Volkswagen proposed, called for the use of a large touch screen, that would extend over the entire dash board. The cooperation with Volkswagen resulted in two patents for interactions.

The participating students were:
Marion Fröhlich (MA Digital Media)
Steffen Gramsch (Dipl. Integrated Design)
Simon Michel (Dipl. Integrated Design)
Denny Moritz (BA Digital Media)

Would you want to use this Interface?

More Interesting Things

If your answer is "no", you would probably not want to buy the production freeze dryer attached to it either (assuming you were in the market for one). So, we will make it easy-to-use. Simple enough. But consider this: Most of these machines are operated by people, who spend many hours a day, week after week with these controls. They become expert users. And it turns out, our expert users were quite happy with this interface. They had memorized the insanely long sequences of buttons to push in order to reach their goals. And surprinsingly, this panel allowed them to do this quite effectively and efficiently. Plus, it made them feel indispensable ;)

The problem was, our users were not our buyers. And even though many smart buyers talk to the users and know what they want, it is still hard as hell to sell machines with scary interfaces.

Would you want to use this Interface?

Commercial Projects

Product Design and Interface Design for Martin Christ Freeze Dryers

I bet your answer ot the above question is "maybe ...". Well, that is all it takes, because if you are a smart buyer, you will at least consider the many advantages this freeze dryer has to offer, before making up your mind. And it turns out, the interface has a few features that make both novice and expert users happy.