Semester Refelction

In my very first post, I defined a prototype as "a basic, physical model or representation of an idea. It can range from simple shape to a full-scale working model."

While this definition is correct, it is extremely limiting! It definitely did not prepare me for the course as it narrowed my scope and understanding. As Digital Prototyping has progressed, my views and understanding of the work that goes into developing products has deepened and I appreciate the process of prototyping far more. I enjoyed the iterative nature of the course and felt that it taught me a lot about what to look at when developing a product, how to approach testing and improvements, and about development and design in general.

This course has been both rewarding and taxing, with my initial video prototype concept not fully meeting the criteria for an interactive wearable technology, but I was determined to learn from the feedback and enjoyed the different approaches to prototyping, especially exploring physical prototypes with the Makey Makey. 

If you asked me what a prototype is today, I would define it as follows:
A prototype is a physical representation used to measure the feasibility of a design feature being included in a product or program. 

Prototyping is a rich process whereby specific interactivity, physical features, product feasibility, and many other aspects can be tested on their own or combined. The process is rewarding and leads to design iterations and improvements to the design of a product. Prototyping can prove costly if you attempt to prototype the full product, but if undertaken iteratively and planned well, can save costs of the overall project in the long run by testing smaller components or ideas separately to ensure 'parts of the whole' work before finalising the 'whole' and having to make many adjustments and changes that will be expensive and more time consuming. 

TwisterXO Testing Feedback

Users had fun testing TwisterXO during the final workshop. 

On a whole I received positive feedback and feel that there is promise in TwisterXO as a game.

Testing:

Users were presented with the following questionnaire:

TwisterXO

1. How simple was the game to understand? (circle one)

• Easy
• Moderate
• Difficult

2. How fun and engaging was the game (with 1 - not at all and 10 - awesome)

(circle one)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

3. Which game do you prefer? (pick one)

• Noughts & Crosses
• TwisterXO
• Normal Twister

4. Should Twister board body parts be included (left foot, right hand, etc)?

• Yes
• No

5. Apart from increasing the size of the board, what affordances could be added to increase the level of excitement and engagement?

_________________________________________________________________________

6. What is one thing you would change about the game? Think big, think wild, think extreme.

_________________________________________________________________________

Feedback:

I received feedback from 6 players and the response based on the questions was positive.

1. All of the users found the game and concept easy to understand without needing much explanation to start playing.
2. Based on all the players' ratings, the average level of engagement was 7.
3. 100% preferred TwisterXO to the original games.
4. Only 1 of the players suggested adding this element and only as part of increasing difficulty or levelling up.
5. A number of ideas were given:

• Sound for improved feedback (67%)
• Automatic spinner and sound (50%)
• Challenges to level up (4 in a row to win instead of 3) (33%)
• Introduce more players (33%)

6. In terms of taking the game to a new level, some ideas surfaced that could be fun to explore further:

• Make the game in a 3D space, so players can use the walls and ceiling to play too
• Get players to do a task to win (e.g. tap foot) 
• Place the mat on a balance board so players must stay in balance and think about their next move.

Based on these findings, I think TwisterXO holds promise as a commercial game.

I envision the final version having each player wear a coloured bracelet that identifies them to the board. The Twister Tiles respond to touch and the colour changes to match that of the person touching it and give haptic and  a soft beep sound as feedback when they touch. When one player has moved, a spinner spins automatically and announces the colour the other player must choose. On winning, the entire board will vibrate, the tiles they linked as 3-in-a-row will all be lit up in their colour and the other colours fade to grey.

TwisterXO meets Makey Makey

Creating the life-size TwisterXO board included making 'buttons', linking them together at the bottom (back) of the board to attach to ground on the MakeyMakey.

Next, each terminal or tile was connected to the corresponding key on the MakeyMakey. The strips made it easy to ensure the MakeyMakey cables were easy to connect.

Finally, a Twister mat covered the board to complete the prototype.

What is TwisterXO?

A mashup of Twister and Noughts & Crosses, TwisterXO is a life-size, interactive game for two players (with the possibility for more players in future iterations).

TwisterXO brings a refreshing twist to the old X’s & O’s by making players of party game think a bit harder about their next move.

Instructions:

1.Spin wheel by clicking on the spinner arrow.

2. Player places hand or foot on any tile of corresponding colour.

If the row is full, spin again

3. Next Player repeats step 1-2.

Rules:

No changing your mind once body part is placed.

Win:

In “TwisterXO”, 3 in a row wins.

TwisterXO includes a 3x3 Twister mat with tiles that act as buttons. When a user places their hand or foot on the button during their turn, the mat records player 1 as an 'X' or player 2 as an 'O'.

The last stretch - Prototype III

I am happy with the feedback and response received during Prototype II testing.

