Face Recognition Terminal for Access Control

Project overview

Redesigning a face recognition station with a new thermal sensors feature:Lead end-users through a new scanning process. Display the recognition results: identity, access right, forehead temperature.

Challenge

The biggest challenge of this project is to guide the users out of their old patterns, it’s more difficult than introduce a new idea to the stackholders. The new version of the product has many more features needed to be present in the same device. Therefore a new guiding system has to be clear and not too similar to the previous one to avoid reminding users of their old patterns.

Research & Interview

Soon enough, I realised there was a big gap between user expectation and reality. I interviewed ten users, aged between 24 - 54 years old,  who had used the previous version. I ask the user to describe how they interact with the thermal sensor and how they understand the mechanism. I found that users care less about the result unless it's an error message, so they can fix the situation and enter the office.

Creation

The truth is that: the scanning process IS much more complicated than the user expected. So we added an information column to indicate device status during scanning. And finally, even though the result column is designed to present 5 matching results, I decided to show only the primary reason their access request was denied.

‍

Final UI

Summarised the feedback from the previous interview and analysed more than five other similar and non-related products. I then created three different designs and invited 25 users to define which design was preferred and significant. I also submitted a study to the stakeholders explaining how users understand better by showing less information at once. Finally, in the last stage before launch, usability tests were conducted in Taiwan and Japan, with 20~23 participants on each side. At its debut conference, I was the main speaker, and I also designed a showroom with a door linked to the devices.