okay basically i am doing a uni project next semester where i have to design something to help the computer gamer and the gaming community
what i need to know is ...

what annoys you about your computer? and what would improve/change about it?

thanks for any help and i will come back and post up my final design when its done

Inbuilt toilet on your computer chair

some sort of ab exerciser so the fatties can get a workout whiles sitting down

Welcome to QGL, dont expect too many sensible answers

a way to download porn faster

I seriously sat here for some time thinking about that question and could only come up with one thing and it wasn't very gaming oriented and another thing unlikely to be reasonable for a mere uni project.

Perhaps an adapter to allow me to transfer saved data from consoles to pc and back again for extra storage and use (through conversion) to different platforms.

expensive video cards annoy me, the markup is hoooge.

does it have to be realistic? one thing that s***s me is the amount of cables around the place, especially power... go wireless power / video :) but of course wireless power is not overly realistic. Cordless PC speakers would be another thing as well, 2 speakers isn't too bad but rigging up 5.1 can be a pain.

A new control method for playing games. Instead of using keyboard/mouse/joystick I want a device that monitors my brain activity and uses that to control my ingame persona.

One thing that annoys me about my computer is other people on the internet. So if you could create a device that could punch people through the internet that would be swell.

thanks for the the answers so far

and no Astroboy i didnt expect that many sensible answers but hey it was worth a try and its always funny to see how creative some smart arses can be with their answers

the aim of the question is to find out what annoys people about their current systems and then i will go and figure out how to solve it

for example the 2 useful bits of info for me are when Nailbomb said that cables annoy him, and when Xy said to convert info between consoles and pcs

probably something that allows fullscreen games to be run as 3/4 size so i can reply to msn etc

or an lcd monitor on a moving arm so when you look down/up ur screen actually moves down/up etc

I think everyone is getting a bit too far ahead of themselves... How about a computer game worthy of playing?

If there is a way of grabbing from the GPU the load level, whether calculated or actual, the ability to log and graph this over time would certainly be useful. This would be extremely handy when plotting this graph together with a CPU usage, memory usage, I/O read/write and paging details, for determining most suitable upgrades.

Even if this were a plugin for MBM, it'd be very useful.

probably something that allows fullscreen games to be run as 3/4 size so i can reply to msn etc

How about a program/plugin for games that allows you to reply back to messages without having to alt tab out of a game. Of course you would have to see the message first.

probably something that allows fullscreen games to be run as 3/4 size so i can reply to msn etc

http://www.apple.com/macosx/

Oh. Sorry. Too cynical? :)

i could've sworn you used to be able to do that in CS greazy, this is going back like 3 yrs + though

a device for punching people in the face over the internet! just look at the market right here on this forum!@#!@ ;D

Oh. Sorry. Too cynical? :)

You forgot the part about being able to play games.

How about a program/plugin for games that allows you to reply back to messages without having to alt tab out of a game. Of course you would have to see the message first.

Actualy, some what related, there is a plugin for the Logitech G15 keyboard that alows you to read IRC and reply without exiting full screen applications. That idea in itself is pretty neat.

bots for Q4.

dedicated Q3/Q4/etc gaming servers placed onto bootable, live-dvds (if not downloadable virtual machine images that can easily be run-up thru VM_PLAYER or something similar). basically, something as simple to install and use as Smoothwall linux, with all the update options for the games built in.

How about a program/plugin for games that allows you to reply back to messages without having to alt tab out of a game. Of course you would have to see the message first.

you can do that with xfire. i like the idea of doing it with a g15 though. sounds cool.

Can I have my money now?

maybe a UV light in monitors so nerds dont look so f***ing pale all the time

you're the palest dude ive ever seen, doob

You forgot the part about being able to play games.

I surrender, you win :(

:)

stop hanging around so many wogs =P

least my car is faster

More games need to support windowed mode. Running two monitors and windowed mode lets me run msn etc.

How about games making use of dual screens? for example RTS game with the second screen filled with a game map and quick build icons, maybe even multiple projections of the map area from diferent unit views (like picture in picture tv). Leaving the primary screen for the gameplay, and the secondary for information.

Anything from inventory, to character stats, maps or gameplay objectives. Video cards have had dual head for ages, make good use of it!

last edited by scuzzy at 16:51:19 26/May/06

casa stole my answer

okay i probably should have said earlier that i am an industrial designer not a software engineer

i make products, the aesthetics, the ergonomics, and the way they function.

i am not a computer game designer

a stand that will hold your monitor up high and easily moveable.
im talking like sitting in a fully slanted-back chair so your more lying back in it resting your head on the headrest and having the monitor right there above infront of you.

then if you wanna go further a comfortable keyboard and mouse setup that pushes away or tucks away when you want to get out of the seat.

