An unusual design concept

This is my take on how the pen should look...

The pen as you can see features a very short body, together with an unusual placement of the screen. The thinking behind this design is as follows:·

• The short design will help children grasp the pen in the right way. Some children often find it difficult to hold a pen or pencil in the right way. They tend to grab it too far away from the tip or too close to the tip. This design constrains in a way the children from holding the pen too far away from the tip. Also a non-slippery surface “marks” the ideal place to grab the pen and also provides a rough surface to prevent the pen from slipping from sweaty hands.

• The main (and only) button is placed in the middle of the non-slippery surface. The button is slightly recessed so that it cannot be pressed by mistake. The button provides the following functionality: when pressed for a few seconds it turns the pen on or off. When the pen is turned on and the button is pressed once, it enters into the “listening” mode. When pressed again when in “listening” or “guide” mode, it exists from that mode and goes to standby.
• The top part of the pen extends outwards from the main body of the pen and widens. This gives a bigger area for accommodating both the enlarged screen and the speaker/microphone. It also positions the screen towards the face of the user when being held correctly. This is crucial as the user seeking advice from the screen will not have to turn the pen sideways to look at a screen embedded in the pen’s body. In this way the user can write and look at the screen at the same time. It also positions the speaker towards the user’s face so that the commands and/or advices can be heard and/or recorded clearly.

As you can see the pen is quite simple both to use and look at. This is essential if we want children to be able to use it. If we overload the product with features that children cannot understand and operate, then we distant the product from the age group we were targeting and into another group that may find little or no interest to the product.

The pen’s colour may vary from pastel colours to decorated cartoonish designs around the body. The aim is to make the pen feel like a toy and not like a piece of technology. Also the pen must “reward” the children with tunes and funny animations when they have correctly written a word.

The diagram below describes how the screen is going to function when it goes into “guide” mode.

1. When the user speaks a word, the screen will display the word recognised. Then the whole word will move to the upper part of the screen and the font size will decrease.

2. Then the first letter will be displayed in large and bold font in the centre of the screen. When the user write down that letter correctly, the letter will flash for a while and then the corresponding font of the letter in the whole world will go bold, indicating that that letter has been written correctly.

3. If for some reason the letter is not written correctly, the whole process will start from the beginning. A sad face maybe displayed to encourage children to start again.

4. Steps 2-3 will be repeated until every letter in the word is written correctly.

5. At the end the whole world will flash on the screen followed by happy catchy tunes and a small animation rewarding the user for writing down the word correctly.

Rewarding the child is essential if we want him/her to continue using the product. It also makes learning more fun and satisfying.

Christos I's thoughts of Achileas and Christos's prototypes/ideas

I think that Christos’s design has all the necessary functions that one would expect from such a product. I like how simple it is and how everything works with just one button. I think this is how it should be, because the simpler the functionality, the more children will understand and use the productPublish. On the other hand, the pen looks too serious and may not attract many children. I may be mistaken however as it may look more attractive when it’s coloured and decorated with images. One other thing I would like to point out is the position of the gyroscope. It is positioned a bit higher of where I was expecting it to be. In that position it may not pick up the actual movements of the tip of the pen, but the movements of the upper part which may vary from the real movement of the tip.

Achilleas pointed out another way of handwriting detection. The ballpoint tracking sounds more accurate for our purpose. It picks the exact movements from the tip and can easily map them. The tracking mechanism however may be fragile and more prone to mechanical problems than gyroscopes. But if I had to choose between the two, I would go for the ballpoint tracking as it is less prone to errors.

I also agree with Achilleas about the power source. A rechargeable battery is the best way to go, as it provides more power than normal batteries and you can find one in any shape you want. So the shape of the battery would not limit the design of the pen in any way.

The button operation is very important as it’s one of the two ways the user can interact with the pen. I find Christos’s idea of single button operation very interesting. It keeps things simple and easy to understand. The only thing that may pose some difficulties is the position of the button. It may be ideal for turning the pen on and off, but when the user wants to turn on the speech recognition process, the position is a bit far off from the ideal. I was thinking that the button’s position should be close to the tip so that you don’t have to move your hand or use the other hand to turn on the button. A button placed near the tip will help the user operate the pen with minimal effort. I also liked Achilleas’s idea of having two modes. This however may be a bit difficult for children to understand how to operate. It will also add to the complexity. This mode can be turned on by the parents when synchronising the pen with the PC.

Achilleas's Take on Christos's Prototype

Since the prototype was posted yesterday I have revised some of the details and more clearly defined some other points. Additionally I would like to talk about the design of the pen in more detail and added to the prototype some elements that were left out.

First of all, Christos neglected to specify the power source for the pen. This particular part is quite tricky since it can't be too large as it will affect the size, style and weight of the pen since batteries and battery packs tend to be quite heavy and bulky. On the other hand it must be large enough to power the pen for a substantial amount of time.
I considered using a single standard AAA battery first. This idea was dismissed however since we figured a single battery of that size does not have the capacity or the power output we need.
My second consideration was using several LR-type "watch batteries".
I also considered using a built in battery pack with a plug-in charger or a removable proprietary rechargeable battery, that would be charged using an external charger provided with the product.
It was decided that the final idea was the best. Building a proprietary battery makes it easier for us to give the power output we need for the specific application but having it build in and using a plug-in charger would mean we would have to include a plug on the pen, which results in adding more components.

