- Maker: Bradley F.
- Genre: Eversion
- Level: Graduate
- Program: Composition, Rhetoric, and Digital Media
- Course: WRIT 5400: Technical Writing
- Instructor: Dr. Eric Mason
- Semester Created: Fall 2019
Description: Technical writers tend to fetishize usability. This makes some sense since no interface, text, or system can serve its purpose if it is totally unusable. But learning and invention often require experimentation, and testing out the affordances of available technologies, and new ideas may not always seem useful right away. Traditionally, technical communicators will conduct usability tests to see if their designs function as expected, and to gather user feedback about whether the design meets user needs. Data is often collected during these sessions so that different designs can be compared. Much of design does not have a clear use value, however. Much of it falls under what Donald Norman calls “emotional design,” where the greatest impact is to how we feel about the object, and less about how well (quickly, easily, with minimal errors, etc.) it performs its function. This does not mean that designing for emotions is wrong or unimportant. In fact, Norman reports that users report that items are more usable to which they have an emotional connection, since it is these objects that users spend more time learning how to operate and maintain. This box is usable in the sense that it does what it was designed to do, but it has no clear function for the user, since the box itself continually undoes the user’s action. Some creators of these boxes work hard to make the movements of these boxes seem representative of an intelligent being–complete with hesitations and sneaky movements. Such design decisions could be seen as changing our emotional connection to useless things.
Reflection: This project is a good example of an introductory project where makers can learn how to employ an Arduino microcontroller to process code that controls a servo that responds to a human action. In this case, when a person flips the switch on top of the box, the Arduino notices the change in state and directs the servo to turn, moving the attached arm until it moves the switch to its previous position. Other important elements of such a project include how the circuit between the switch, Arduino, and servo is built, and how the system is powered. The Arduino board itself requires a consistent 5 volts of power so that its onboard computer doesn’t develop problems as it executes the code saved to it. But the servo used in this project can draw up to 12 volts of power depending on the effort it expends. Sending too high of a voltage to the Arduino itself can cause damage to it, and underpowering the servo will mean that it will not move. Sending extra voltage to the Arduino beyond what it needs will mean that the onboard regulator will need to burn off this extra voltage as heat, which over time can damage circuitry as well. These kinds of issues come up constantly in eversion projects, where different devices demand different amounts of power, and where the designer needs to avoid creating short circuits that can impair or destroy electronics. So, even a useless box is only mostly useless, as there is so much one can learn through the process of making it and understanding its components.