What year Industrial Design are you in? - Second year here @ QUT.
I'd be looking more at modular computer stations - ie, everything can fold into one neat bundle for storage when more desk space is required for other tasks. (Provided you didn't have a dedicated computer desk that is.)
Whilst it is leaning a bit towards Mac philosophy of all-in-one stations, it could possibly allow for different componenents to be slotted into sections that fold, maintaining the PC's capabilities of being easily upgradable.
I'm pretty sure that something along these lines may have already been done, but it's an idea all the same.

The PC as a whole is quite a boring design, as well as being mismatched to its environment. I think that it needs to blend in more with its environment, so that it becomes nearly invisible and a more cohesive package. Alternatively, look at the Mac approach of making the computer the visual centrepiece of the room.

Does it need to be solely focussed at the gamer, or can you perhaps look more at mainstream computing. I think mainstream computing would offer you a wider avenue with greater possibilities.

My idea is kinda crap, but I'll try and think of something a bit more substantial.

Edit:

Another idea: perhaps look at making gaming more immersive for the user. Perhaps stretch it a bit and go for a funky chair that the user sits in/lies in - like a cocoon or something?. It could have speakers inbuilt into the underside of it (the length of the underside), and aims to draw the user more into the game. THe user would feel as well as hear the game through their whole body. The speakers could fold up into the underside of the chair so that it can be used more for business duties.

last edited by Sandman at 19:00:31 26/May/06

thanks sandman
i am in 4th year and this is going to be my major project - i am focusing on the computer gamer and facilitating social interaction - so yeh it has to be something gaming related

from my research the 4 main problems i came up with were
1- how to prevent excessive gaming
2- the benefits of sick kids playing games to help get their mind off the pain
3- that computer design is becoming non-gender specific and needs to be more individualistic
4- and the need to encourage more female gamers to become confortable with the technology so that more get into the male dominated industry

i have had a couple of ideas
- a computer mouse that vibrates/lights up/changes shape when you have spent too long in an application - this is to prevent excessive gaming and also to prevent work health related problems e.g. RSI
-another is to redesign the computer case to make it easier to put in an external hard drive and RAM and also to have it as a modular system so that people can change the case face plate - like a mobile phone
-and finally a screen that attaches to your monitor that displays msn or xfire info. while you are playing games on the main screen. Also it would show you how long you have been in certain applications and change colour if you were playing games too long. It would be to try and interupt the midless flow of gaming.

sorry for the long post but what do people think of these ideas?

#4 and those 2 last points sound good

i think it's great with the sick kids playing games to take their minds off pain etc, so maybe you should go for something also in the mindset of relaxation, i know i enjoy listening to some smooth sounds with some good little speakers surrounding me..
already an idea that's been kinda done by IPOD with a bed, integrating a fairly decent bose(i believe) sound system and an ipod dock in a bed set, i've seen one of these at captain snooze or somewhere similar and absolutely loved the idea of relaxing to some tunes and a touch pad to adjust the sounds and songs
http://www.designmobel.co.nz/pause.html

my possible idea would be to do something similar but with a computer desk to improve functionality and possibly create and external HD with small LCD to sit in a computer desk with inbuilt speakers, this not only creates a stylish design which can be turned on and off during gaming, can also be used as a sound box for gaming sounds to adjust them over the music or vice versa so as to not have to alt tab. but it also eliminates the problem of speaker cables everywhere as they'll be inclosed within the cabinet/product.

bit of a long shot but that would rock.

... and rock hard!

I'm liking the idea of the mouse that changes shape. It's pretty far fetched, and probably not manufacturable, but I'd like to see something where the mouse starts off ergonomically, fitting into the user's hand perfectly - perhaps some sort of mouldable material to suit all hand sizes?
After an extended period of time, the mouse starts deforming and becoming less ergonomically sound. It keeps on deforming until it's a blob on the table. (Hey, I said it was far fetched ok :P)
You have no choice but to take a break from the computer. You perhaps chuck the blob onto the wall or something where it sticks and charges up again and returns to a mouse shape?
The length of time between the correct shape and the start of the deform process could be changed by parents for their children etc.

and the need to encourage more female gamers to become confortable with the technology

a computer mouse that vibrates

I think you answered your own question.

I wouldn't mind a computer desk with space to put all the computer gear. So instead of having a tower/desktop case, the desk would have a cavity in it say, at the side above some drawers or something. You could either have a wooden top for it (or whatever to match the desk) or a clear top for the ricers. Another little bit of the desk with temperature monitors/fan speed indicators. That way people with limited space wouldn't have to worry about where to put their tower and it would look all sleek and elegant.

