hcde 210

Device Prototyping

Overview

The purpose of this studio session was to build a low-fidelity prototype using littleBits, an intuitive electronics kit, in order to gain experience and familiarity with device prototyping principles.

What I Did

During this studio session, my group focused on building an anti-theft device prototype that would simulate vibrations and a sound indicator in order to show that the item had been stolen, which would hypothetically be remotely activated by a wireless control. My experience with the LittleBits kit was for the most part extremely intuitive, though we had some difficulties in sorting out some technical complications. For instance, when we were testing our function with our prototype, we weren’t sure how to actually activate the wireless functionality, which required some troubleshooting. We also had some difficulty simulating our scenario. We showcased a situation where someone would try to steal a user’s belonging, only to have their identity as the thief be tipped off by the activation of the anti-theft device by the user. This ended up being someone hindered by the portability of the wireless functionality being limited by the devices needing to stay plugged in, in order to work, which made the execution of the scenario itself a little more awkward than it could have been.

Here is a link to the video demo created for our device prototype for this concept.

Reflection

If I had the opportunity to do this project again, I would likely invest more time in coming up with ideas for a more interesting project beforehand. We ended up simply extemporizing on the base idea with the wireless functionality demonstrated with the littleBits in class, and adapting it to a marginally different situation, which isn’t terribly interesting or innovative at all. This may have been because we were fairly constrained by time, so we were more concerned with finishing the project and getting it done, rather than exploring littleBits and its capabilities to its limits. Having a solid, prior idea of what to do would have made it so doing the latter would actually be plausible, and would have made our prototype more intellectually engaging.

What I Liked

What I appreciated and liked best about this studio session was how it really demonstrated how quick and dirty device prototyping actually is. The idea of actually working with electronics to make a workable prototype seemed very intimidating, initially. Although our ease in building a workable prototype is largely, in part, due to the extremely intuitive and easy-to-use electronic kits we were given to work with, it did show that making a highly sophisticated, refined prototype isn’t necessarily required in order to showcase a concept. 

The colloquial idea of what a prototype actually is, from pop culture, movies and television, is very closely tied to the sort of prototypes we would expect from military construction and mechanical engineering. Although often highly experimental, rudimentary and flawed, these prototypes are still very close to the finished product, with strong visual and functional similarities. In contrast, what we built in studio session are were comparatively low-fidelity prototypes that would likely be very far removed from a final product, only conceptually demonstrating or representing certain functions. 

For example, in regards to the anti-theft prototype that we created, we used the moving rotor to simulate the function of a stolen object “vibrating” as an indicator that it had been stolen. The paper prototyping that we utilized in a previous studio session is another good example of this: although the prototypes were visually representative of what we would expect, they weren’t very durable or very functional.

Jeff discussed a research project that he worked on with one of his graduate students regarding determining the similarity of different disciplines based on algorithms constructed through Jeff’s work with machine learning and through consulting other professors with experience in neuro-linguistic programming; namely, in isolating and comparing similarity in sentence structure and words used. This aspect of the project, the subject of study, stood out to me. I thought the subject matter was interesting and worth investigating, and the data and relationships derived could be used to illustrate and determine many interesting things, such as the level of influence certain disciplines have on each other, based on observing how the bulk of academia in a particular discipline shifted over time.

             This research project’s investigation was accomplished by comparing and contrasting the determined similarities by disciplinary PhD research papers from Stanford from the past 16 years, and portraying the various relationships through a number of visualizations. One such visualization was a distance matrix which was very difficult to interpret, but contained all of the raw data in its most complete form. In order to make this more readable and distinct, through a process called dimensionality reduction, this data was reduced down to the form of a scatterplot. Unfortunately, this data seemed to have some complications. Although it demonstrated some interesting changes over time, it seemed to suggest certain relationships and conclusions that weren’t necessarily true when you examined these disciplines on an individual, focused level. Petroleum engineering, for example, was suggested to have a closer relationship with life sciences than it actually did, because of how the visualization portrayed the distance between the various disciplines in the scope of the scatterplot. This individual visualization analysis unfortunately had flaws as well – it would portray relationships that didn’t seem quite cogent in comparison to what was reflected in reality. For instance, English was portrayed as being virtually identical to other humanities fields and having no remarkable difference, which clearly isn't reflected in reality. All of these issues were accounted for in the final incarnation of the visualization for the data, which included both a comprehensive scope with an individualized focus by having individual papers and their relevance to different fields indicated. Additionally, in order to account for erroneous relationships being displayed when they shouldn't have been, experts in various fields would be consulted to ensure that the relationships being displayed were realistically and logically consistent.

