Usabilty Test I

Got a chance to run 3 friends through the usability test.
For each user the selection method was Mode --> Task.
Haven't worked out the priority of the modes yet. Having a blast with the sketching.

-SRE

Quick question about load questions

Stephen, I'm writing the new usability study and am curious about the best way to ask questions. I'll post the study once done but...

Is there a best way not to load the question?

I want a user to play a DVD, for example, the objective is either;
1. Play the DVD, or
1. Start the DVD playing.

This is the fundamental reason for the research so, is it best just to stick with one way, mix it up or test both with different users and see if the question does influence the user.

Since this will be done with a limited number of people, I'm not sure if the testing for the effect of the question on users will become apparent and differentiable from their personal preference.

-Simon

April 27th Stuff

Stuff to get done for the First week in may.
1. Determine which comes first the mode or the task
2. Create some sketches of the interface

Notes:
Keep the focus on the additional stuff that can be added to the area, specifically using the new wii functions.

In relation to measure and analysis there are 2 methods;
1. Controlled experiment: results in a paper
2. Make the design choices and then gauge the users reactions: results in finding a solution.

The interface is the link between the Wiimote and the System.
The gesture contrast to the game gestures in the the gestures in games focus of creating challenges whereas the system must design gestures to minimize challenges.

While sketching design remember that the focus is on the Wiimote capabilities.

Menu Idea

Up late watching the cricket and playing around in GLUT with a menu. It looks basic, (I was testing the implementing billboards that always look at the camera, added zoom to the icon for fun, like apple's dock) but an idea of guess who came to me.


Second Picture is the result of moving right.

If you select Play, that limits your next choice or probably next choice. As icons are selected other available options can fall down and lay flat. If the camera pans to a view from above the top view of all the icons that have fallen down are visible and the options not selectable are not.

While these pictures don't show it the positioning of the icon is a rough semicircle, so the above view can be controlled in the same fashion as the main menu or a different style. The two controls might allow a methods for controlling different versions of the same function.

Also, Pushing these down seem like natural selection methods while holding the Wiimote. While not a natural gesture, it makes sense. Any foward movement would push it down.

Following on from this the idea of hanging board from near the top of the screen and hitting them to select. Making them dynamic seems they would appear to a user as movable and let users slid them to the side to swap modes. This would require some screen space compared to gestures which ideally needed none.

This I think might be more intuitive to control but not to select modes to begin with. From example sweeping the remote to toggle a board on the side of the screen seems to easy to do.

Unfortunately the Usability plan doesn't deal with any of this. The Test would need to be altered to deal more with understanding the tasks a user is going to select so they are avaliable and how a user would swap modes.

Usability Test I Outline

Usability Test I

Charades: Gesture Creation Tools

Steps

1. Select a group of participants of no less than 5 people
2. Play a constrained games of Charades using the Wordlist (See Rules and Wordlist)

Path One (Exhaustive)

1. Play the game until each person needs to perform one action and the guess is correct.

Path II (Collaborative)

1. Sit down with group and discuss the action related to the wordlist
2. Discuss each word and determine the most popular action
3. Discuss alternative actions if some seem similar

Goals

1. A step of actions that match to the wordlist
2. A list of alternative actions if some are similar
1. Preferences for actions must be highlighted

Rules

1. Miming Player

1.1. One one-hand may be used.

1.1.1. Person may choose which hand.

1.1.2. Players must hold the Wiimote in that hand at all times

1.1.3. All players must hole the Wiimote in a similar fashion

1.2. Persons must remain seated

1.3. No communication allowed.

1.4. No sounds like

2. Winning Conditions

2.1. Answer must be said more than once, to get other possible descriptions for the actions.

2.2. Miming player must describe the action that they were performing

3. Other Rules

3.1. Each guess must be different from the one before it, to stop people saying “play, play, play” to get around Rule 2.1

