User Experience Design - Vending Machine
For the second workshop we tested for first mock-up of that actual concept we were working on: a Chiquita Banana vending machine. With this machine people are supposed to dance in latin style (the Chiquita way) to get a banana. We were looking into how people percieved the machine, how we get people dance without actually telling them to do it and how to hand over the product (the banana), because this is not a regular vending machine.
At the second workshop, which took place in the main hall at the university campus, we observed people's behavior and analyzed it afterwards to learn more about the concept and people's behavior. We documented the workshop by multiple video cameras. What we found was that we needed to look into the way the banana was handed over, because people did not expect to actually get a banana from the machine, and also that the context is very important for a machine such at this and the university campus might not be the right one.
We modified the machine of moved focus more towards the vending after the workshop, and by the end of the semester we tested the Chiquita Banana Vending Machine a final time at the university's end-of-year exhibition. We found that it was now more clear to people that it was a vending machine, however because the exhibition took place at the university, we still had the problem with context. An ideal place for at vending machine such as this one would be a place with many children.
Beneath here can be seen video from the first two workshops...
Project Details
For this course I built a vending machine with a classmate. The purpose of this machine was explore the interaction between man and machine. We wished for people to be able to recognize the brand values of whatever product they were buying in the interaction that they would have with the machine. For the project we held two workshops.
At the first workshop we tested an interaction concept we called “PopStar”, which basically meant that the costumer would have to applaud the machine if he/she wanted to get a drink (for the first workshop, all groups were asked to make a vending concept involving a canned drink). This first test was however didn't focus on any particular brand, but the interaction itself.
Important keywords for the project are:
- Interaction design
- User Experience Design
- Video observations
- Wire-framing
- Workshop testing
- Human-Computer Interaction
- Electronics / Programming
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Vending machine - first mock-up (interaction test)
A short video from the first mock-up test on how to interact with a vending machine. This machine is made for the User Experience Design course on 3rd semester ITPD.
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Chiquita Banana Vending Machine - User Experience and Interaction test
This installation was set up in the hallway of the university campus in Sønderborg. The sound was completely remote controlled so that people walking by it would get the real experience of the concept. This test pointed out where the focus for improvement should headed, for example that it wasn't obvious to people that it was a vending machine and that it actually contained free bananas, despite that there was a door on the front, and also that the song was too long for people to dance. These are among the things that will be worked on for the 2nd and final version. The installation used the iMac's build-in webcam to show a moving picture of the person in front of the machine dressed as the Chiquita Lady. Sadly the software crashed while rendering the video material, so it was lost.
Similar Work
If you find this interesting, here are three other projects that might interest you as well...
