Venetial Blinds Interface 🌞🌚
Description: Venetion blinds are a type of curtain with horizontal slats that can be rotated to let more or less light in. The blinds can also be lowered or raised to cover more or less of the window.
Hover over the blue circles below to explore the interface's features.
User Observations and Interviews 🔍
I observed multiple users (around 6) use the interface over the course of multiple visits to the site. I interviewed three to get more insight into their experience.
General Observations
Experienced 🔬
Most users went straight for the pull cord, and most seemed to know to pull it to the side to release it.
Slat Trouble ⚖️
Multiple users turned the slat adjustment rod one way, then, once the slats started to turn (after the delay), would turn it back the other way.
Pull Cord Ignorance 🧐
No user separated the pull cord to tilt the blinds to one side or the other.
Adjustment Struggle 💪🏻💪🏽💪🏿
Many users struggled to get the blinds to stop at the right spot, having to adjust it multiple times.
Interview Questions and Results
Do you have experience with this type of curtain?
- All had a lot of experience
- All noted that they have negative feelings toward this kind of curtain, find it confusing and unpredictable
What was your goal in using the blinds? What did you want to change/affect about the situation you were in?
- Two wanted to let a bit more sunlight into the room to brighten the mood a bit. The blinds were fully lowered, with slats mostly rotated down.
- The other wanted to block out all of the sunlight, since it was low, glaring, and too hot on their neck. The blinds were a quarter down, with slats horizontal.
When you decided to adjust the blinds, what specific actions did you plan to perform? Which parts of the blinds did you plan to perform those actions with?
- All had used the interface before, so they knew that to adjust height, they should use the cord, and to adjust slat tilt, they should twist the rod.
- One had forgotten that they needed to pull the cord to the side, so they got frustrated trying to pull the cord straight down, which did nothing.
What kinds of feedback did you get from the blinds as you adjusted them? Describe the visual, tactile, and other sensory cues you received. How did you change your adjustments based on that feedback?
- After some initial confusion about the question, the users emphasized different things, but
these were the common themes:
- Increased resistance while turning the rod to indicate that the slats cannot be adjusted any further.
- One person noted that they had no way of knowing which way to turn the rod to get the slats to rotate in the desired direction.
- Changes in resistance from the cord depending on if it’s in the correct position for raising or lowering. Two users noted that it was difficult to tell when the resistance was due to the blinds’ stopping mechanism and when it was due to the weight of the blinds themselves.
- The users thought it was obvious, but the actual level of the blinds from the window sill told them when to stop raising or lowering them. However, they all noted that it was hard to stop the blinds at a precise level, since moving the cord to the vertical position often involved accidentally changing the height of the blinds.
How many different adjustments did you have to make before achieving the desired result?
- All users said they only had to make a few adjustments, but talked about many times they’ve had frustrations with blinds like these
User Archetypes (Personas) 👑
Click the arrows to switch between the two personas.
Denice represents a common use case of Venetian blinds: trying to block out external distractions.
Storyboard 🎨
To better understand the user experience, I created a storyboard of an imaginary scenario involving one of our archetypal users, in this case Distracted Denice. Click the arrows the navigate through her story!