Wordlist

Gesture Description

- Down

- Up

- Left

- Right

Action Description

- Video

- Television

- Music

- DVD

- Picture

- Movie

- Play list

- Volume

- Audio

- Snap-shot

- Zoom

Task Description

- Next

- Forward

- Previous

- Back

- Select

- Enter

- Play

- Pause

- Stop

- Repeat

- Channel Up/Next

- Channel Down/Previous

- Full-screen

- Seek

- Volume Up

- Volume Down

- Seek

- Zoom in

- Zoom out

Recording Methods

- If possible film the miming player,

o failing that record the audio from guessing player.

o Record Time and match top each miming player description

Other Factors

For context purposes,

- Show each person a set list of tasks and actions, or

- Display a media player for reference

- Brief the people as to the purpose to get them thinking in terms of media players

Path II Discussion

For each Action and Task Description;

1. Perform the mining players action

2. Action definition:

Ask;

2.1. What Task does this action relate to?

2.2. Is there a better word to describe the task?

2.3. Is the action similar to another Action’s task?

2.4. Is this the best action for the task?

2.5. How can it be improved?

2.6. Is their and inverse action?

3. Action description

Read the miming players description

3.1. Does this description match the action?

3.2. What is a better description of the action?

Record Goals

Task	Action Description	Action Video
Current Task List (from research)
Seek
Previous/Next
Play
Pause
Stop
Volume
Volume up/Down
Zoom
Zoom In/Out
Mute
Repeat
Full Screen
Snap-shot
New Tasks (from test)

Progress Project Outline

Stephen I just sent you a copy of my project progress outline. There are 2 attachments. The outline itself and a reduced version of the project plan.

Can you drop me a line if they don't arrive in the next little while.

-SRE

Project Plan

Morning,

I’m curious about the layout of the actual progress plan. Using KickStart and MS Project I’ve ended up with a document which is viewed as a 5 page by 5 page layout. I’m curious about how to include the plan into the Project Progress report. I’ve attached a single page vcersion of to show you the scope off it. I’m curious to know if a task list with dates included acceptable or does a gantt Chart need to be included? Since the addition of the gantt chart creates excessive complexity I assume that it won’t bee needed. So far I plan using a task list and include single page over view which I’ve attached.

Also, I’m assuming we aren’t meeting today, due to the holidays. If this isn’t the case please ring me and I’ll get my self to Uni. I’ll also post this to the blog with a screen cap of the single page.

-Simon

Edit: To get a feel for the scope of this picture there are 186 task on the left

Simlar Thesis Project

http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/db/thesis/topicinfo/JE02.html

A speech/computer gesture recognition version of the project. The link in the page looks at National Information and Communication Technology's research projects.
Similar in that they hope to use human gestures to control the communication. Different in that they want thecomputer to a recoignise natural human input.

UML Design

Haven't used UML for a while so it's a bit iffy,

April 6th Brief

Got the comment. The plan for the next week is;

1. Draft of progress report done by Friday.

Looks like an easy week :)

Actually the with the gestures and review of the task done the problem is crystallizing well. Appears right now to be:

WiiMenu: A multi-modal menu design to control common media center applications, based around gestures with a deeper focus on finding an effective solution to mode error.

The software design itself will focus on modularization. That is to say the Wiimote gestures/control will be independent of the application (plug-in ish?) and the same will go for the system mapping device.

Stay tuned for the software design map ...

6th April Technical Stuff

edit: removed web tags
1. Gesture Set

1. speed -fast/slow/none - Speed of the motion
1. Motion - lift/drop, sway/stagger, push/pull - Movement on Y, X and Z Planes (Lift,Sway, Push == vector [1,1,1]
2. angle - 0...360> - degree of rotation(0 - 360)
1. rotation - pitch/antipitch, roll/antiroll, - movement around X and Z planes
   
3. orientation - up/down/north/south/east/west - orientation with up being button-side, north being IR port-side
4. gravity face -orientation - side furtherest away from center of earth (I.E. "up')
5. direction -orientation - direction the IR side faces
   

The gesture syntax would therefore by
gravity face - direction - speed motion - angle rotation

Example

1. Sitting at rest pointing forward
   
1. up - north - none - 0
   
2. Pulling in a fishing line
1. up - north - none - 90 Pitch
3. Swiping a credit card
1. east - north - fast pull - 0
   

The orientation has the same setup as the
motion, but the different names imply movement. Not sure if similar names would be appropriate. (Test?)

