Button-Activated Polling Screen

A button-activated polling mechanism that can be conveniently placed anywhere you might want customer or user feedback—such as at a bodega or hardware store, or in a restaurant, tourist attraction, or other retail location.

Arduino Components:

• Half Sized Premium Breadboard
• Metro
• 3.5" TFT 320x480 + Touchscreen Breakout Board w/MicroSD Socket - HXD8357D
• 1K Ohm Resistors
• Two 5mm LEDs (using red here, but any color works)
• Tactile Switch Buttons (using 12mm square, 6mm tall here, but any size can work)
• Micro SD card
• Solid wires
• Heat-shrink tubing
• Arduino software (free!)

Tools & Equipment:

• Soldering iron kit
• Heat gun
• Wire cutter
• Laser cutter (if using acrylic)
• X-acto knife

Container Components:

• 1/8" acrylic (wood, cardboard, and other materials can also work for the container)
• Acrylic glue
• Zip ties (or other placement mechanism, eg a stand or holder)
• Double-sided foam stickies and/or foam board
• Thin sheet balsa wood (at least 4"x7")
• Superglue
• For buttons: Acrylic or another material, eg. clay

Wiring Your TFT Screen

• Carefully follow the instructions provided for your Adafruit Color TFT Screen—SPI Mode (you can ignore 8-Bit). Be sure to properly solder each connection, otherwise your circuit will not work. Use shorter solid wires so that your wires can lay as flat as possible between your breadboard and Metro.
• I used a thin piece of balsa wood to secure the breadboard and Metro together—this can make your life easier as you continue testing and assembly, and doesn't take up much extra space.
• Go ahead and test the bitmaps provided. Be sure that the bitmap file name matches the file name in your code.
• Once your screen and the bitmap test is working, on to the next step!

Next, you'll want to wire your two pushbuttons and LEDs. If you're new to this, there are a number of handy tutorials for this, such as this one. I've also included the pushbutton-LED circuit I used above. You can find the code for the pushbutton-LED circuit within the examples menu in Arduino.

• The first step is to solder all four components (pushbuttons and LEDs) using solid, bendable wire. This wire will be very helpful in terms of being able to bend flat and as necessary for placement of your components.
• For your pushbuttons, since these will most likely not be sitting within your breadboard, I recommend gently stretching the wires to be flat/flush with the button for easier attaching to the foam board or other material that you'll be using to secure it.
• Don't forget to add heat-shrink tubing to your LED connections to avoid any short-circuiting.
• Be sure to pay attention to the positive vs. negative connections for the LED, and don't forget to use resistors.
• Start with longer wires—as you arrange and finalize your circuit and button arrangement, you can clip them shorter as needed.
• Add your pushbutton-LED code to your bitmap code in Arduino. Test and troubleshoot as needed.

So you're making something to solicit feedback from users—but who are your users, and where will you be engaging with them?

• Before you move on to the next step of building the physical form, you need to force yourself out the door and into whatever physical space you're designing for. Is it the lobby of a kickboxing gym? The exit of your local hardware store? Maybe it's for your own bathroom or kitchen—whatever the case, you need to first go walk around that space.
• Once you've taken some pictures and mental and/or physical notes on the context for your Polling Screen, you can make a basic, low-fidelity prototype out of foam board or cardboard. Your prototype will also need to take into consideration your power source.
• Power: You can connect to external power, such as an electrical outlet, or build in an external battery pack or set of batteries. Pros and cons to each! And will depend on your context/setting and factors such as whether an outlet is easily available.
• Your prototype should also factor in whatever mechanism you're using to keep your polling screen in place—I am using zip ties, which do not lie completely flush (this affects measurements). Think about how your physical form will fit into or interact with the space and users.
• When you have your low-fidelity prototype, bring it back to the same space and take some photos of it in context. Note any additions or adjustments you should make, and get a sense of any design elements you want to add (shape, color, embellishments, etc.).
• Once you're happy with all of that, you're ready to move on to your higher-fidelity prototype.

Once your bitmap test is working, it's time to swap in your own bitmap images! You can do this in Photoshop following these simple steps.

• Upload your bitmap(s) to your micro SD card and test. Make sure to update the name of the .bmp files in your code to match.

It's (almost) showtime, baby!

Now that you have your low-fidelity prototype (the more the better—I made two foam-board prototypes before moving on to acrylic), you can CAREFULLY record all your measurements to execute your high-fidelity prototype (or, if you're confident, your final form).

• Remember to factor in the width of your material (eg the width of the acrylic) in your dimensions, otherwise this will throw off your assembly.
• Don't forget to factor in the mechanism that is attaching or propping up your form, as well as any power cord or other power source you're using.
• I highly recommend putting all of your dimensions in an excel sheet, in addition to sketching them on paper, and reviewing a few times before sending them to the laser cutter (or whatever material and mechanism you're using).
• Have fun with your buttons! You can make these out of anything that's at least somewhat translucent, so that the light from the LEDs shows through at least a little bit. The lights are the main micro-interaction mechanism to let your user know that their input has been received.
• Add any branding or signage. For my polling mechanism, I have a small sign saying "Which product should we stock?" (This could also be engraved directly into the acrylic.)

For my final form, I used acrylic glue to fasten all the sides of the box together, and then I used a combination of foam board and small foam stickies to ensure all of my internal components were adequately supported and properly in place. For the buttons, I made a cover that was larger than the holes in my acrylic, and used super-glue to attach to a small piece of acrylic that connected the cover with the pushbutton. You can definitely get creative with this part.

My final box dimensions (using an external power source) were 4" (H) x 6.75" (L) x 1.25" (W).

Take your spiffy interactive polling device and go put it in action! Gather user feedback, troubleshoot, and take notes for your next prototype/iteration.