Kristine discussed device prototyping in several stages and versions in regards to her own independent study project, EMAR, a robot designed to assess stress levels in students and teenagers as an alternative to the inaccurate data provided by surveys, which have been shown to be inconsistent with captures of real-time data. In designing EMAR, Kristine frequently referenced her user research skills; for instance, surveying the design and structure of robots already built in the real world and how they appealed to her target user group: adolescents. This was done in order to inform the final decision on shape and structure for EMAR. It was important to decide and isolate this design early, as making an early prototype was important and necessary. Early prototyping for EMAR was useful, because it would allow Kristine to close the gaps in data, due to lack of substantial research done on how receptive teenagers are to robot interaction, and see whether or not the idea is in itself a viable one.

One particularly interesting thing that I observed with Kristine’s methodology and research was that, although user research was an important contributor to creating and informing EMAR’s design, the prototyping process and feedback received from that prototyping, in turn, helped to facilitate her own user research, in informing what students wanted out of the robot, the sort of data to prioritize, and considerations that need to be made in regards to their mental health, how to incentivize usage of the robot, what should be changed about the voice, appearance, personality and interactions, and other things besides.

Visualization

Overview

The purpose of this studio session was to perform an exercise with visualization and gain familiarity with data visualization techniques by taking a particular persona and scenario, then processing raw data in order to produce visualizations that illustrate relationships that would be helpful for answering a particular research question. 

What I Did

Our initial exposure to Tableau during studio session was very helpful and illustrative. Having a step-by-step demonstration of the basic functions gave me a good idea of how to proceed with experimenting with the program and how to adapt it to producing my various visualizations, which I just adapted from the visualizations that we created during the exercises that we worked with. I wish I had more time to become more familiar with Tableau. It seems like a very powerful tool and I’d like to have the opportunity to explore it more in a professional or academic context. 

 My particular scenario was designing around finding the ideal parking spot for a college student who wished to prevent theft from their car, in which they would have to store their possessions overnight. I decided to focus on location-based data, in the context of specific districts and locations and the amounts of particular types of crime in various locations.

Here is a link to the final visualizations created for this scenario.

Reflection

There were certain relationships between data points that I wanted to be able to juxtapose and display, but I was highly uncertain on how to actually create their displays with Tableau. I felt largely limited by this unfamiliarity with Tableau, rather than my ability to come up with ideas as a subject of study. I also struggled a lot with determining whether or not my inability to create the results that I wanted was indicative of some sort of error with the data or due to my lack of control over Tableau’s mechanics. If I had the opportunity to approach this project again, I would delegate more time for working with Tableau and figuring out how to actually do everything that I wished I could do with the tool.

What I Liked

I appreciated the opportunity to work with Tableau and learn more about it. With most visualization generation software, there’s a lot of struggle in reaching the level of technique that you’d want in producing a visualization that accurately reflects what you’d want. For example, pivot tables can be nightmarish to work with, in the context of Excel. In contrast, Tableau is very intuitive and simple. I see a lot of contexts where Tableau would be incredibly useful for producing aesthetically pleasing, visually straightforward graphs and data tables in the future for things like presentations and lab reports.

Applications

User Research

Overview

The purpose of this studio session was to perform an exercise with user research, particularly in observing situations in real time, identifying common, ubiquitous practices and finding solutions to inefficiencies and difficulties with these practices.

