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Museum gallery touchscreen user input

Hello everyone,


I am currently helping with a project to build a user interface for a screen in a museum gallery. It is envisioned that users will type in a number of an object they would like to know more about.


Presently we are thinking about the following are would like to get some more opinions on whether our idea would be user friendly.


1) The user will interact with a touch screen. The screen will show a keypad at all times on the left of the page and the object information on the rest. The numeric keypad will be designed as normal numeric keypad you get on keyboard and calculators. An additional 4 keys for A, B, C and X will be shown above the keyboard.


2) The user will start typing in a number. As all object numbers are 4 digits (alphanumeric) we would show to the user 4 gaps to fill in. The first digit would be identified by a flashing cursor. The user types in a number and the number appears in the flashing cursor spot and the cursor then moves to the next digit.


3) Once the user has typed in all digits it will then automatically search and display a result. Therefore a loading message will appear (this should appear for less than one second in most circumstances). If a result has been found we will provide a tick or some other notification to say to user the load was successful. If the search failed, the user will be alerted by a negative message.


4) For both negative and positive the number field will reset itself. However for successful searches we will show a list of the last 20.


5) If a user starts typing but then stops we will clear the number and reset the cursor after a period of up to 5 seconds.

6) We will show hints of what to type in by the cursor.


We feel the advantage of this interface is that we do not have to add a backspace or reset button as the user input is reset quickly enough to allow the user to type in a number again without annoying them while similarly we give enough time for someone to slowly type in a number. We also feel this works as only 4 digits must be typed in.


I would be very interested to hear what people think of this as a design pattern and whether they think it would work?

Looking forward to your comments

Phil

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  • hey, Phil! To tell if it's a design pattern usually we look for a range of examples and try to extract the common elements of successful designs. With this one, my first question would be why use a numeric keypad at all?
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  • QUOTE (phildownunder2003 @ Aug 4 2008, 01:40 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
    Hello everyone,


    I am currently helping with a project to build a user interface for a screen in a museum gallery. It is envisioned that users will type in a number of an object they would like to know more about.
    [font="Times New Roman"][/font]

    Presently we are thinking about the following are would like to get some more opinions on whether our idea would be user friendly.


    1) The user will interact with a touch screen. The screen will show a keypad at all times on the left of the page and the object information on the rest. The numeric keypad will be designed as normal numeric keypad you get on keyboard and calculators. An additional 4 keys for A, B, C and X will be shown above the keyboard.


    2) The user will start typing in a number. As all object numbers are 4 digits (alphanumeric) we would show to the user 4 gaps to fill in. The first digit would be identified by a flashing cursor. The user types in a number and the number appears in the flashing cursor spot and the cursor then moves to the next digit.


    3) Once the user has typed in all digits it will then automatically search and display a result. Therefore a loading message will appear (this should appear for less than one second in most circumstances). If a result has been found we will provide a tick or some other notification to say to user the load was successful. If the search failed, the user will be alerted by a negative message.


    4) For both negative and positive the number field will reset itself. However for successful searches we will show a list of the last 20.


    5) If a user starts typing but then stops we will clear the number and reset the cursor after a period of up to 5 seconds.

    6) We will show hints of what to type in by the cursor.


    We feel the advantage of this interface is that we do not have to add a backspace or reset button as the user input is reset quickly enough to allow the user to type in a number again without annoying them while similarly we give enough time for someone to slowly type in a number. We also feel this works as only 4 digits must be typed in.


    I would be very interested to hear what people think of this as a design pattern and whether they think it would work?

    Looking forward to your comments

    Phil

    [color="#000000"][/color]
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  • QUOTE (Polina @ Jul 7 2009, 02:55 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
    [color="#000000"][/color]


    I am interested in this project: 'to build a user interface for a screen in a museum gallery".

    I would like to present a professional artist Anna Kronick. Her blog- http://akronick.wordpress.com/

    for your consideration.

    With all due respect,

    Polina Klimovitsky
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