Course
CSG170
Team
Assignment #4: Design Sketches
Project
Name: Kid’s Remote Control
Overall Design
After creating sketches of the layout of the
application, we have made some general design choices, and have decided on some
general functionality that the system should support. In terms of the overall system design, we now
believe that the target users of the application are older children who can
read, and who have some experience in independently using the television and
remote control. Our target age group is
aged 6-16 years old. The system now is
focused solely on children selecting TV or cable channels to watch, and will
not incorporate DVD use. The main benefits of the system are related
to parents controlling what TV channels their children watch, how much TV they
watch per day, what times they are able to watch TV, and what program content
should be blocked. We believe this
system allows much more functionality than the “channel lockout” feature found
on most cable systems. These “lockout” systems
allow parents to block access to certain channels, or to block access to
certain types of content. However, our
proposed system adds much more functionality, as we will detail further below.
Shown below are two sketches that provide an overview
of the design of our system. The first
sketch provides a top-level overview of the entire system and how it
works. The top-level screen which kids
use to be able to watch TV is called the “Kids Channel Menu.” On this screen, there is a listing of all TV
channels that parents allow their children to watch. Next to each channel is a “Watch” button,
that when pressed, allows the child to watch that channel. Before that channel appears, though, the
system will perform a series of checks, which are summarized in the four
diamond boxes in the sketch. The system
checks to make sure (1) total viewing time has not been used up for the day,
(2) the current time is not a restricted viewing time, (3) the desired channel
is not blocked at this time, and (4) the program content on this channel is not
blocked. If any of these checks fail,
the system displays an appropriate message to the child for approximately 5
seconds, and then returns to the “Kids Channel Menu.” Otherwise, the desired TV channel appears on
the screen, and the system is now in “Kids Viewing Mode.” This screen has one button on the lower left
which children can press to stop watching and/or to change the channel. Pushing that button brings up the top-level
“Kids Channel Menu.” For each minute
that children are watching TV in “Kids Viewing Mode,” the system increments a
counter that keeps track of the total TV time watched thus far today, and runs
the four checks described earlier. If
any of those checks fail, the appropriate error message is displayed for
approximately 5 seconds, and the “Kids Channel Menu” appears on the
screen.
On the system overview sketch, we also show the
“Parental Controls” screen. To be able
to access this screen, parents have to correctly enter their password on the
top-level “Kids Channel Menu” screen. The
“Parental Controls” screen offers parents several options for controlling what
TV channels their children watch, and several further restrictions on their
children’s TV viewing. The second sketch
shown below provides an overview of the sub-screens available from the
“Parental Controls” screen. The “Set Max
Amount of Viewing Time per Day” sub-screen provides a combo box so that parents
can select the maximum number of hours available for viewing per day. The “Set General Restricted Viewing Times”
sub-screen provides combo boxes so that parents can set up certain times of the
day as restricted viewing times. For
example, during the school year (September to June) and between Monday and
Friday, parents can set up the hours of 5PM to 8PM as a restricted time, for
instance if this is homework time. The
“Set Available Channels List” sub-screen allows parents to select the menu of
channels available to their children.
For each channel, parents have the additional option to set
channel-specific restricted viewing times.
In the “Restrict Programs Based on Content” sub-screen, parents can
choose for which types of program content to block access (e.g., language, sex,
violence, or by movie rating). There is
also an option under the “Parental Controls” screen called “Parent Mode/Kid
Mode.” Parents can use this button to
switch the television out of “kid mode” and into “parent mode.” When the television is under parent mode,
none of the viewing restrictions apply, and the system does not count how long
the person is watching TV. This is a
useful feature for when parents are watching TV instead of their children. To switch back into “kid mode”, parents just
need to revisit the “Parental Controls” screen and select the “kid mode.”
System Overview Sketch
Parental Controls Overview Sketch
Interaction Scenarios/Scenario Storyboards
Below,
we provide a narrative for each of our three activity scenarios, turning them
into interaction scenarios. We describe
how people interact with the system to accomplish certain tasks. We also provide storyboard sketches showing
screen shots of the system at different points during the interaction. Note that the three scenarios described below
differ somewhat from the scenarios described in earlier assignments. We have updated the scenarios to reflect
tasks that can be carried out in our current system design.
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Activity
Scenario |
Interaction
Scenario |
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(1)
Parents controlling what children watch Mary
and Bill have two children, James and Sarah, aged 10 and 13 years old,
respectively. Since they are not home
during weekday afternoons, Mary and Bill are concerned about what their
children watch. Also, they want to
make sure their children don’t spend too much time watching TV instead of
doing their homework. Since they have
cable, they also want to restrict access to the movie channels, which often
have mature subject matter. They wish
there were some technology that could help them out. |
Parents
load the “Kid’s Remote Control System” software, and they see the “Kids
Channel Menu” screen, which contains no channels at this point. They see the login section at the lower
left of the screen, enter a four number password, at which point the
“Parental Controls” screen appears.