What I Did

The location that I focused on for this user research exercise was the District Market at Alder Hall. I focused on finding interesting practices and I didn’t have a particular organization to my observations; I wrote down things as soon as I observed that they were relevant, then started measuring them when I observed a pattern. For instance, after I started noticing that a very large volume of students would come in after classes were over, I decided to start observing the differences in time required to complete certain practices during these periods with a large influx of students to have an empirical difference.

Reflection

I’ve been to the District Market quite a few times during my time at UW, so I do have some familiarity with some of the common issues that one might encounter there, just from personal experience in standing in lines and sidestepping wayward cashiers. I did have the opportunity to observe some things that I thought were interesting, which I didn’t notice before. For instance, I noticed how restocking items tended to occur around times when the market was experiencing high volumes of activity, such as during lunch time, when many students would be coming to the market to get lunch. Whether this occurred by coincidence or design, I couldn’t particularly tell, but it definitely seemed to be a significant oversight.

Considering the sheer number of times that I’ve been to the District Market, it’s interesting that I never really noticed so many things, all of which I uncovered in a comparatively much shorter period of close observation. Perhaps it is because, as a consumer, I don’t have anything compelling me to focus on potential inefficiencies that don’t necessarily affect me directly. Something like poorly timed stocking schedules is something that would certainly only directly impact the staff and the District Market itself. This seems to illustrate the importance of being aware of the limits of one’s personal observational scope, as, although those poorly timed schedules wouldn’t perceptibly change my life if they were made more efficient, those sort of inefficiencies likely do compound to impact other things like the availability of staff for cashiers, which does, in turn, impact me. It’s also something that’s very important to be aware of, as a designer. Allowing your personal experiences to cloud your observations will greatly limit your ability to address important issues in a nuanced way.

What I Liked

This activity was interesting and useful. Not only was it very illustrative in demonstrating unexpected inefficiencies in organizational structures, but it provided opportunities for introspective reflection, gaining insights into ourselves and how research shapes us, which isn’t something that we often have an opportunity to think about. It also demonstrated the importance of considering these insights, which I personally think is a very important point to illustrate, not only in user research, but anything that is reliant on the saliency of our own observations.

Reflexivity

During this particular panel discussion, we discussed principles of ideation and user research. Jake Fleisher who is a Principal UW Research at Blink UW, discussed two case studies that he worked on in the past: one involving a study into researching communication design around tech sales, support and relationship managers – namely, what their needs are and how they are addressed. Jake investigated a number of inefficiencies and areas of common frustration and dissatisfaction in their work and network of communication, in the hopes of finding a solution that would address the issues in the communication process by incorporating each study subject’s own process in finding solutions. The second case study involved optimizing and improving a handless water faucet. The key point in both of these studies was how important it was to consider and design solutions around pre-existing habits – conforming solutions around what users are already used to, rather than forcing them to learn a new process.

Katie Derthick discussed her PhD dissertation, which had an interesting focus on investigating a new perspective on design principles. The core premise for her dissertation is the idea that technology and society shape one another, and that our preconceived notions and assumptions, which are, in part, formulated by societal norms and standards, influence our design decisions and choices. One example she brought up was how Facebook’s gender choices, when making a Facebook account, were designed with the assumption of a universal gender binary in that there are only two choices available, even though that isn’t necessarily an accurate reflection of reality. In her dissertation, she hopes to deconstruct a presumption of Western individualism as the predominant central principle for design, and attempts to observe how technology and design might be viewed from a different theoretical lens: specifically, Buddhism. Buddhism observes a very different perception of self than what is the norm in American societies, which likely lends a very interesting and different perspective to design principles.  

Ideation

Overview

During this studio session, we focused on exercises involving different techniques of ideation, particularly focused toward the generation of ideas around mundane topics, such as vacationing.

