UI / UX
User interfaces and “user experience” ideas.
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Background: One popular method of organizing items that need to be done is the “Kanban board” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanban_board) (e.g. the web site Trello). Conceptually, this resembles a to-do list with categories as columns. Each item to be done a single sticky note (Figure 1). The issue: Unfortunately, it’s often hard to get motivated to do items…
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Background: Part 1: Some credit cards provide special bonus features, such as a discount on certain purchases, “airline miles” that can be redeemed for plane tickets, or extended warranties on certain purchases. Part 2: When attempting to eat healthy foods, the battle is often lost at the supermarket: it’s easy to buy a gallon of…
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Never get on the wrong train again (assuming your city has a functional public transit system), thanks to these new musical cues—enjoy country music and/or smooth jazz on your entire commute! Also, it’s the same songs every single day.
country western, green line, japanese subway jingle, jingle, metro, metro stations, Music, music for subways, rail line, red line, sgt. pepper, stations, subway, subway line music, subway music, subway stations, subways, train jingle, train music, train theme, trains, transit line leitmotifs, transit theme
The issue: In cities with extensive public transit systems, it can be easy to get on the wrong bus/train/subway or miss your stop. Obviously, an astute transit-taker could realize their mistake by noticing the following: Stop names being verbally announced Stop names being indicated on a screen, even on buses. In some places, different metro…
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Background: Most laptops include a built-in camera, typically located just above the top edge of the screen. This type of camera is generally marketed as a “video chat” or “conference call” camera. The issue: When a person is on a video call, they tend to look at the image on the screen instead of directly…
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Background: When an action is routine and uninteresting (e.g. locking a door, turning off a light, etc.), it’s sometimes hard to remember if you did it at all. The issue: Occasionally, people find themselves wondering “did I close the garage when I left the house?” or “did I remember to lock the car when I…
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Background: During the times of the COVID-plague, it has been recommended that people maintain “social distancing”—keeping apart by approximately six feet. The issue: Unfortunately, this advice is difficult to follow in many situations, for example, on public transit, in an elevator, etc. Proposal: This snake-based “sssssssssocial distancing” plan involves training a territorial species of snake…
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Background: Diet fads come and go, but most have at least one element in common: the requirement that individuals be deliberate about what they eat (rather than ravenously consuming everything like a starved beast). The issue: Unfortunately, it’s difficult to have self-control when food is delicious and plentiful. Thus, most people eat larger portions of…
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Background: It is well known that washing hands for a surprisingly long time (30 seconds!) substantially reduces microbial contamination (Figure W1). The issue: Unfortunately, people generally feel, psychologically speaking, that their hands are clean immediately upon rinsing them with even the slightest hint of water. The challenge, therefore, is to encourage people to wash…
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The issue: Sometimes, it’s hard to get out of a comfy bed and face the cruel and merciless world. Proposal: We can solve this problem by making a bed that becomes progressively less comfortable as the desired wakeup time arrives. Certain mattresses already have the ability to dynamically adjust their firmness (for example, the “Sleep…
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Background: In programming, there is the notion of “code smell”—a subtle indication that something is terribly wrong in a piece of source code, but without any (obvious) actual mistake. For example, if you saw the following: print(“E”); print(“RR”); print(“OR”); print(“!”); instead of print(“ERROR!”); that would be a good indication that something extremely bizarre was going…
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