Assignment: Midterm Project 1: Group project proposal

Collaborators:

INFO 262 Theory and Practice of Tangible User Interfaces
Midterm Project Proposal

Pay Your Way

Collaborators

Niranjan Krishnamurthi
K. Joyce Tsai
Jessica Voytek

Introduction

This project attempts to create a device for cooperative retail ventures such as the student snack fund in a graduate school, or small group financing ventures such as one set up by room mates.  In each case, the individuals involved may contribute money to a communal fund for a specific class of resources, groceries, snacks, or consumable housewares, but interpersonal conflicts can arise from actual or perceived overuse of the resources or under contribution to the fund.  The resources that an individual uses needs to be tracked and the price of those resources needs to be conveyed.  In addition, the overall health of the communal fund needs to be conveyed to the individuals involved without being intrusive or annoying.

Traditional retail and self-service retail establishments have solved similar problems by tagging each item using a price label, a bar code, or more recently an RFID tag, or by making it physically impossible to remove an item without paying.  For the situations above a more cooperative solution may be desirable.  This project aims to create a device which will track the use of a particular resource and provide immediate feedback to the individual using that resource of her/his individual financial responsibility for consuming that resource.

Problems

• It would be undesirable if not impossible to tag each item being consumed and track which participant is consuming it
• It may be difficult for individuals to track their fair contributions, or if contributions are the same, their fair consumption of the resource
• The health of the communal fund may be difficult for individuals to track unless the problem is severe
• Using a visual monitoring device such as a video camera to track an individual's consumption habits would tend to be regarded as intrusive and create a division between the person doing the monitoring and the person being monitored
• Physically separating an individuals' fair share, or mechanically dispensing it would make the transaction seem impersonal which may be undesirable when the participants are friends.

Assumptions and Solutions

For the Pay Your Way system, two core assumptions are made:

1. All items to be managed by the system can be priced on a price / weight basis. The price / weight ratio can be changed for different product classifications, and a typical system would have more than one ratio to manage the items in the system. This assumption is made because:
   • A bar code scanner system to manage items would be too cumbersome. Users will need to be educated on how to use the system and assuring that the users actually use the scanner will need additional procedures.
   • Multiple price / weight ratios are needed as not all items managed by the system can be tagged using one simple price / weight ratio. For example, a typically cheap but heavy item such as a can of soda may cost much more than a bottle of spice which is usually pricey.
2. Monetary funds managed by the system can be tallied immediately. Funds added into the system by a user will be calculated immediately and updated on the system's records. This assumption is made because:
   • The Pay Your Way system relies on up to date data about product inventory and user funds so that the user's progress can be mapped accurately on the system's output interfaces.

The following solutions are considered possibilities, given the assumptions stated above:

1. Constant price / weight ratio management:
   • Mats containing weight sensors will be used to organize items based on price / weight ratios. These mats may be placed in refrigerators, bins or even cupboards. Items are then grouped to certain price / weight ratio categories. For example, all fresh fruit may be fixed to a price / weight ratio. All items with the same ratio need to be physically stored in the same location without mixing the items. Using the fresh fruit example, a bin may be used to store fresh fruit, but other items, such as soda cans cannot be placed into the same bin.
   • Once the items have been physically organized, mats will be placed underneath these items, each one corresponding to the item group's price / weight ratio
2. Immediate fund management:

There are a few possible ways to address these assumption, some of which are:

• Use of electronic funds. Electronic fund management, such as PayPal, Debit Cards or even an internally managed system.
• Use of a money counting machines
• Use of simple computer input. The user tells the system how much he/she is adding to the system for this particular use, and then places the money in a locked cash box.

Methods/Materials

Methods of how each system would work:

1. Constant price / weight ratio management: 
   • All food placed on weighing machines, even refrigerators.
   • As user removes item from storage bin, the mat registers the difference in weight. Total price of the item removed is calculated as (weight initial - weight end) * price / weight.
   • Ambient lighting turn increasingly red as the total price of items removed increases.
   • As user feeds money into the system, ambient lighting will decrease. Once it turns off, the user has paid for all the items. 
     • Generous users can put additional money in, which will turn the lighting green.
     • Stingy users will leave the lighting red if they haven't paid enough.
   • Alternately, if a user has a certain amount of money, they can put the money in first. The lighting will turn increasingly green as more funds are put in. The user can then take out items, with the light decreasing in intensity. Once it turns off, the user has used up the deposit of money.
   • For a more robust system, status indicators in the style of large thermometers may be used. These indicated will change in color and be able to give exact details of the user's status with the Pay Your Way system.
   • Price, total fund status as well as consuming habits of other users if the Pay Your Way system may be displayed on a separate display.
2. Immediate fund management:
   • User enters financial goals in a computer. Ex. "save $100 every week" or "pay off 10% of debt every month."
   • Ambient lighting will start out red. As the user saves more money or works their way toward their financial goal, the lighting will decrease in intensity.
   • If the user saves more than their goal, the lighting will turn green.
   • An hourglass of sorts can be hooked up to the system so the user can see how much time is left before the goal deadline.

Materials:

• Red and green colored light
• Hourglass or other time-keeping mechanism
• Mats that register weight
• Machine to count money (maybe)