UI / UX
User interfaces and “user experience” ideas.
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Background: In a hypothetical future where self-driving cars are increasingly common, they’ll have to do a really good job of automatically distinguishing between things that require sudden braking (e.g. a person in the roadway) and things that are OK to hit (e.g. a tumbling empty cardboard box). The issue: This is a hard problem. When…
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The issue: Once in a while, people accidentally forget to turn off a water faucet (e.g. a bathroom or kitchen faucet) and leave it running all day. This wastes water, and is unacceptable. Proposal: There are existing solutions to automatically turn off faucets, but generally they are either incredibly annoying (the motion-activated faucets that work…
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Background: Every year, a large number of children accidentally poison themselves by drinking household chemicals. Cleaning products and pesticides (Figure 1) represent the cause of ~15% of poisoning cases in children under the age of 6, according to the National Capital Poison Center. The issue: To a child who is illiterate and unfamiliar with conventional…
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The issue: Using your phone to read the news has three major downsides: You have to hold your phone. You could easily drop it! It uses battery life, which might be in short supply depending on how often you can charge your phone. A barrage of linked “clickbait” articles (with interesting photos) attempt to lure…
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Background: Sometimes, you want to drink a beverage, but it’s too hot. The issue: You could just wait for it to cool off naturally, but who has time for that! And if you were drinking from an insulated thermos, this cooling-off process could take hours. Proposal: The basic idea is simple: an ultra-long curly straw…
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Background: Some cars have a “remote start” feature to start a car before you actually get inside. This feature is typically used in regions with extremely cold weather. The issue: Some people like to entirely turn off their laptops when traveling or over a weekend. But then they have to wait a couple of minutes…
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The issue: One ever-present hazard for bicyclists is the possibility of being “doored”—hit by a suddenly-opened driver’s side door of a parked car. A similar issue confounds carpool passengers: when exiting a full vehicle, the driver’s-side passenger must open the door directly into traffic (since they cannot exit on the curb side). This presents the…
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The issue: Using a cell phone outdoors can present two main problems, as shown in Figure 1. Specifically, you may be far from a tower (and thus, get poor reception) and the harsh light of the noon sun may make it very difficult to read the text on your phone, especially with the recently-popularized “dark…
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Background: Online communities often have rivalries with one another, especially if the topics that they cover are extremely similar. For example, one could imagine a vicious feud between two different communities of saltwater aquarium enthusiasts. Proposal: Maybe we can harness and direct this mean-spiritedness in an interesting way that will, if nothing else, at least…
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Background: When you receive a message on a phone, usually the phone vibrates or makes an alert sound. The issue: If someone sends several short messages in a row (e.g. “Here is the restaurant:” “(link to restaurant address)” “We’ll be there at 7 pm.”) or if a conversation has several participants, your phone will be…
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