Exercise Four - Andrea

LOVE

I love my Logitech Mx510 Optical Mouse, which is metallic blue and black. The affordances are planned out very well. The inward grooves allow me to know where to place my thumb, fourth finger and pinky comfortably. Two additional scroll buttons are placed above and below the scroll wheel (which is universally placed in the middle of the mouse), for more scrolling. Instead of hitting backspace or moving your mouse to the ‘Back’ or ‘Forward’ button in the Internet Explorer window, another set of buttons are located above the thumb to go back one page or forward one page.

The constraint of this mouse is the length of the cord. Fortunately, mine is long enough to be placed on the same surface as my keyboard. However the constraint of the mouse pointer is the boundaries within the monitor.

The mapping of the buttons and their movements are well planned. In my opinion, the buttons above the thumb are designed efficiently. It is easier for me to move forwards and backwards between pages on the web.

The audible feedback is the ‘click’ you hear after you’ve pushed down on a button. The visual feedback is the cursor moving on the monitor and the movement of your mouse out of the corner of your eye.

HATE

I hate my heater in my room. Even though it is powerful and it keeps me warm, the function of the dial is a failure. The inability to provide information of the strength and the temperature it is producing is very frustrating. Also, I can never understand which direction to turn the dial in order for it to produce heat.

The visibility of the dial is confusing. You would think that the addition/plus sign indicates higher temperature, or to turn up the heat. And the minus/negative sign indicates lower temperature. This is NOT the case. Yes, an arrow is present, but what is the point? When you turn the dial clockwise, does the temperature decrease? And why are the numbers significant? The designs of these visual indications do not work. To turn up the heat, you actually have to turn it towards the negative sign. And to turn it off, turn it towards the positive sign.

The constraint is the maximum and minimum amount of heat the heater can produce. In the winter months, if the dial isn’t around the maximum, my room is freezing.