Platform
Hardware
Design Brief
After heuristic evaluation of a product line from an acquired company, we determined that a redesign was essential to improving usability of the products.
Goal
Since these types of surveying equipment are shared by an entire crew, there's no real feeling or desire for surveyors or construction crews to spend any time learning how to set up the laser. Their minds are on measuring out the field, not learning to interpret the iconography of a piece of equipment that they don't even own.
Make Keypads intuitive enough so that users require little to no training to operate.
Activities
- User Research at Construction Sites
- Visual Design of Keypads
User Research at Construction Sites
Visited 10 construction sites in the Puget Sound area.
Conducted Contextual Inquiry visits by shadowing their work at job sites and probing for understanding about current work uses of lasers.
Had workers compare PLS to other well-known brands to gauge overall impression ofLearnability, Ruggedness, and Quality.
Iconography
Cleaned up the layout of the keypad.
Provided more universal iconography about functionality of the unit.
Provided stronger grouping indications for different product modes.