Printer

This is a (new!) printer in the Art library. It has three compartments for paper and at the top it spits out paper so that they stack neatly on the compartment. The user can release a printing job with the computer adjacent to the printer and then retrieve their print job from the top after the printer is done. Some affordances that stick out to me are the power button (indicated by the power logo and a white light when it is on) and a small digital screen on the top left corner of the printer that I can read with status updates of the print job. This digital screen also gives feedback to the user about its state, like if it is experiencing a jam or if new paper needs to be added. The user knows what to do with a printer by learning how to send a print job from their computer and releasing it at a print station–this learning was probably done through some kind of training or reading the instructions labelled by hand by a student worker while going to school here. This is one problematic area because if I had not received guidance or training on how to release printing jobs, I would not understand how to print things using the release stations upon first entering college.

I used http://energyusecalculator.com/electricity_printer.htm to estimate the power draw of the printers we use in Art. I would say the printer uses about 40 watts on stand by and 400 watts when printing. This power requirement seems justified to me because of how large our printers are and its capability to handle printing all of our undergrads’ readings.

For some reason I am unable to attach a pic because WordPress is saying HTTP error. So here is a link to the picture on my google drive.