Feedback from stakeholders and classmates

We were provided with many aspects of feedback that we could have invested effort to improve. However, as a group, we chose to focus on two pieces of feedback in particular, because they related to the core functionality of the device, namely:

1) The device should be able to tune out ambient noises in the room since some rooms are noisy

2) Sometimes there may be noise spikes (such as when the baby turns over) or a bathroom door nearby closing which should ideally not trigger the alert.

In order to deal with the first one, we set the initial threshold level for alerts carefully (also allowing this to be customized by the user in the final product) and introduced two alert levels. Together this would allow the device to tune out some ambient noise while also allowing the user to distinguish between louder and softer noises (still keeping the interaction simple).

In dealing with the second, we used a smoothing technique (a moving average) to average out any noise spikes and focus on sustained noises (lasting at least a few seconds).

We were not able to get feedback from Niven owing to his being in South Africa. However, we did incorporate all feedback received into the final prototype depicted above.