My 3rd and final prototype will be extending and expanding on TwisterXO. I would like to make the game physical and planning to code this in Action script 3 is a bit more challenging than I thought. In testing the game itself for the first iteration, I coded the game to use mouse clicks, but with the MakeyMakey I will need to change these to keyboard events.

Based on the feedback from Prototype I, I would like to make the spinner automatic and speak out the colour the spinner lands on, as users will not be able to remove hands from the mat and click the spinner.

Plan:
-users press play& spinner rotates
-player 1 takes turn.
-spinner rotates and player 2 takes turn.
-game continues until one player wins, or ties.

I will need to use a 3x3 board, not only because of MakeyMakey constraints, but also because I am not entirely sure how to code the board in such a way that detects if a player lifts their hand or foot after placing it in an initial spot.  

Reset meets Makey Makey - Testing Feedback

During the workshop session, a number of user tests were performed on the interaction of the reset.

Based on observations, the interactions worked well and the user needed to run on the spot in order to get the music to stop playing. Testers enjoyed the interaction and responded positively. I would have preferred a prototype where the user did not have to attach any wires and got some ideas of how to do so by creating a DIY pressure pad that when stepped on would work as a button and this would work well for the physical exercise motivation, as it can be moved further away from the work station.

I asked the testers to answer three questions:

Q1 
On a scale of 1-10 (1 being not at all, 10 being perfect), how well does the reset encourage movement?

The average user said motivation to move was an 8 with the music, with one tester giving it a 10 for wanting the music to stop.

Q2
Would you encourage users to move in a different way? How?

Several suggestions were made for different movements, ranging from walking a certain number of steps, using sequenced arrows for the user to use like a DDR board, bouncing a ball or doing burpees, while 2 of the users said that the interaction was fine as is.

Q3
Would you like to see personalisation of the following elements:
(a) Time seated (Y/N)

In terms of changing the time seated, 75% of the users said they would not make it changeable. One user said that since the time was based on scientific study, it would be best to follow the suggested time. 

(b) Song choice (Y/N)

Changing the song was also not high on the priority list, as the choice of song "I like to move it" was extremely motivating because you wanted it to stop, if you pick your favourite song, you might be tempted to sing along instead of move around.

(c) Exercise level (Y/N)

Finally, all the users said that adapting the exercise level would be a great way to motivate and encourage movement. The suggestions mentioned in Q2 above would be ideal.

"Reset: the Sitting Intervention" meets the Makey Makey

I approached the MakeyMakey from a coding point of view first. I reasoned that once my interaction worked, I could have fun adding and exploring interactions. I do wish I had had a bit more time to play with interactions but I spent a bit longer on the code.

Development Process:

Testing the sitting interaction alone would not be enough, so I decided to revisit the original concept. The goal of the reset is to encourage people to move after sedentary periods. The reset woul make a sound and buzz to encourage movement.

How could I increase this level of encouragement?

Eventually I decided that one way could be to get the wearer to do a physical activity to be able to get the alarm to stop. I also decided that the alarm should go off until the wearer completed the activity, and then chose a song to meet the goal - "I like to move it" seemed the perfect fit.

Real-world scenario:

Sitting down starts the timer.
Standing up for longer than one minute stops the timer.
After 50 minutes of being seated, the alarm starts to go off to encourage the wearer to get moving.
The user must complete a physical activity to get the alarm to stop and be able to sit down again.

Testing Scenario:

Sitting down starts the timer.
Standing up stops the timer and resets it.
After 5 seconds, the song starts to play.
The sound will stop after the wearer runs on the mat for 10 steps.

Physical Components:

Designing physical interactions

Last week's class activity challenged us to think of 5 new, physical interactions that would change the way we do certain technological tasks.

E-mail

 (i) When selecting contacts, use a rolodex to be able to scroll through the address book.

 (ii) Adding an attachment by clicking a paperclip.

 (iii) Sending an email by flying a paper plane across the room.

 (iv) Stand up and jump on a pressure pad to send email.

 (v) Hit an arcade strength bar to send outgoing mails.

Twitter

 (i) Post a Tweet by flapping arms

 (ii) Whistle to post a tweet

 (iii) When using a hashtag, the user must press a button and say "hashtag" and then type in the word.

 (iv) When the user is typing a message on mobile, they can shake their phone and the last word they typed will become a hashtag term.

 (v) The user has a Twitter bird toy that must be squeezed to send a tweet they are typing.

Super Mario

 (i) Incorporate exercise - interact with wii, jump to get Mario to jump, run in place to get him to run, lift arms to change direction, etc.

 (ii) Jump on trampoline to get Mario to jump.

 (iii) Boxing gloves and padded controls.

