Reflection

I'd like to have spread my design and building time out better. I stayed for too long in the good-idea phase—this is a particularly bad habit of mine—without moving to the give-it-a-try phase. Earlier and more effective prototyping would've allowed me to build successive generations of drawing machines, or if not truly different generations, then versions with piecemeal improvements to the mechanism.

It would also have been nice to have had longer to observe the finished product installed in the bus stop and this would've allowed me to make further design changes in response to watching people's interactions with the machine as well as approaching and discussing it with them.

These frustrations aside, I'm glad that in the end I had a functioning (if frictiony!) prototype that I was able to install and actually observe in its intended environment. I only saw a few people actually notice that the project was even installed in the bus stop; though the project is intentionally out-of-the-way so that it doesn't interfere with people's regular use of the stop, it actually probably was too invisible. (What good is the intrigue of the box if nobody sees it!?)

Additionally, the control knobs, which are the most initially-visible part of the project because they're at eye level, frequently seemed not to have been legible as human interface devices. Metal bolts projecting out of electrical junction boxes simply do not look like things that you're supposed to touch! I would like to make more inviting controls in the next project iteration to increase people's sense of being able to interact with the device.

I believe this was an effective first prototype of this bus stop interactivity project, which was chiefly very instructive in showing the sorts of improvements that could go into making a more successful second iteration.

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