Robotic Sweeper Enhancements

I recently watched “iRobot Roomba 980: A Week with Review” on YouTube. This vlog documented life with a robotic sweeper for a week. This model comes with an app that allows the user to set up a cleaning schedule or start the Roomba whenever you want. This is probably my favorite thing about new tech toys. There’s little handling of the robot needed to get it to do its job. The first thing I noticed while watching this is that the bin that it traps debris in has to be emptied frequently, but that decreased over time since the robot kept the floors clean and there were fewer debris to pick up. Another thing I noticed is that it was quite loud, as loud as my upright vacuum cleaner. It takes a lot longer for it to clean the floors than doing it manually would so this would be very distracting to me if I were trying to get work done or take a nap.

All in all, I think this is a neat little tool to help reduce house work for someone who is rather busy (Williams, 2016). In order for it to be more useful to someone who was unable to sweep or vacuum for themselves a few improvements would need to be made. First, it needs to be a bit bigger to be able to hold more debris in its bin to reduce the amount of times it needs to be emptied. This could be solved by increasing the height of the robot. Next, there needs to be a way for people who are unable to reach down on the floor to pick it up to be able to empty it. To solve this, I would design a docking station with a tower that lifted the robot high enough for someone in a wheelchair to grab it and empty it. They would then return it to the tower and it would lower the robot back to ground level and so it could take off and do its job.

Reflections

Automation is a great way to reduce our workload, however, we have to consider that automation and smart gadgets aren’t always practical for all users, those who are interacting with the product directly (Rogers, Sharp, & Preece, 2012). Focusing on a specific user group, in this case those unable to bend down and pick items up, and finding innovative ways for them to use new technology is an important part of interaction design.

References

Rogers, Y., Sharp, H., & Preece, J. (2012). Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Williams, H. (2016, May 31). How Smart Gadgets Can Take The Chores Out Of Doing Housework. Retrieved from Gizmodo: https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2016/05/how-smart-gadgets-can-take-the-chores-out-of-doing-housework/



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