Prototyping Feedback

In designing my prototypes for TwisterXO, I set out to find out which size mat to use. I got feedback from 10 people during the contact session and 2 more outside of the course.

I developed 3 different versions –

• a 3x3 grid

• 3 in a row on a 4x4 grid

• 4 in a row on a 4x4 grid

For each testing session there were two testers. They played two of the games in a randomly selected order.

To gain quantitative data, I timed the duration of each game.
On average, the 4 - 4x4 game took the longest to complete, taking up to 2 minutes, while the small, 3x3 grid took under 1 minute.

After the games, each user was asked to fill out a questionnaire.

Summary of findings:

• The 4x4 with 3 in a row game was the favourite with all of the testers choosing it as their preferred game.
• Adding body parts like the original Twister game: 60% said no.
• The majority of players said that the games were of average challenge
•  The 4/5 testers who played the 4 – 4x4 game rated it as 1 point higher on the challenge scale than the other version they played.
• The 3 – 4x4 game got a the highest number of scores for replayability, with 50% saying it was very playable and 25% saying it held an average level of replayability. It was also rated more replayable than both the other versions by 1 point in most comparisons.
• The 3 – 4x4 was rated more rewarding than the others.

When asked if the tester would fix anything, most said that the spinning arrow should be easier to click.

Other feedback included finding a way to make the game more skilful, Having multiple players rather than just 2, and Asking about playing with your body, so only having 4 markers to place.

Further development based on the findings:

• Multiple players
• Only 4 moves – include the option to lift one body part if all 4 are placed on the grid.
• Possibly adding an element of skill to counteract the random element.

The 3 - 4x4 grid will be further developed based on the findings.

Play it here

Instructions:

1. press the arrow to spin

2. choose your twister spot

3. next player repeat steps 1-2

Get 3 in a row to win

TwisterXO - AS3 planning

I feel grateful that I have done a lot of coding, but I am still learning AS3 so it is quite slow. The bounce tutorial was particularly helpful in getting the feel for the syntax.

I have started planning my prototype and I am not sure how adept I will be at AS3 within a week, so I will aim at getting the noughts and crosses interface done if I don't have time to figure out the Twister player options (left hand, right hand, foot).

In terms of classes, I would probably need a main, a Twister tile, a player and a spinner class, as outlined in the CRC cards below.

Makey-Makey friendly

In review of the video feedback, I decided to revisit some of my original ideas and see which would be easier to prototype with the MakeyMakey, as the reset does not make contact with anything and the MakeyMakey depends on this function.

I am revisiting TwisterXO, my Twister and Noughts & Crosses concept. New video to follow.

Types of Prototypes - Alarming!

Week 3 - Exercise 2

Types of prototypes

A horizontal prototype gives a view of features offered, and does not explain these in detail. 

A vertical prototype explore the function of a specific feature. In the image above, I have given two options the user can do when setting a new alarm - setting the chain of alarms and changing the alarm tone. Now one can envision what will happen or how one of the features works, rather than just knowing about the feature.

For the alarm exercise, I went on what I thought would be a diagonal prototype. From the main interface, the user can edit the chain alarm and edit it directly by clicking and holding the icon. Simply pushing the button will turn the feature on or off, but holding it in will bring up the settings page as before. This is another way of accessing the same tech without many steps.

Testing

The reset is a wearable lifestyle intervention. Students spend hours in sedentary positions and this is detrimental to health. Wearing the reset reminds you to take regular breaks. While it is not directly social, it does encourage wearers to take breaks away from their desks or laptops, which will hopefully lead to more meaningful interaction and study breaks.

While I tried to think of a more social idea, I had a bit of trouble with my creative process this time around. The reset is more of a personal intervention that I would use. Ideally I would like the clip to be smaller than the prototype shown.

It was fun to create the video and I learned a bit about editing because I hadn’t shot videos before this year, so I welcomed the new experience. I used a combination of editing software, starting in Photoshop and later iMovie to see how both are used. For filming, I used my compact camera for video and sound, and had my phone near me to record the audio for better audio quality, which I ended up using in the video, as it was clear and free of background noise.

Testing Feedback

1. How can the concept be made more social?

As stated, the problem is not addressing a social problem but it can be adjusted to be more social and interactive.

Some suggestions to make the concept more social:

• Use it as a competition between friends on social media.
• Encourage lazy or unmotivated people to move and be held accountable in a community.
• Used in nursing homes- where the nurses get feedback when someone has been sedentary for a long time, they can monitor and facilitate movement and walking.
•  Choose a different concept or problem area.

Further suggestions to make it more interactive were:

• Link to an app and social media.
• Have an app interface so you can set your preferred time period and see the percentage of time moving to percentage stationary.
• Have a timer and screen on the device

2. How could the video be improved?

The actual video received good feedback, the sound was clear and it was not too long.