Twitter revolutions

For all people thinking that the only thing we do in Tilburg University is designing dog poop bins: you’re wrong. This how we proof it. Something completely different: our interview with prof. dr. Van Oortmerssen about Twitter Revolutions. So now this blog contains something that cat owners might interest ;-)

There is no such thing as a fool proof design

To make sure the design is suitable for all possible conditions, we had to come up with different scenario's. Expect the unexpected, sort of. This is one of the scenario's that made our SnoepDog 'hufter proof'.

Scenario 2

Wednesday evening. A very grumpy old guy and a very grumpy old dog leave home  for a walk. The guy hates dogs, but he promised his neighbor  to walk her dog Rakker. The grumpy old guy doesn’t know anything about dogs. He walks to the lawn and discovers the SnoepDog. “What the hell is this machine for?”, he wonders.  While Rakkers does the biggie, the old guy does what fools do: NOT reading the explaining text on the screen, but randomly pushing  buttons.  Rakker thinks that a candy is coming and starts crying impatiently , but the old guy, who now knows that he is supposed to throw Rakker’s poop in the bin, gets stuck at the message ’Please scan card at reader’. “What card !?!”, the man yells frustrated. “ I don’t have a card!!’The old guy might be grumpy, he both respects and fears the law. Not being provided with a poop bag and in serious fright of getting fined, he scoops Rakker’s poop with his bare hands. ‘What a mess!’, he cries. ‘Do dog owners actually do this on a daily basis???’The old guy wants to get rid of the poop as soon as possible. But to his growing frustration, the SnoepDog only opens if you have a card. While Rakker goes wild with candy  expectations, the guy roars ‘Aaarrrgh!’ and keeps trying… Wild with rage,  the guy drops the poop on the ground and starts kicking the SnoepDog. He yells: “You damn bastard! First you don’t give me a bag, now you don’t collect this shit. And I am even not allowed to wash my hands here! I hate you!’ Demolishing the SnoepDog cools down his anger a bit. When he is sure the damage to the machine is beyond repairing, he walks home to go wash his hands. “I will never, EVER, walk a dog again!’, he mumbles. And he keeps his word.

Lessons to be learned from scenario 2:

·         Try to design as fool proof as possible;

·         The SnoepDog interface has to be very clear in how to use it, also to people that are uninformed and inexperienced;

·         Pushing buttons randomly doesn’t cause the machine to malfunction;

·         The best place to carry the ID-chip is not by a owner’s e-card, but by a dog coin on the collar of the dog. The dog is the only one that is always there when the pooping is being done;

·         The SnoepDog has to be strong! Vandalism does occur in public space;

·         Special attention for keeping the close environment of the SnoepDog clean (in case of accidents, like falling poop bags).

The Fortune Bin

During our research, we found just one single idea of a poop bin that provides something nice in return of the poop: a fortune cookie!

Unfortunately, a prototype has never been build. It was submitted as an idea by Ricardo Smith & David Vallejo at thefuntheory.com.
Description: In this dog poo bin, when the owner of the dog throw poo, within the bag that the bin offers, into the bin, a ring bell sounds and a message emerge from the messages dispenser, like a fortune cookie. The messages could be famous phrases, fun messages or good advices. This could make this task funnier.

Pavlov was right!

History has been written in Berkel-Enschot. The first real life testing of the SnoepDog! As we expected, our test dog Shep needed just two rounds before he was conditioned: he now knows for the rest of his life were the SnoepDog candy is appearing. Pavlov, boy, you were right! Here’s the video of our first testing round. All went well, above all we learnt the good and bad parts of our design. Still working to achieve perfection. For Shep, perfection already has been reached: never in his 4 year old dog live he ate this large amounts of dog candy.

No one told us that it can be dangerous!

And here we are with the first pics of the high fi prototype of the SnoepDog. The work is reaching its final stage, with the first tests being done last Thursday.  Videos of the test will be published here soon. Our house carpenter Ralph invested a fair amount of blood, sweat and tears in building the SnoepDog at the bayckyard of his home in the beautiful village of Berkel-Enschot. When our team arrived there with our test dog Shep, his cat went into full attack mode! The beast threatened to kill us all, beginning with that hairy Belgian shepherd that hat the NERVE to enter his domain without  asking permission. To defend ourselves we used large amounts of water, that finally scared the cat away.  No one told us that User Interface Design can be so dangerous!

Speed date

Today we participated in a so called speed date session with our professor. Well, no romance involved here, just a lightning fast evaluation of our design work so far. Although we received some critical remarks, the overall evaluation was quite a good one. So, we can go on with our designing phase, and that’s good news. Here some pics of the SnoepDog prototype. Just wait ‘till we show you the interface, you are gonna LOVE it, like you love your dog!

The brain storm sessions...

In two overwhelming fruitful brainstorm sessions in café Esplanade we came to a lot of wild ideas, some very original, some very unrealistic, and some that already existed without us even knowing. Here’s a short list of ideas:
- an interface that makes dog owners choose: to get a discount on dog tax or to play a game and win pet prices. (makes collecting dog poop even more fun);
- a dog poop bin with a suction unit, like a vacuum cleaner, so that dog owners can clean poop without touching it; (makes collecting dog poop less filthy);
- a poop bag behind the dog’s ass (and yes, this one already existed, it is invented in Japan. See photo)
- not to provide a magnetic identification card to the owner, but instead to put a ID chip in the dog tax coin, because there’s many people that may walk the dog, but there’s only one dog;
- to get the SnoepDog sponsored by the pet industry (pet shops, pet food manufacturers, vets, insurance companies, etc.), which can use the display for branding and to communicate special offers;
- to have the dog poop collected to win phosphor from it, which – under current high world phosphor prices - could be make the SnoepDog economically and environmentally cost neutral.
- segmentation: to design three alternatives, the most expensive and luxurious with high tech features, to be called the SnoepDog Elite.
- the cheapest one, the SnoepDog Basic, has no display, just a small dog candy when the poop is disposed of.
- to use a dog whistle to lure dogs (the human ear cannot hear the sound because the frequency is too high)   

First designs & signup for test phase is open!

Now here are some of the first drawings of how the SnoepDog could look like. Not finished, but hey, it is a start. Thanx to our scetch artist Ralph, how is not only very busy with very need 3D drawing software from Google Google Sketchup, but also with wood, nails and a hammer. Photos will be posted here soon. You want us to build a prototype? Ralph will get you one. And yes, we WILL run a user test, so dog owners, sign up now by emailing us, and get a free Snoepie for your doggie!     

Working hard!

So far, all goes well. Not much to post, though, because we are still designing. Therefore, a nice cartoon  will do well. The design phase is a critical one. Here we will write different scenario’s and build a prototype of our dog poop cleaning invention. The first scetches will be posted soon!