What I Did

We created a total of twenty sketches, each depicting a unique idea which we had come up with centered around vacationing. Ten of these sketches were unique, unrelated ideas generally related to vacationing. For instance, one idea that I came up with for this category was of an underwater hotel. The other ten sketches were variations on an idea from the first set deemed to be the most promising. For this set, I based the ideas on a portable translation device that would automatically detect the desired audio and translate it, either to the user or to a listener that the user is speaking to. 

Here is a link to both sets of sketches.

Reflection

I had a lot of difficulty coming up with ideas that I thought were interesting or unique. For this particular studio session, we weren’t necessarily being assessed on the quality and practicality of the products of our ideation, but I still wanted to come up with some ideas that were unique that hadn’t already been suggested before.

I struggled a great deal with coming up with ideas because of this. I also had some difficulty drawing sketches that intuitively expressed the idea without any text embellishment or explanation. Although it was emphasized that we aren’t being assessed on artistic quality, I still felt that drawing ability was a limitation in this, as it’s hard to express certain functions of an idea without being able to draw it in a recognizable way. Imposing limitations, as suggested as a possible tip for this particular deliverable, on my ideation process actually didn’t seem to help me very much, as I would end up just coming up with variations of similar ideas with minute differences.

Wild Card

I picked the most promising design that I would use as the focus for my second set of ten sketches based on the wide applicability and ease of implementation for the idea. A portable translation device would be particularly apt for this. Although it obviously has extremely useful applications for vacationing, especially for tourists who are traveling to foreign countries, it could just as easily be utilized in any context that would require knowledge of a second language. There are already existing technologies and software that utilize input audio translation that could be adapted for creating such a device, which adds to the concept being easy to implement.

Applications

Ideation techniques and ideation as a process has many applications even beyond fields of design, where the applications are immediately obvious. Any field that requires creative expression could utilized the techniques that were practiced during this exercise. For example, creative writing is a field that lives and dies on the saliency of its ideas. Coming up with a unique and interesting setting, premise or narrative structure is extremely important for distinguishing your piece from others, especially when it’s entirely possible that there have been already dozens or hundreds of existing iterations of that same idea. 

Alan Borning, a Professor of Computer Science at UW, discussed One Bus Away, a project that he still directs and helps to manage to this date. It is an application that utilizes GPS data to determine an accurate estimate of how far away a bus actually is in real-time, opposed to the approximation provided by official schedules. In presenting this project, Borning demonstrated principles of user-centered design and value-sensitive design by showing how human values were considered in every step of the process in developing the application, and also demonstrated the complication of the professional world by showing how stakeholder values can come in conflict with those user-centered interests.

Laura Barboza, a Senior User Experience Researcher at Nordstrom Direct, demonstrated work that she managed for Nordstrom’s Anniversary Sale in testing the effectiveness of the Nordstrom website interface to determine whether or not it successfully conveyed the features of the sale and its effects on prices, the loyalty benefits of early access gained from being a member, and how to access the sale. The presentation showed not only just how complex a usability test is, but how many steps and revisions were required for making the final product, how deliberate many design choices were based on the insights provided by usability testing and an active demonstration of many of the techniques discussed previously commonly used with usability testing.

Usability Testing

Overview

The focus of this studio session was learning about techniques and principles of usability testing through a usability test that applied these techniques and principles focused around a particular appliance, namely, a fridge.

What We Did

As the focus of our usability test, my group focused on a commercial fridge that focused on selling solely on selling Odwalla. Our objective was to test the efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction of our users in accomplishing several functions: selecting an Odwalla drink displayed in the fridge (was the fridge designed in a way that made all the flavors easy to see?), taking an Odwalla drink out of the fridge and putting the Odwalla drink back (did the fridges’ structure make it difficult to remove and place things in the fridge?). In doing so, we wanted to observe how they were limited in accomplishing their tasks by the design of the fridge itself. 

