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Printer Interface Design
User Research | Market Research | Interaction Design
Project Context
Machine Interface Design for printers
Designed a user-friendly machine interface that
improves the usability of a printer
Tinte originated as a collaborative project within an academic course. Subsequently, I seized the opportunity to refine the project by enhancing the interface design of the printer. The redesign process involved optimizing the printing task flow and enhancing human-machine interaction, particularly tailored for home printers. This project entailed a comprehensive approach, incorporating insights from focused user interviews, extensive market research, and considerations of technical constraints of UI design.
Info
Role
UX Research
Product and Interaction Design
Skills
UX Research
Ergonomic Evaluation
User Interface Design
Interaction design
Usability Testing
Duration
10 weeks
Tinte originated as a collaborative project within an academic course. Subsequently, I seized the opportunity to refine the project by enhancing the interface design of the printer. The redesign process involved optimizing the printing task flow and enhancing human-machine interaction, particularly tailored for home printers. This project entailed a comprehensive approach, incorporating insights from focused user interviews, extensive market research, and considerations of technical constraints of UI design.
Process
Market research
Competitive analysis
Heuristic evaluation
User interviews
Persona
Empathy mapping
Journey mapping
Problem statement
Sketching
Task flow
Information architecture
Wireframes
Visual design
Discover
Define
Ideate
Design
Problem Identification/ Evaluating the usability of the interface
Market Research
By conducting online research we found what was available in the market and ranked them in priority of their popularity. We captured these by reading through customer reviews on e-commerce platforms like Amazon, eBay and Best buy. This helped us position market needs
87.5%
Canon
87.5%
Hp
87.5%
Brother
87.5%
Epson
Popularity
Market & User Research
Connectivity
Preference setup and layouting
Ergonomics
Interface design
Print quality
Wireless printing
Error prevention
Competitive Analysis
To ground our work in market realities, We began by analyzing the current market landscape, examining competitor brands, pricing models, sales trends, and top-performing features. We then synthesized these insights into a spider web diagram comparing market trends across seven variables selected based on user purchasing behaviors.
Understanding the market/ Market Evaluation
We started the project by understanding market trends and user's preferences for technology, price and features offered in current products. This helped set a foundation for further user research and final design.
Competitive Landscape
We discovered that Canon, Brother, Epson and HP were some of the popular brands and then compared features to evaluate user preference when choosing a printer.
Comparison chart between the different features offered by Canon, Brother, Epson and Hp. The features are ranked in preference numbers based on the customer comments gathered from market research.
Canon
Brother
Epson
HP
Connectivity
Preference setup and layouting
Ergonomics
Interface design
Print quality
Wireless printing
Error prevention
Spider web diagram comparing popular features offered by the top 4 printer manufacturing brands
Evaluating the usability of printers
User Interviews
Through 30 focus interviews with a diverse cohort, we gathered in-depth insights into at-home printing workflows. This research allowed us to outline the complete usage journey, identify important market trends and uncover real user needs.
Ergonomic evaluation
The survey revealed that most study tables lack a designated space for printer setup, leading to accessibility issues. As a result, users frequently adapt by either bringing their laptops to the printer or relocating the printer between rooms to connect it to a desktop.
Table tops
Top shelves
Cramped corners
User Persona
Using insights from user interviews and accessibility findings, we created personas to clarify our target audience. This enabled us to establish a problem statement rooted in real user needs.
Empathy Map
Rohan
This leads us to the problem statement...
How might we remove the dependency on a device to print, scan or copy documents and improve the experience of using printers?
Task Flow
We developed a simplified task flow outlining the printer’s three core functions and the key user actions. This framework guided the wireframes created during the ideation phase.
Scanning
Printing
Copying
Switch on the printer
Loads the document in the scanner
Download/ select the file to print
Loads the document in the scanner
Give a command to scan the document
Preview the scanned document
Choose how to share/save the file
Share/save the document file
Adjust the layout of the files to print
Select the printer properties
Give a command to print the file
Collect and check quality of printout
Switch off the printer
Wireframing
Based on the previous task flow, we listed the key features required for designing the UI screens. Using this list of the key features, we ideated on how these pages can be designed very comprehensively and neatly.
