Storyboards are used to convey a narrative that explore the user’s experience. From our problem questions and design requirements, each team member created one hand drawn and one photograph storyboard, resulting in a total of eight storyboards. Each storyboard depicted a different problem and a potential solution for the problem. This process helped our team explore various design solutions for example, personalized robots, smart objects, and mobile applications, which were crucial for us to decide what we wanted to design. After sharing our storyboards with each other, we came to the consensus of exploring an Internet of Things system that consisted of a website or desktop application for the supervisor and a wearable for the custodian that would be paired with multiple smart objects, such as a vacuum or trash can.

 

The main reason for designing a wearable for the custodians was for easy access. Having a wearable on the custodian’s arm allowed them to interact with the device without having to take out and put away the device every time they used it, as they would with a smartphone. Another merit of designing a wearable is that a custodian’s hands would be free while they are actively completing tasks. Then, we came up with two pairable smart objects that could assist the custodians in completing challenging tasks.

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For the supervisor side, our team learned from our user interviews that supervisors mainly worked with a computer and had easy access to it during regular work hours. Therefore, we decided to implement a desktop website where supervisors could assign and manage tasks. By implementing a website, we hoped to give supervisors more control and options from having greater screen real estate.