Designing For Contraints – first class

The idea of this class is to look at the constraints when designing a product, interface or device. Both external constraints such as time, users, costs, and complexity and internal constraints such as expertise, intention, and ability. 

For next week we have to create a working prototype of a clock or watch for blind people. If less than half of the class is not able to tell time (does not have to be the actual time) from your device, you must redo it. 

My initial idea, and the one I am going to develop, is a wristwatch that vibrates the time. I believe that by tapping the numbers in distinct rhythms, it shall be easy to tell what number it is outputting. 

Other ideas I had involved an ear piece or an adaptor for any headphone that would speak the time. 

Problem is that I think that most blind people do not walk around listening to their iPods 🙂 

Here are the sketches I made in class:

Detailed view of the one I decided to implement:

More drawings to come soon.