Our presentation, which details our aggregate raw data and extrapolated observations, is below:

Reflection

One of the things we had most difficulty with this task was selecting tasks that would illustrate interesting or unexpected difficulties with the fridge, while still being easy to test. The insights that we learned from our users’ observations about the difficulty of using the fridge, were unfortunately fairly intuitive, likely because the tasks we selected were not sufficiently complex. I think this sheds some light on part of why creating a product absent of flaws can be so difficult. Many bugs and issues that tend to show up with released applications, in my experience, are generally not focused around the primary functions, but instead the obscure but presently mundane functions that are immediately obvious. Part of the difficulty is anticipating tasks that users will commonly encounter that aren’t so common that they’re easily accounted for outside of usability testing, but also not so obscure that it isn’t worth investing the resources to refine them.

What I Liked

I liked having the opportunity to be introduced to a procedural methodology specifically oriented around systematically observing exactly how well users can utilize and understand how to use a product, rather than having to resort to just guessing and empathizing. 

Applications

Interaction Design

Overview

For this particular studio session, we applied principles of interaction design by creating prototypes of an app that facilitates the usage of citizen science for scientific research purposes. 

What I Did

In my case, I designed an application focused around recording existing and yet-to-be-found food resources for the purposes of urban foraging.  I chose to focus on pedestrians and hikers as they would be the user base that would most likely happen upon food resources. This was accomplished through paper prototyping and drafting of the concept, then created a final prototype and linked the composite functions of the application (recording location of resources, photo of resource, amount of food and plants available at resource, social networking , leader board, delegated points and prizes for points as an incentive) through a low-fidelity modeling website, POP.  Here is a video demonstration of the application and all of its functions.

Reflection

This exercise illustrated to me just how strongly behavior-oriented interaction design and perhaps human-oriented design in general tends to be. The bulk of my design choices throughout this assignment were dependent on my predictions of potential user behavior. How can we properly and accurately observe these behavior patterns in a way that is relevant to design? Here, I had to rely on my own social intuition and anecdotal experience. Is there a more methodological process that can be utilized to this end?

The major issue that I encountered was largely technical. I had some difficulty making the video as the microphone on my laptop was broken, so I had to record the audio and video separately and sync the audio, which I had never done before. Had I started my work on the application earlier, I could have found more apt replacements and the process wouldn’t have been quite as stressful.

What I Liked

I really enjoyed being able to take the concept that I had designed and construct it in a tangibly interactive prototype. It’s something I’ve never had the opportunity to do before, and it not only helped me iron out some design oversights but also made the idea itself feel more real and complete.

Applications

What was most clear upon completing this exercise was the distinct differences between conventional engineering principles and interaction design. While the the design of applications in interaction design is oriented around the relationship between the primary users of the application, much of conventional engineering, however, like software engineering, is focused around a technical endgame: the effectiveness or efficiency of the product to accomplish its objective. 

The focus in this studio session was to attain familiarity with the process of user-centered design. Brainstorming, as depicted above, is an essential part of this process. In this circumstance, our ideas were focused around finding subjects for a smart-vehicle user-interface.

We utilized these ideas to construct a scenario around which to design a specialized interface, with common functions that one could expect a user of that vehicle to need. For example, my group designed a GPS service similar to Google Maps, with an added functionality for sorting locations based on their distance from the user, which would be ideal for a busy family planning a trip that would use a tent-car.

Throughout the design process, my group had difficulty striking a balance between how specific and how encompassing our interface design should be. Since it’s a vehicle used by a family, should we focus on the specific needs of the family rather than camping in general, as any general user of a tent-car might do? Should it be customized to our scenario, which was a very specific activity: fishing? Would the inclusion of those specific functions take away from more generalized and perhaps, widely applicable functions?  We decided on erring on the side of a more general interface, but these are important questions to consider.

This process was an intriguing thought experiment, as it illustrated just how many different considerations need to be made in user-centered design, and how many of these considerations are not at all intuitive. Because we chose to focus on unusual ideas like tent-cars and babies on hoverboards for this exercise, we were forced to stretch our thinking and empathize with circumstances from perspectives we weren’t necessarily familiar with. It also demonstrated the importance of preserving unusual, potentially ridiculous ideas because doing so stifles the innovative and unique solutions that can often be developed. All appreciated insights.