- The status page is somewhat pointless, and the main page is underused.
Consider “at a glance” functionality for the front page next to the buttons:Good evening
(recipe button) I suggest sheperds pie for dinner(inventory button) We’re running low on eggs and orange juice
Minced beef needs eating up as it will expire tomorrow.
Alternatively, the status page might be better employed to give “at a glance” information on the fridge (call it my fridge if you are that way inclined)and the device can revert back to this when unused for a while.
maybe looking something like that
5:32pm Thursday 2nd October
Fridge temperature is okay and energy saving mode is on
I suggest sheperds pie for dinner (alternatives)
Minced beef needs eating up as it will expire tomorrow.
Your eggs should be used by the day after tomorrow and the orange juice and apples are best before Sunday.
This system can be a fun example of interface design but there are several technological problems that impede its usability.1 You have to scan in and scan out all items
2 Unless you can manually edit items on the inventory page, quantity of items is a tough one as in this example you either have it or don’t. Even then you would have to go to inventory click on say eggs and type in how ever many are left. Time consuming and who can be bothered. Consider alternatives thinking as far out of the box as necessary, outlandish may be good here like a pressure sensor to see how heavy the bottles in the fridge door are and so how much is in them, RFID chips on packaging or a camera and OCR software that can recognise what food item is what in the fridgeSimmilarly how important is it to have a fridge that tells you what’s in it when you’re standing there and can open it. Surely far more useful would be if you can demonstrate a method of having your fridge remotely accessable. What if you were at the supermarket and weren’t sure if you needed bacon. Why not call up your fridge and ask it? or what other ingredients you need to make lasgne? It could then text you a shopping list. Go plunder all those 80s kids books on what the home of the future would be for ideas. 🙂
- I would agree with a lot of points [the previous commenter made], but I dont’ see the scanning as an issue. I think it’s a much better way of getting data into and out of the fridge than manually having to input everything. I also see the usefulness of having a list of what’s in there. You can tell ‘at a glance’ when you open your fridge if there’s only one or two people using it, but with a whole family’s food it can be very hard to see what’s in there instantly. RFID on packaging is really not something within the scope of what you’re doing. Since you’re not making the packaging. ;).
I love the idea of remote accessibility, again I don’t know if you’re able to do that in the scope and time of your project. I also agree that the status page is wasted at the moment. - I also like the “text your fridge to find out what you need to make x” idea, and bigme raises a good point about exact quantities not being given – if the fridge tells you you have butter, you might not think to buy more when you need to bake a cake, and the fridge means “you have enough butter to make a round of sandwiches for one”, or an empty tub that’s been put back in absent-mindedly…
Also, as I mentioned in the comments, I couldn’t work out ways of adding things I wanted to the shopping list unless they were low (ok, I know if I were to print it (is there an option for this? Or can I get it to text me it’s stuff?) I could find a pen and add to it by hand… But an Amazon-like “You often have x, and don’t currently. Y is in season, and you bought it last year” suggestion system would be pretty nifty, so I just need to press buttons to add stuff I might want, perhaps also a choose items > dairy/ meat/ fish/ fruit/ veg/ other type sub-menu system, so if I were to go to dairy, I could choose to view “sometimes get” and add feta and brie to my list, or if I were to go to fruit in a few months, I can go to “in season” and add strawberries to my list…
*has another play* Aaaah – I thought those letters were to type stuff in manually, and then I lost them playing, so gave up on them… It kinda throws me that I click on A and get A-E :-p But I guess I could get used to it..
I’m not sure if that feature’s particularly intuitive atm. I might be having a brain-dead moment though 😉
Btw… Crisps in the fridge? o_O
*grouches* I can’t slide the temperature setting…
Some way of saving settings in the Inventory would be nice too (atm, if I choose to display it by type, go to the main menu, then go back, it reverts to the original)…
With the Status, as well as not being a feature I’d really feel the need for, while the pics are very pretty, I’m a Celcius girl, and those numbers mean nowt to me :-p Having both might make it clearer, as would more numbers on the scale. Btw, is that a realistic range of fridge temperatures? Looks big to me, but as I said, I don’t work in Farenheit…
As I said in the poll, I can see it being really useful for, say, somebody who’s dependent on somebody else to get their shopping in for them – a few quick presses, and the carer could see what was needed, what was about ready to be thrown out, what needed to be cooked up and frozen post haste, etc. Again, if you could text it to check stuff remotely…
If it also had quantities, it could be useful for the busy family, with several people raiding the fridge, and only one shopping (so, most households).
What might be nifty, if you have time, in the recipe area, is the ability to get it to read the recipe to you, and set timers for stuff on it (eg, saute the onions for x minutes. Press the button when you have started.” “The onions are sauted. Take them off the heat now.”) - I can’t see myself standing at the fridge door in order to use it, I’d rather prefer to look and see what’s in it.
However, rather than solely relating it to the fridge, it would be nice to have it on a home network of other related products:
Freezer as it fits in well with the fridge
Kettle – You’re using MSN and fancy a cup of tea, and just run an application. Incredibly lazy? yes. Gimmicky? yes. Would I buy one? yes 😉
Curtains – not just great for when you’re too lazy to get up, but when you’re away and want to open and close the curtains etc at odd times to make it look like you’re at home.
Lights – same applies as curtains.
dishwasher – you forgot to put the dishwasher on when you left for work? oh well ssh into it.
Oven – You’ve prepared dinner but want to have the oven turn on for you so it’s cooked when you arrive – so you set a timer, but then something crops up at work and you can’t leave on time… ssh in and change the timer.
Also, the conundrum of adding data to the fridge is a bit of an ass. Perhaps if there was a hand-held scanner which you take shopping with you. Arrive at supermarket, pull out scanner from pocket and scan in your items as you shop. When you get home, dock with your home appliance center and it puts all of the yoghurt in the fridge, asks if you really want to put 36 rashers of bacon in the fridge or whether you want to freeze some, and if you intend on keeping bananas in the fridge or fruit bowl (I live with someone who keeps her fruit in the fridge and it’s just soo wrong!). Or rather than a scanner, perhaps it could read the barcode printed at the end of your bill and contact your supermarket.
Ho hum, just ideas. I like the size of the scree nin your protype picture though 🙂
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