They click on the “Set General Restricted Viewing Times” button, and a
sub-screen appears in which they set restricted time zones of 5PM-8PM and
10PM-12PM on weekdays for the months of September to June. When finished with this sub-screen, they
click on the “Exit” button on the lower right of the screen, and the
“Parental Controls” menu appears again.
They then click on the “Set Available Channels List” button, and that
sub-screen appears. They select a few
channels appropriate for their children and click the Exit button to return
to the “Parental Controls” screen.
They then click on the “Restrict Programs Based on Content” button,
which causes that sub-screen to appear.
They check the boxes next to program content they want to screen for,
and click on the Exit button to return to the “Parental Controls”
screen. They click on the “Exit”
button on that screen, and they return to the “Kids Channel Menu”
screen. This time, however, the “Kids
Channel Menu” screen has a list of the channels that the parents chose to
allow their children to watch. |
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(2)
Child watching TV after school Jimmy,
a second grader, loves to watch TV. In
fact, his parents have been concerned that he has been watching too much TV
lately, because his grades have dropped this semester. When Jimmy comes home from school, he
usually watches TV until his parents come home from work, which is usually
about 5PM. Then, he eats dinner, and
does some homework. He sometimes
watches a little TV before he goes to bed at 9PM. |
Jimmy
comes home from school one afternoon, gets a snack, and goes to the TV
set. He sees the familiar “Kids
Channel Menu” on the TV screen. He
sees channel 2 there, and clicks the “watch” button. One of his favorite shows “Barney” appears
on the screen. When “Barney” is over
at 4 PM, Jimmy clicks on the “Stop/Change Channel” button, whereupon the
“Kids Channel Menu” screen appears.
Jimmy sees the Cartoon Channel on the menu, and clicks on the “watch”
button next to the channel name. The
Cartoon Channel appears on the screen.
Jimmy watches TV until 5PM, when the TV screen displays the message
“Can’t Watch TV between 5PM and 8PM.”
Jimmy knows the system won’t allow him to watch TV again until 8PM. His parents aren’t home yet, so he finds
some toys to play with. At 8:10 PM
that evening, Jimmy turns on the TV, and selects channel 4, which has a
violent police drama show on. The TV
screen displays the message “Inappropriate program content at this time” for
a few seconds, then returns to the “Kids Channel Menu” screen. Jimmy then selects Channel 5, and watches
Monday Night Football. |
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(3)
Parents want to change the way they
restrict TV time for their children Laura
and Ned have two boys, aged 13 and 15.
Laura has recently installed the “Kid’s Remote Control System.” She set up the system to keep the children
from watching TV between 5 and 8PM, their homework time, and between 10 and
12PM, when they should be sleeping.
Laura has noticed that her children’s grades have been slipping, and
thinks her children are watching too much TV.
She decides on a new TV policy, which she tells her kids about. She tells them they can watch TV any time
of the day, but that they can only watch a total of 2 hours a day. Laura thinks this may lead to better
results in school. |
Laura
logs in to the system by typing in her password, and hitting the “Enter”
button at the bottom left of the main screen.
The “Parental Controls” screen appears. She clicks on the “Set General Restricted
Viewing Times” button, and that sub-screen appears. She clicks on the “Remove All” button to
remove the restricted viewing times she had previously entered into the
system. The screen updates, and the
viewing times fields are now blank.
She clicks on the “Exit” button, and the “Parental Controls” screen
appears again. She then clicks on the
“Set Max Amount of Viewing Time per Day” button, whereupon that sub-screen
appears. She selects 2 hours from the
drop-down combo box, and clicks the exit button. She then exits from the “Parental Controls”
screen back to the top-level “Kids Channel Menu” screen. |
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Activity
Scenario 1 -- Storyboard
Activity
Scenario 2 -- Storyboard
Activity
Scenario 3 -- Storyboard
Additional
Notes
During
the design of the system, we discussed the issue of whether the system could
handle multiple children. As the system
is described above, there is an assumption of one child viewer (or one group of
children). What if the family has two children, and one child typically watches 2 hours of TV in
the afternoon, and the other child typically watches 2 hours of TV in the
evening. Then, if parents set a maximum
amount of 2 hours of TV time allowed per day, the second child who watches TV
in the evening would never be able to watch TV.
The solution could be to increase the maximum to 4 hours. But then, the children could both watch TV
for four hours, and thus circumvent the intended limit
of 2 hours. There can also be a problem
if the family has two children who are very different in age. Suppose one child is 16 years old, and the
second child is 6 years old. Parents may
set up the system to block too many channels or program content so that their 6
year old is protected from watching something harmful. The sixteen year old may have too limited a
set of available channels.
We
discussed some potential ways of designing the system to take into account the
issues involved for families with more than one child. We discussed the possibility of children
logging into the system whenever they are watching TV. Thus, the system could be designed to keep
track of each child’s unique settings in terms of available channels list and
viewing restrictions. For example, each
child could have their own password to enter when they are watching TV. Such a design is very easy to circumvent by
children telling each other their passwords.
Thus far, we have not attempted to augment our design to allow for
multiple users with unique settings. For
families with multiple children, the current design still allows for the
parents to set a reasonable set of controls over what and how much their
children watch.