The position of the battery on the pen is another issue we needed to deal with. For obvious reasons the battery should be as low as possible. The heaviest components should be low while the lightest should be high, at the top of the pen, to make it easier to write with. So the battery will be placed directly above the ink container, simply because the ink container should be directly above the writing tip.

There is also an alternative option for the motion sensor. Instead of using a separate motion sensor at the top of the pen we could use a ball point style tip for the pen to write and use the ball movements to track the pen motion. This may result in even less components which would mean a simpler internal design to work around and less weight.

The single button functionality, as defined earlier, seemed a bit complicated. The goal was to have one button alone in order to keep the use of the pen as simple as possible but in order to do this with one button ti must be able to accommodate all the functionality of the pen in a very smart way. It may be simpler to add a second button. The first would be a big button that has two functions. It would turn the pen on or off when held for several seconds. The second function should be to reset the pen to entry mode when it is pressed and released instantly for the user to speak a word instead of turning the pen on and off when the in the middle of another word. The second button should be a button or a switch which selects one of the two modes available: Beginner and Advanced. Beginner mode is the learning mode which spells out the word letter by letter when the user writes while advanced mode simply waits for the user to finish writing the spoken word and at the end informs the user whether it was correct or not.

The pen functionality was also more clearly defined in steps:

Step 1: When turned on the pen should be in this step. This is a standby phase where the system awaits user input in the form of a spoken word. When the user speaks a word proceed to Step 2.

Step 2: Word identification. The system looks up the spoken word in the dictionary. If the word hasn't been recognized display a relevant message on the LCD screen, speak an easy to understand error message and return to Step 1. If the word is found, speak the whole word to signify that it has been identified and then proceed to Step 3 if in beginner mode or Step 4 if in advanced mode.

Step 3: Word spelling. Speak the first/next letter (maybe outputting it on the screen as well) and proceed to Step 4.

Step 4: User writing. User attempts to write the letter spoken for beginner mode or the whole word for advanced mode.
Beginner mode: If the letter is written correctly go to Step 3 with the next letter or Step 5 if it is the last letter. If it is written incorrectly, speak a relevant message such as "Wrong. Try again." and go to Step 3 with the same letter.
Advanced mode: Wait for user to finish writing*. If input is correct got o Step 5. If it is incorrect speak the "Try again" message and wait for input.

Step 5: Congratulate the user for spelling the word correctly and start over from Step 1.

If the reset button is pressed during any part of the process the system should return to Step 1.

Notes:
*The end of a letter can be recognized by a long pause in writing or a specific pen gesture such as writing a full stop or a straight horizontal line. Ideally it should be something that cannot be confused with anything else. A full stop may be confused with dotting i's for instance and a line may be confused with crossing a t. The long pause seems to be the best solution here.

Christos C: Hardware Protype and Ideas

I came up with a sketch of how the actual product could look. I have uploaded the sketches and I will probably create a digital version so we can manipulate it easily.

The first image is the external design of the pen. It features a rounded egde at the bottom to keep children from accidentally injure themeselves (or someone else). There is a soft grip so that the pen is comfortable to hold to and it should come in various colourful desings so that it attracts the attention of children. At the top there is an LCD screen as a secondary communication method and a multi-purpose button. When the button is pressed for 5-6 seconds the pen turns on and off and when clicked it should enter input mode for the child to say the word that he/she is trying to write. If the button is pressed before the child completes the word the pen will spell the current letter. When the number of letters in the spoken word are reached the pen will automatically evaluate the word written by the child and report any errors.



The second image is the internal components of the pen. The bottom of the pen unscrews and can be replaced when there is no more ink to write. The top part of the pen will contain an electronic gyroscope to record the motions of the childs hand and predict the letter written by the child. There should be a cpu with some rewritable memory to perform the computations needed for the letter recognitions, the speech recognition and to hold the dictionary. Moreover there should be a microphone so that the children can tell the pen which word they want to write and a speaker so that the pen can communicate with the children. A wi/fi and/or bluetooth chip should be present so that the pen can communicate with a computer and download dictionaries.

Persona no. 3 - Gloria Mercury

Gloria Mercury is 6 years old. Her father, George, is a mechanic and her mother, Katherine, is an English teacher. She is quite smart for her age but is an average student because she doesn’t like doing school work much.

Her younger sister, Angela, is 5 years old and they fight all the time and break each other’s things. Her room is always untidy and her mother is always telling her to clean it and be nicer to her sister.

Her favourite colour is red. She likes playing outside in the street with her friends which is how she spends most of her afternoons. Her parents are always telling her to study more and be more polite but they both have to work a lot so Gloria isn’t always supervised. When she is at home she spends most of her time watching TV rather than doing her homework. When she grows up she wants to be an actress which she uses as an excuse to avoid studying.

Her mother is thinking about sending Gloria to private afternoon classes so she can catch up with her work but her father doesn’t agree. He believes their daughter should learn to study and be a good student by herself and tries to find ways of making her school work seem interesting.