ProjectProposal-MingHuang
From CS160 User Interfaces Fa06
Contents |
Simple Item Tagging and Tracking System
Target User Group
I have a very short attention span and an almost non-existant short term memory. There are more than once a day that a thought of a thing I need to do (such as homework), an object I have to find (take the eraser), or a meeting with some people (friends, family, etc.) has entered my mind and slipped away on a blink of the eye, or a turn of the head. I have been punished for my forgetfulness in numerous ways, both academically (think missing deadlines), and emotionally (think frustrated, angry people).
Apparently, I am not alone. My apartment back in Sacramento was only a one-bedroom, and I live there with my parents. We want to be very organized with things so everything we do not need to use everyday is neatly packed in boxes and carefully stacked and arranged to yield the most free space to move around. This orderliness coupled with bad memory brings its own problems. I lose track of things quickly and it can take an arbitrary amount of time to find a new frying pan we bought during a sale a couple months ago, depending on where it could be buried.
This is also benefitial also to a number of my peers that I wish could also become more organized, had they been keeping better track of their stuff.
The people I mentioned above are perfect target users for this system.
Problem Description
The goal of the system is to retain as much information about the location, timing, and description of an item with minimal effort. In cases where users stuff their things into drawers, boxes, bags, or buckets, there is always some information that gets retained with the object and kept track of by a computer database. The digital pen and paper serves both as the input medium to the computer database and the human aid in search for a specific item along with the computer.
Problem Context and Forces
When people are busy organizing their belongings they may not want to stop for a long time to type into the computer what is being place to where, but rather make a note of it and stick it to whatever the container may be. However having many items arranged through out the living space of a family (which typically already live in houses), and the notes get lost or damaged and there are no backups or traces. It is also hard to flip through listings on paper to locate a single package.
The target user group for this system can include people from any age, gender, and computer literacy. Although the system does require minimal interaction with the computer (nothing more than point-and-click and the like), and does not require any high-tech instrument to read the labels, and the handwritting is easy to understand of users (they wrote the note after all).
There are numerous ways of tracking inanimate objects that are the backbones of today's global delivery network and inventory/supply chain management solutions. Things like BarCode and Call Numbers used by the library tell the location of items by associating them with bar patterns and numbers. Compared to these the original handwritting notes are much more resistant to parital damages, easier to use and recall.
Solution Sketch
There are many Anoto-enabled paper products that can do the trick of sticking with the item in question and follow it wherever it goes. It can be tape with a piece of paper or pre-made post-it notes.
To tag an item, the user writes down on the note things they want to remember about the item, like location they store it, etc.
The digital pen stores the stoke, identifies the paper, and sends it (synchronously or otherwise) to the computer where the stokes are recongized and stored in searchable forms (plain text), and an original graphic of the strokes along with it.
When the user wants to find something, he types in whatever he remembers about the things written into the item, or the location. The computer does a fuzzy search and returns what it thinks the users most probably want. If this is not satisfactory the user can browse through the graphics of the strokes and identify the one note it wants.
He or she can then print out the note with the converted text and/or stokes onto another tag, and follow it to where the object lies.
When an item needs to be moved, modifications and be added to the printed tag and replace the old one. The pen will store the modifications and notify the computer database of the change.
