The object allows the user to unlock the door by sliding their Wellesley ID through it. The thin strip where the card goes is an affordance that lets people see that you’re supposed to slide something in. You can slide it either up to down or down to up but the magnetic bar always has to be facing to the right. (It’s extra weird because the card reader in Lulu dining hall is the opposite.) This design could be improved by having an icon on it that shows the correct way, or just to design it with a reader on both sides. The lights give information about the status of the door, where green is unlocked but the red and yellow isn’t really clear. Yellow is the default locked state so I’m not sure what red means, which is the one I would expect to mean locked. According to this similar product on amazon, it draws around 60W of power. That’s a lot but I think it’s justified for security’s sake.
Great product choice and very nice analysis addressing the assignment fully. You mentioned 60W is a lot of power … compared to what? Try to be more precise in comparisons. You did a really nice job addressing both the benefits and limitations of the affordances and mapping of this product, including in the annotated photo.
please remember to put this post in the mapping and affordances category.