I want a device that monitors my brain activity and uses that to control my ingame

But wouldn't there then be sooo many people complaining of extra lag








































get it, slow people =)
ie, the kind that had to read these last two lines to understand what I was talking about?
=)


I like the dual monitor option though. In RPG's the stats etc in a seperate window so that you can still see gameplay ftw

Perhaps CHEAP (or should I say reasonably priced quality components which could be replaced individually shoudl tehy need to) hydrolic chair/monitor combo so that you could get a feel motion in games where this would be cool (flight sims, car games etc)

last edited by HERMITech at 21:59:08 26/May/06

a computer with no bottleneck...woffles.... dam turtles

*Starting note* Apologies if this sounds rough or blunt, it isn’t intended that way. It’s 3am and I’ve been writing my thesis for the last 2 weeks.

what annoys you about your computer? and what would improve/change about it?

That’s one of the most vague questions I’ve ever read, and I work in user experience :P.

Is your goal to find the broadest possible range of problems and solutions about computing? I see that the previous paragraph is about gamers and gaming communities … maybe your question should relate?

i am in 4th year and this is going to be my major project - i am focusing on the computer gamer and facilitating social interaction - so yeh it has to be something gaming related

Oh, while your question does fit in this research area, it certainly isn’t specific and it certainly doesn’t focus your answers towards social interaction. Assuming your research is about ‘online social interaction’ and that you are designing a physical device, maybe your questions should be something more along the lines of:

As a gamer,
When interacting in social settings online, what goals do you have?
What physical devices do you use to achieve these goals.
What software devices?
Do you consider yourself a beginner, intermediate or an expert user?
Describe a good day achieving these goals.
Describe a bad day.
What do you think could help you on a bad day?
What do you think would make a good day even better?

They are all just as qualitative as your question, but are focused towards your research, yet still not leading them directly towards a single line of thought (other than social interaction for gamers).

I know that you where trying to be as simple as possible, and normally that’s a good thing, but when everything is so vague you are going to end up with a load of useless data. Trust me, I’m talking from experience …

1- how to prevent excessive gaming

Doesn’t this mean that essentially, are you would to design a less usable/useful thing? Have you considered that if people want to game excessively they will.

2- the benefits of sick kids playing games to help get their mind off the pain

This is a really good idea for lots of reasons. 1) nobody can get f***ed off at you for trying to help sick kids. 2) There is a wealth of research, both academic and professional on the ergonomics to support sick people, but I doubt much has been done to support gaming and social interaction for sick people. 3) This kind of work will directly support your future career no matter which routes you take. 4) You will get heaps, and heaps of support for this product. I can’t imagine a community that wouldn’t support your surveys, interviews or questionaries (hint, hint).

3- that computer design is becoming non-gender specific and needs to be more individualistic

Solid and safe idea but not as awesome as 2.

4- and the need to encourage more female gamers to become confortable with the technology so that more get into the male dominated industry

industry or hobby? As a hobby, wouldn’t that be more on the game designers to start design games that attend to things that girls want to play? As n industry … well that is a religious debate I don’t want to get into tonight :P

sorry for the long post but what do people think of these ideas?

I think overall you have some ideas that have a lot of potential. However, I think you really need to shape up which route you want to go down and then write some questions that focus down those routes. If you can’t decided between them, then write questions for all 4 of them and send them around to as many different ‘gamers’ as possible. That way you can build a mental models of what people think specific to your possible problem spaces.

P.S. Your post is small fry :P

thanks for that typo
i just wish i could make that much sense normally let alone at 3am

your right my question was vague probably because i am vague - to be honest i REALLY suck at reading/writing and struggle with big reports - i am more of a short and sweet, point form man - so i will tell you all i know

this is my understanding of what i am doing
1- write a research report - find out what the general/broad/basic problems and needs there are through research, literature, and anything else - this is my 4 findings so far
2- write a design proposal - this is where I choose one of these areas and outline how i a going to go about solving this problem
3- next semester - this is where i do more in-depth research into the user and develop my product/idea

for the four problem areas this is what i think

1- excessive gaming - this is a hard one to design for - to be able to make something that gamers would buy that would encourage them not to game. The research says that all gamers need is something to make them aware of the time they are spending and to interupt the 'flow' of gaming but at the same time it highlights that there are many social benefits to MMO style games. I would like to help promote the social aspects of gaming more to prevent less mindless gaming - i dunno if that makes sense

2- helping sick kids - i have a feeling most people would like me to take this one, but while this is honourable i feel it is such a BBIIIIGGGGG challenge that i dont think i have the capabilities or even time to solve - but i will still give it more thought

3- non-gender specific design - this is good because it comes back to the product and how it can be designed to allow the individual to take ownership over it

4- women into industry - the idea is that young girls dont grow up with computers and dont feel as comfortable with them as guys and so less get into the industry which in turn means less games and products are styled for them - it is a self perpetuating problem

your right though, i need to just choose a problem and get on with it but i am at that hesitation stage - i dont want a problem too big or too small, i dont want to do something i am not interested in but i still want it to be a challenge - right now i am sort of stuck with what to do

