Project EI Exploring Interactions

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Cycle 2 - ITERATE Process Report Michiel Niesten | 1355597

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Preface
This is a report on the second cycle of the IDE course Exploring Interactions (ID4250). Project Exploring Interactions is the first Master specific course for the master program Design for Interaction. In this course designs are generated with an interaction focussed approach. This is a report on the second cycle of the process. The first cycle (IDEATE) is about generating the first design goal and interaction vision. This cycle also contains the first research. In the second cycle (ITERATE) a concept was further developed and explored. In the last cycle of the course (DEMONSTRATE) a design concept will be modelled and tested. Each student group got one topic assigned to. The student groups meet to work together and evaluate their progress. The topic for the group I work in is Mobile City. This topic deals with the urbanization, new technologies, but most of all peoples needs and wishes. This vast topic leaves a lot of room for the students to explore. This report combines the deliverables for this cycle. It contains the design & research report and the reflection on the workshop. Apart from that it also contains additional information on the process so far. Enjoy reading, Michiel Niesten

Contents
Design Goal & Interaction Vision 4 Personae 5 Scenarios 6 Senses 8 Idea directions 9 Customer Journey Map 12 Research Workshop 14 Conclusion 15

Design Goal & Interaction Vision

To just shortly recap on the first cycle I will again give my design goal and interaction vision.

Design Goal
Help recreational pedestrians in their daily environment enjoy their walks by amazing/ surprising them. For this design goal recreational pedestrians can be described as pedestrians without a clear destination; people who go for a walk because they want to get some fresh air, get some private time or walk their dog. The daily environment is an environment the pedestrian is familiar with because he/she walks there regularly. This can either be their own living area or a shopping area/city park the person visits often.

Effect - Emotion n - Interactio

Envi r
ment/Con on

User(s)

Interaction Vision
I want the interaction between the user and my product to be comfortably refreshing. The two main qualities in this interaction vision are comfortable and refreshing. The contrast between these two qualities will form the basis for my final design. A movie representing the interaction vision can be found on Shareworks. During the process the quality refreshing has changed in the direction of amazing.

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Personae
In the first cycle of the project I got a better idea of who the target group for my design actually was. To make it easier for myself to place myself in their position I created personae. These will also help communicate about the target group. These are the three personae I created:

Age: 58 & 51

Jan & Astrid

Goals: - Get some fresh air - Break the work routine Jan works full-time as a safety expert at a factory. Astrid works part-time at a local bank.

We like to go for a walk in the weekends, because we dont want to spend the entire day indoors.

Age: 21 & 22

Sophie & Ruben

Goals: - Get time together - Get some fresh air Sophie is a law student in her third year. Ruben is an architecture student in his fourth year.

We dont even have to talk. Sometimes we just walk and we feel comfortable that way. Take a breather.
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Age: 66

Gerard (& Max)

Goals: - Walk the dog - Getting out Gerard is a retired accountant. He lives with his wife Lisa. He is the one who walks Max most of the time.

Retirement made me appreciate walking Max even more. It is also good for my physical health.

Scenarios
Jan & Astrid
It is sunday afternoon. Astrid just had tea with her husband Jan after an extensive brunch. Astrid and Jan both feel like taking a walk to break out of the rut. When they reach the city park after 5 minutes Astrid realizes that they are talking about their jobs again. This is really unsatisfactory. Jan is talking about his colleague who forgot to wear a helmet again when a seemingly normal street lamp changes from a warm yellow colour to green. After being silent for half a second Astrid expresses her amazement to Jan. Jan and Astrid start a conversation on how they think the street scene should be more interesting. While and even after the conversation they notice more and more what happens around them. The street scene becomes more interesting just by thinking it should be and the rest of the walk they talk about their surroundings.

Sophie & Ruben

After visiting Sophies parents Ruben and Sophie decide they need some private time. They think walking will create the freedom for them to get some time together. After the lively lunch they had with Sophies family they feel quite comfortable by just walking hand in hand and enjoying walking together. After a while of silence they notice a sudden change in lighting colour. Because they were happy walking the way they did it feels uncomfortable to start talking or to force their selves not to comment on the surprise. They both decide to remain silent and it feels a bit uncomfortable for a few seconds before they continue their way as they did. 6

Gerard (& Max)

Since his retirement Gerard is mostly home working on his car. Since the retirement he is also the only one who walks Max. He is still happily married to Lisa, but walking the dog is something he does on his own. On a normal sunday afternoon he takes Max for an extra long walk. He walks in the city centre for about fifteen minutes (and meets and old colleague) before he heads for the park where Max is allowed to run freely. When they are in the park Gerard suddenly notices a change in lighting colour. Because Max is running about ten meters behind him he stops to investigate the lights. He is pretty amazed by this detail the municipality has put in the park. The rest of the walk he focusses on more than just Max and his thoughts about his car project.