Final concept
User Journey Map
The following diagram highlights the difference in user efforts illustrated by the number of steps required to completed the tasks in the current user journey and the proposed user flow.
Design system
We applied accessibility best practices to our typography, color palette, and component dimensions to ensure the machine interface is readable, accessible, and simple to navigate.
UI Kit
Since the components were designed for a machine interface, it was crucial to follow accessibility guidelines while choosing the font, color palette, and dimensions of the components to make the content readable, accessible and easy to navigate.
Color palette
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Typography
Display 1
Segeo UI
Learnings & Takeaways
One of the key learnings during this project was to reflect on the project at regular intervals. It helped us align the project with the goals.
Testing the interface, taught us the importance of digital accessibility and visual design. Designing for the correct contextual need was crucial in designing the solution. It taught us the importance of ethnographic study during data gathering phase.
Key archetype
While there were multiple members in a house who would use a printer, we identified the most frequent user and designed for one key archetype - the working student.
Ethnographic evaluation
Sarah, a law student
About Sarah
Sarah is a law student working towards her master's. As a law student, she needs to constanltly print, scan and create copies of documents for the cases. She is always busy in her coursework and gets work done at the last minute.
Goals
-
Quickly scan, copy or print documents
-
Download or share scanned copies to other devices
Wants/ Expectations
-
Interconnectivity between devices
-
Eliminate the need for an external device to use the printer
-
Quick preview to avoid reprinting
-
Easy to understand controls and consistency with other devices
21 years old​
Law Student
Tech savvy
Gets work done fast
Challenges identified
Identifying the market gap and user needs/ What did the users want?
Set up
1.
-
Users found it very frustrating to connect their laptop, or mobile device to the printer in order to get the task done!
-
Almost 80% participants expressed connectivity issues that lead to incomplete task done
Functionality
2.
-
Controls - It was really difficult to understand the functions of the buttons on the interface, which led to the need to connect a familiar device like a laptop or mobile phone to perform tasks
-
Screen - The instructions mentioned on the screen were difficult to read and it was difficult to fix any error that occurred in the process
Usability
3.
-
Editing layouts of documents before printing was not possible on the small screen
-
Users often needed to share scanned documents or make edits to scanned documents before reprinting
-
All these pain points lead to the need to depend on a familiar device where it is easy to perform these tasks
Identifying the market gap and user needs/ What did the users want?
Pains
-
Has to connect a device to check layout and adjust printer quality settings
-
Cannot find how to recover from errors using buttons on the device
-
Finds the buttons difficult to understand at first
-
Smaller display screens do not show progress and updates
How did this help? How does this define the next steps
We identified two key personas who used the printers, that helped us to summarise the user research and clearly define user needs and pain points. These highlight the product market gap.
Initial hypotheses/ User needs identified
Connectivity issues
Customers reported challenges such as delayed responses and lags with bluetooth connectivity
Lengthy set up
Filler
Inconsistent interfaces
Filler
User needs identified
Customise orders
Customers wanted to customise orders that cater to their dietary preferences, even when placing an order with a group of people
Flexible payment method
With the availability of multiple payment methods, customers wanted the flexibility of choosing a method that allowed them to earn benefits and rewards.
Split bills
As everyone’s bill share differs due to their order customisations, customers wanted a way to split the bill in the app
Based on the user research, we found that users faced challenges in usability, connectivity and recovery from
Based on the user evaluation
Ideation
The redesigned solution solved the user journey by:
01
Reduced number of steps in task execution
02
Established a consistency in the control center
03
Quick preview before action improves error rates
04
Reduces dependency on other devices
Problem statement
How might we reduce the cognitive load associated with printers and make printing convenient for all groups without any third device linked to it?
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