The Samsung Review
by Austin Turner
The idea of a creating something new or different is not always easy. Part of being a web designer is to be able to come up with new ways and new ideas of products and websites. I have learned that Web designing also means to take what is already there whether it be anything tangible or digital, and finding a way to improve the product or website.
Getting Started
For this project I was asked to see what I could do to improve the idea of a smart fridge. This is a working fridge with a smart screen built into it. At first, I was like, can they really turn a regular everyday used item into something that is smart. The answer is, yes! You can turn almost any gadget into a smart device if you have the know-how and the proper way and place to do it on any device. The cool thing is that someone has already put what looks like an Apple iPad into the front part of the refrigerator. See image at the top of what refrigerator I am talking about.
After messing around with the device, I could see some things that worked well with the smart fridge as well as some glitches and things that were not developed well. This type of fridge did look like it was in its early stages out in the market for people to use. The hardest part after seeing the glitches was to put it down on paper and figuring out what is the best way to fix the problems it had. Therefore, I was assigned to a group to meet with and talk about this Samsung smart fridge and share what we liked or did not like about the design and the usage of the build in iPad or smart device. Here is a list of the pros and cons we came up with.
Sketching it out
From this point I had to try and solve some of the problems that it may have. There were a lot of bugs in this electronic system due to the way it was programmed. Such as the note pad or grocery list app installed within the device just to name two problems. The first thing I had to do was to sketch it out. While doing some ideal sketches, I was able to express my ideas of what is there and how the list apps problem could be changed as to be more user friendly and simplified. See the three images below. These pictures will explain my idea of how to add a scanner so that the user can add things that they want in as the user is putting items into the fridge. As well as the way to make the new grocery list be user friendly and smart about what they have in the fridge.
Building The Wireframes
From there, I needed to follow the processes to create the wireframe and the prototype. Wireframes and their prototypes are a great way to find how things will work before you dive into the surface compositions or the colored and detailed finished designs. The best two programs to do that is either by something known as Sketch, or Adobe XD. For this project I chose to do it through the Adobe XD because of the advantage of instantly turning things into a prototype and the ability to share it with others. The next images you see are the wireframes that I created to help build the updated idea of the design I wanted to have for the fridge.
As I was doing this project, I was also taking a class course to learn about wireframes and why they are so important. Therefore, I may not have had the time to complete the whole thing by adding colors and pictures to make it look like a final design. This was because I was only assigned to create a prototype as a finished wireframe for this project while I was trying to see how I can tackle the other problems that this smart fridge might have. Before I share with you the final prototype of this project, I will share with you quickly something about wireframes that I have learned from taking this course.
Important To Note
Wireframes are the best way to explain things and share ideas as things are starting to come together. It is the first step to going digital and the first step to seeing designs really come alive. When a customer or client is coming to you for help in something, not only will drawing it out on paper help the brain think and understand what is wanted or changed about a particular idea or design. Wireframes help others to see how it can be done and what changes can take place before the final finishing touches are put together and published to make and create the best functional design as much as possible. Here is a site map of sorts to help explain that functionality of wireframing below.
The Challenges
The challenge that I faced quite heavily was to make a product better. This was my actual first project as far as doing something to change what was already there and created by another person. This was a test to have good problem-solving solutions that I found are not always the easiest of skills to have. This is because of how every idea might not always work. Sometimes mental blocks of trying to make things work can be difficult such as the camera problem to the fridge that someone in my group talked about. How would you put in or design the technical difficulty of seeing what is behind an object that is sitting right in front of the camera and you cannot read the expiration date to a milk carton or some meet or salad on the same shelf? How can you program your device to tell you what has expired in your fridge that may need to be thrown away or that you are low on and you might need to go to the store for? How can you make your shopping list on the fridge more user friendly and not have glitched flipping back and forth? Especially from when you just got your groceries from the store and you want to have your smart fridge recognize what you have on the shelf already or that you are putting into the fridge. These are some examples of problems that my group found that we could work on to make improvements on this Samsung smart fridge.
The objective in the prototype that I will show below, was to see how it could work if you wanted to view multiple points of the refrigerator. Also, what you can do to add to the list of items of the refrigerator. The best thing was that I could imply the design of what was programmed. However, the side bar was very hard to move and sometimes glitchy to the user. My idea was to fix that bug as the grocery list is being used by the user as to adding or deleting items on the list.
The Prototype
Prototyping is the way to finalize your design. it can be a way of finalizing the wireframes or the final design as to the surface compositions. Prototyping is the best way to make it work and see firsthand on how things work by how they are connected. If your prototype is going to have problems, then your published site or product is going to have the same problems and glitches if not more problems along the way. For my prototype, I used a website called invisionapp.com this is a site that can help others put those prototypes together. by using this site as well as learning about Adobe XD I was able to learn about prototyping and how it works. These pictures below are examples of the work I have done for the smart fridge. the last challenge was to make all the pages I created to connect to each other and see how everything will work in the end. It was cool to see it all work with how I planned it out.
Testing and Conclusion
This class course I took was all about learning wireframes and prototypes, and how they go together, and how they work. I have learned why it was so important in the process of web designing. If we did not do this step, then there will be problems that will arise, and the finishing products will not look or work as great as it all should be. This is an example of what I can do to experience what could have been done to improve what is already there. (prototype Hint: click around to see something blue appear if you get stuck. Blue spots only show for a split second inside the prototype.) This link, https://invis.io/5DUCV02RS6N that you will see is a Validation of this project to view the prototype that I have created for the Samsung refrigerator.
