Thoughts About New Interactions
Project Documentation and Collection of Things
Video Documentation: Radio User Tests from Jones Merc on Vimeo.
And finally some video material from the last user tests. Main focus lies on showing the problem with the volume adjustment (imaginary rotary knob). The video shows a part of a discussion where another proposal for the volume adjustment was brought up. It also shows a first implementation in use.
Another set of user tests was conducted. The music player and the helping assistant was tested this time. Again a lot of valuable feedback came together. Here a few to name:
Video Documentation: High Power LED dimming via Web from Jones Merc on Vimeo.
Using shiftr.io, an Arduino Yun and any sort of publishing device to shiftr (in this case a webpage publishes commands to increase or decrease LED brightness) allows me to control a lamp. This means I can also use gestures to trigger the publishing of those commands.
And at some point he (the programmed assistant) asks questions like «Did you know that other gestures exist?» That’s where I would like to answer, but no answer is expected by the machine. … That’s also confusing.
During the first complete user test with the music player a lot of interesting feedback came together. Beginning with things, which seem quite easy to resolve like the point above — the solution would be not to ask any questions, if the user can’t answer via gesture — going over to other simple statements («The music was too loud») and ending with more complex things like the question if and how much visual feedback is required to generate a pleasant user experience.
At the moment visual feedback is non-existent but substituted by acoustic feedback. Sounds for swiping, changing the volume and switching it on and off are provided. Still they are much more abstract, because the user first has to link a sound to a gesture or to an action respectively. Paired with faulty behaviour of the leap motion tracking device this leads to a lot of frustration. Some of it maybe can be replaced by redesign the assistant and it’s hints. (Maybe even warnings that the tracking is not 100% accurate).
Further user testing will give more insight if and how much the assistant should intervene.
Also, a deeper analysis of the video recordings taken from the test, will help improving the user experience.
Further notations:
Video Documentation: User Tests from Jones Merc on Vimeo.
User tests showed that users direct their gestures mostly towards the object, they want to control. A direct dialogue between the user and the object is obvious.
It also showed some interesting insights about how they interact with the gesture lamp. All of them found one of the On/Off gestures pretty quickly, but were puzzled if they came across the other which rather confused them instead of helping them.
Another interesting thing said, was that if a user is controlling sound, the source is less evident than a light (lamp) or a wind (fan) source. Sound/Music is rather surrounding us and therefore a gesture may not be directed that clearly to the object (music-player) itself.
The tests sure make me rethink some interaction steps and help to develop a smoother interaction flow.
Video Documentation: Object – Wizard of Oz from Jones Merc on Vimeo.
A nonfunctional prototype (object) in a «Wizard of Oz»-test-setup. A nearby computer allows to write the text which is subsequently displayed on the object’s screen. Without having to program a smart object with a fully functioning gesture recognition one is able to test different scenarios like this dialogue between user and object. Focus of the dialogue is how to slowly establish a gesture language without presenting it in the first place to the user but rather developing it in a dialogue between the two.
Video Documentation: Merge Gesture Prototype with Leap Motion from Jones Merc on Vimeo.
A small programmed prototype showing how to use a «new» gesture to merge something. Application fields are still vague, but this could be a way to diversify interaction design of multi-use devices like smartphones or computer. Using specific gestures to initiate a certain feature of an app could also strongly enhance productivity.