I'm liking the idea of the mouse that changes shape. It's pretty far fetched, and probably not manufacturable, but I'd like to see something where the mouse starts off ergonomically, fitting into the user's hand perfectly - perhaps some sort of mouldable material to suit all hand sizes?
After an extended period of time, the mouse starts deforming and becoming less ergonomically sound. It keeps on deforming until it's a blob on the table. (Hey, I said it was far fetched ok :P)
You have no choice but to take a break from the computer. You perhaps chuck the blob onto the wall or something where it sticks and charges up again and returns to a mouse shape?
The length of time between the correct shape and the start of the deform process could be changed by parents for their children etc.

Why not just do the obvious and have retractable spikes that stab you when to play to long.

4- and the need to encourage more female gamers to become confortable with the technology so that more get into the male dominated industry

See Rez http://www.gamegirladvance.com/archives/2002/10/26/sex_in_games_rezvibrator.html#000141
also http://www.slashdong.org/boards/viewtopic.php?p=6#6 the only way you could improve it is to make it a tounge that licks their clit.

last edited by SD Gundam at 12:55:00 27/May/06

thanks for that typo
i just wish i could make that much sense normally let alone at 3am

No problems, I was actually worried that someone would jump up and down that I was being an a****** :P

to be honest i REALLY suck at reading/writing and struggle with big reports - i am more of a short and sweet, point form man

Oh, I know what you mean (I don’t know why I did honours :P), however the secret to writing a good report is just being detailed about all of their criteria. Hopefully, you have so much research that you can just write and write about everything.

I’m not totally familiar with the Industrial Design “design process”, is this forum post a start on getting input from possible users? I do Interaction Design, which I believe has a simular “design process”, so if you need help starting that design process I can try and help.

your right though, i need to just choose a problem and get on with it but i am at that hesitation stage - i dont want a problem too big or too small, i dont want to do something i am not interested in but i still want it to be a challenge - right now i am sort of stuck with what to do

I think that all four of your project could be amazingly huge, in the right light. I can see all four being an entire PhD thesis, not that I’d want to do it but that’s how huge they are.

I feel that you should take those 4 ideas, build some questions up and then go ask some people that have goals in those areas. I reckon even after one day of asking people you level of understanding on all four of those issues would be increased greatly.

By the way, the more I think about 1 the more it grows on me. I could see that the vibration of the mouse is really a simular to peripheral awareness of time. I’d imagine if you broke the day into half hour segments people would get a very clear sense of the passing of time.

If you used something like classic navy times, you’d probably be able to have a clear approximation of the current time. Naval times are 4 hour blocks and every half hour an incrementing ring would happen (1 for the first ring, 8 for the final ring). The secret would be to get some real information from a lot of gamer who need such a device. WoW forums?

last edited by typo at 13:15:37 27/May/06

Device to kill people over the internet. Thread over.

How about games making use of dual screens? for example RTS game with the second screen filled with a game map and quick build icons, maybe even multiple projections of the map area from diferent unit views (like picture in picture tv). Leaving the primary screen for the gameplay, and the secondary for information.

Anything from inventory, to character stats, maps or gameplay objectives. Video cards have had dual head for ages, make good use of it!

This is actually a kickass idea. Many people who place RTS games would agree. I would buy a second monitor if they brought out a mod for say Warcraft 3.

Imagine if you could play the Commander in BF2 with your command screen on a second monitor an still able to move / act / react normally. This would be freakin awesome

PS: World of Warcraft is gay =)

He was talking about WC3.

How about games making use of dual screens? for example RTS game with the second screen filled with a game map and quick build icons, maybe even multiple projections of the map area from diferent unit views (like picture in picture tv). Leaving the primary screen for the gameplay, and the secondary for information.

Isn't he an Industrial Designer? I'm pretty sure that designing a game is out of the question and he would get raped by his marking staff if he just designed a computer with two monitors :P

This is actually a kickass idea. Many people who place RTS games would agree. I would buy a second monitor if they brought out a mod for say Warcraft 3.

Before anybody would design/develop such a game, they would have to know that an extensive market already existed or they would have to have the belief that it could be rapidly built.

How many bread and butter gamers would purcahse two monitors to play games on? I don't know, either do you, but it would be interesting to find out.

^ in all honesty, I think that results would surprise you

yeh i said before i am not a game designer but a product designer

the dual monitor idea before was to make a small screen that attaches to the side of your normal monitor so that while you are playing a game you can still keep you in touch with friends/family via msn/xfire or something similar without having to quit your game, it would also give you additional information like how long you have been in a program and you could even preset it to cut you out of a game in say an hours time

its just an idea