Most shoppers in the Home Depot can be characterized as having an intimate familiarity with the expected layout of the house and the items that one would find therein. In urban areas, the apartment metaphor can be substituted for the home metaphor, but in both cases, the underlying cognitive model is the same. The user should easily be able to categorize items according to where they would expect to find those items in the home.
To accomodate this cognitive model, we developed the idea of displaying the cross section of a house to the shopper. This cross section will consist of images representing the various rooms that one might expect to find in a generic house, including the living room, dining room, bathroom, bedroom, den, garage, workshop, greenhouse, and kitchen. The user can access the items that they might expect to find in a room by simply selecting that room. In response, the system will replace the cross section of the house with a three-dimensional representation of the specific room selected, in which the user may move around and select items upon which he wishes to get more information. This "augmented reality" will show all the different types of items in the domain that the user might expect to find in that particular room.
At the room level, the analogy changes to a top-down break down of the items in the room. For example, if the user wishes to obtain information about kitchen sink faucets, they could first select the kitchen from the room environment, and then they could select the sink. In response, the system would provide him with various different types of sinks that the store carries. To obtain further information on a specific sink, the user could select that specific sink. At any level of the interaction, the user will also have the option of returning to the top level of the interface (the cross section of the house) or of going back to the previous display.
Because many items can be found in more than one room of the house, there will be considerable overlap in the design. One can easily imagine that items found in the bedroom may also be found in the living room. Suppose, for example, that the customer is interested in finding wall mounts in order to hang a picture. Depending on where they wish to hang that picture, one of several rooms could be selected. Each of these rooms will contain a picture that the user can select to access the needed information.
When the user points to the "previous room" icon, the image on the right will be updated to show the 3-D image of the previous display selected by the user. Similarly, a "restart" icon will allow the user to return to the top level display. When the user has accessed a level of the interface corresponding to an actual item for sale in the store, one additional icon is activated, allowing the user to bring up a map of the store indicating the location of that item.
Not sure of exactly what he needs, and not sure of the legality of his task, Eric decides to go to Home Depot to discretely obtain the supplies he needs. Upon arriving at the store, Eric is impressed with its sheer volume. Where should he begin his search? While scanning the seemingly endless aisles, a device shaped much like a stationary video game with two screens catches his eye. The screen on the left displays a friendly image and reads: "Welcome to the Home Depot product guide. Press the red button to get information about items or to get help at finding the items you desire." The screen on the right shows an animated character advertising one of the products sold in the store.
Eric notices that several of these help systems are strategically located throughout the store. "Maybe this thing can help me to find the stuff I neeed", he thinks, as he approaches one of the machines in a discrete corner. Clicking on the red button, he watches as the left screen transforms into a 3-story cross section of a house. Each room has different items in it that distinguishes it from the others. A message accross the bottom of the screen reads: "To find an item, click in the room of the house in which you would expect to find that item." The screen to the right shows a three dimensional blowup of one of the rooms of the house. Eric grasps the joystick. "I wonder which room I should pick." As the cursor moves from room to room, each room becomes hilighted in the display to the left, and Eric notices that the display to his right changes so that it always shows a large 3-D image of the room highlighted on the left. Selecting the den by clicking in that room, Eric watches as a three dimensional cross section of the den with a highlighted fireplace replaces the image on the left, and a 3-D image of a fireplace fills the right hand screen. "It almost feels as if I were in the room."
Feeling a little more comfortable with the system now, Eric guides the joystick to point to the image of the TV shown on the screen, and after several more such actions, finds the items he needs. Looking at the image, Eric makes a mental note of the materials he needs, before bringing up a map of the store to guide him to the appropriate isle. "That was pretty cool," he thinks, as he heads off to get his supplies. "Maybe I'll come back tomorrow."