The Task List
This list was generated through lookiong at the current applications, such as winamp, nero, media player, and a few of the media centers (similar method to the MCE reviews)
Seek, Previous, Play, Pause, Stop, Next, Volume, Mute, Repeat, Random, Full Screen, Channel Up, Channel Down, Zoom, File Manager, Snaphot.

This list after look at the task similarities reduces to

1. Seek / File Manager
   
2. Previous/ Channel Down
3. Play & Pause / File Manager
4. Stop
5. Next/Channel Up
6. Volume/Zoom
7. Mute
   
8. Repeat
9. Random
10. Full Screen
11. Snap-shot
    

The table at the bottom of this summaries their their functions depending on the actions. A review of the function is shows here

A – Audio Player

V – Video Player

P – Picture Viewer

D – DVD player

T – Television

	Similar Effect	Different Effect	No Effect	Multiple Mode Running
Seek	A V D	P	T	None
Previous/Next	A V P D			P & Other : T *
Play & Pause	A V P D			P & Other
Stop	A V P	D T		P & Other
Volume	A V D T	P		P & Other
Mute	A V D T		P	None
Repeat	A V P		D T	P & Other: A
Random	A V P		D T	P & Other: A V
Full Screen	A V P D T			P & Other
Snap-shot	V D T	P	A	None

*Picture in Picture channel selection clash

Get ready for it,

Seek

Continuous, Show as a horizontal scroll bar. If combined with a file manager it can act as a play list control (Nero)

Application	Effect
Audio	Searches through the current track selection
Video	Searches through the current track selection
Picture	Opens File Manager
DVD	Searches through the current track selection
TV	No Effect

Previous/Next

Discrete, Represented as a Left arrow

Application	Effect
Audio	Moves selection to the previously/next played track, or returns to the start
Video	Moves selection to the previously/next played track, or returns to the start
Picture	Moves to the previous/next Picture
DVD	Moves to the previous/next Chapter
TV	Changes the channel to the previous/next channel in channel list

Play & Pause

Discrete, Right triangle or vertical equals sign

Application	Effect
Audio	Begins selection playing or stops in current position, or if no track present open file manager
Video	Begins selection playing or stops in current position or if no track present open file manager
Picture	Begins a slide show or stops on current selection
DVD	Begins selection playing or stops in current position
TV	Separate Play: Begins recording TV increased recording time. Opens Video File manager Pause: pauses recording

Stop

Discrete

Application	Effect
Audio	Stops playback and moves to beginning of current track
Video	Stops playback and moves to beginning of current track
Picture	Stops playback and moves to initially selected picture
DVD	Stops DVD altogether or returns to main menu
TV	Stops recording

Volume

Continuous, Usually discrete selection available

Application	Effect
Audio	Increases/decreases the volume of play back
Video	Increases/decreases the volume of play back
Picture	Increases/decreases the level of zoom
DVD	Increases/decreases the volume of play back
TV	Increases/decreases the volume of play back

Mute

Discrete, Volume derivative

Application	Effect
Audio	Mutes sound
Video	Mutes sound
Picture	None
DVD	Mutes sound
TV	Mutes sound

Repeat

Discrete, loops playback

Application	Effect
Audio	Loops intro, track or play-list
Video	Loops play-list
Picture	Loops play-list
DVD	Nothing
TV	Nothing

Random

Discrete

Application	Effect
Audio	Randomizes next task selection or play-list
Video	Randomizes next task selection or play-list
Picture	Randomizes next picture selection
DVD	Nothing
TV	Nothing

Full-screen

Discrete, possible measure to choose mode selection

Application	Effect
Audio	Adds visualization or goes into full-screen and removes dock
Video	Goes into full-screen and removes dock
Picture	Goes into full-screen and removes dock
DVD	Goes into full-screen and removes dock
TV	Goes into full-screen and removes doc

Snap-shot

Discrete,

Application	Effect
Audio	Nothing
Video	Take a picture of current Screen
Picture	Opens for editing
DVD	Take a picture of current Screen
TV	Take a picture of current Screen