TINK - sketching product experiences of connected objects

Evaluation - 103
students talking about Arduino as a black
box that produces some output according
to some input (Figure 47).
and “trigger” building block, the role of
an action building block might be not
necessary.
This vision could be explored in a future
TINK iteration dividing the working logic
represented now in trigger->action in
input->mapping->output as presented in
Figure 48.
This division might provide several
advantages for an interaction designer
that are is used to code as it is also closer
to the way sensors (input) and actuator
(output) are physically a attached to the
electronic prototyping board.
On the other hand, this separation of roles
proposed here may actually be experienced
as limiting by more advanced users. The
choice of a more specific target group
might be useful in understanding how to
improve the definition of the behaviours of
the entity.
Data analyst
A different structure could be proposed for
the implementation of the Data Analyst
entity based on the type of features that
the entity requires to perform:
• Represent data of the collective
behaviors of multiple entities
• Create alerts (triggers) on particular
group behaviors observed.
While the two feature explained might be
satisfied by the role of the “data to track”
Another proposal can be made on how the
entity should be further developed.
As the main role of the entity is to inquiry
the database, the programming language
to operate on this entity should be similar
to common filtering/querying mark-up
used for similar purposes.
A good starting point could be looking
at how filtering and querying is done on
spreadsheets.
However, as it should be possible to define
action on the data collected some sort
of programming logic should be adopted
to create conditions and triggers on the
elaborated data.
To provide direct feedback to the user
on what kind of data he/she is trying to
collect, it will be important to provide the
data-visualizations representing the result
of the query (Figure 49).
Web service
The web service object is probably the one
that was more successfully envisioned and
executed. For this entity, the meanings of
triggers and action building blocks were
fully understood.
For the further development of the entity,
I suggest to investigate the possibility of
an integration of TINK with third party
services such as Temboo and IFTT that
Figure 47. Arduino: a box that
produces outputs according to
the inputs
Figure 48. Restructuring the
building blocks in input, mapping,
output.
Figure 49. Providing visual
feedback to data queries