Insights from scenarios Jan & Astrid

Their walk isnt completely satisfactory on its own. The change gives them something to talk about. They start paying more attention to their surroundings. The product will complete their walk.

Sophie & Ruben

Their walk is already satisfactory the way it is. The change makes them feel uncomfortable. There is no effect that takes longer than a few seconds. The product will not contribute to their walk.

Gerard (& Max)

The walk is already satisfactory the way it is. The change amazes Gerard. He becomes more focussed on his surroundings. The product will contribute to his walk.

As you can see Sophie and Ruben dont profit from the product I intend to design. Therefore I have decided to drop this part of the target group. The target group can be roughly divided by the goals the users have: Get fresh air/get out Walk dog Get time together

Effects

The effects I found are: Gets you out of the rut Provides conversation topic Distracts Makes aware of surroundings Triggers curiosity Note that all the effects can be perceived positive as well as negative. When you are in the drag of daily life, Like Jan & Astrid, all the effects are positive. But if you are in the happy trance, like Ruben and Sophie, the effects will be negative.

Senses
In the previous cycle I have chosen a visual surprise mainly because stimulating the other senses can be perceived irritating. Auditive and olfactory stimuli are irritating if they are constant. Gustatory stimuli are impossible to achieve and can be perceived as irritating. And since the walking surface is pretty much all that pedestrians touch kinaesthetic stimuli are difficult to achieve as well. There is a possibility to think about changing the temperature or the smoothness of the walking surface. A possibility to prevent irritation with auditive or olfactory stimuli is to let them be more interactive by being able to trigger them so someone can choose to ignore them (by not triggering them). A good example of this is the piano stairs [1]. Possibilities to make something visually surprising are: Out of place objects Strange sized objects Function of object unclear Strange visual aspects Colour Size Shape Form Texture Composition Rhythm Proportion Unity Chaos Line Direction Changing visual aspects

[1] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1218944 8

Idea directions
Not being restricted by visual stimuli anymore I created some possible ideas to see what the direction of further research could be.

Changing lights

This is more or less the idea I closed the first cycle with. In this idea the colour of the lights changes when a pedestrian passes by. ____________________________ Freedom to interact: No Sense: Visual Interaction required: Yes Interaction: Passive

Changing fence poles

This Is also a visual change, but doesnt work with lighting and the idea is to make a constant wave of movement which is only amplified by passing pedestrians. In this way there is less interaction required to create the surprise. ____________________________ Freedom to interact: No Sense: Visual Interaction required: No Interaction: Passive

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Music path

In this idea direction I have chosen to work with sound. This is only possible if the user can choose to turn the sound on or off. You can see tiles on the path which will produce a sound when someone stands/walks on it (like the piano stairs). ____________________________ Freedom to interact: Yes Sense: Auditive Interaction required: Yes Interaction: Active

Other

I have completely ignored the kinaesthetic stimuli, but I see this more as a feature to add value to one of the idea directions mentioned above. Apart from that I would like to emphasize that these are directions rather than actual ideas. There is still a lot of variation possible within these directions.

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Customer Journey Map

To map the most important factors of the intended interaction I decided to create a customer journey map. These factors are: Amazement and Comfort (as stated in the interaction vision). Per stage of the entire journey of the pedestrian I determined the intended level of the interaction factors. This helps to see the effect of the product on the entire journey rather than only during the actual interaction.

At home

Leaving

Walking

Seeing object

Interactin

Jan and Astrid are still at home and a little bored. They decide to go for a walk. Being in their home environment they are obviously very comfortable.

They put on their shoes and are still in their home environment. Before opening the front door they are still in a warm and cosy environment.

As soon as they are walking they become a little more aware of their surroundings. They are however talking about work and not really entertained. Being in warm coats and warming up during walking they still are comfortable enough.

When they run in a strange object they are amazed by what they see/hear. This contributes in a negative way to their comfort, but its not that bad.

When the acting wi they are but the s their dip gone.

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As you can see there will be a (foreseen) dip in the level of comfort. This has to be reduced to the minimum. The level of amazement has a giant leap on first sight of the object and continues until the walk is over. This map also leaned me that I took a specific approach in combining the two chosen qualities of interaction. I took surprise for granted and wanted to minimize the discomfort whereas I also could have tried to improve comfort with an added surprise. I will not further develop the approach of taking comfort as a starting point.

Interacting with object

Talking about object

Notice surroundings

Back home

na hey are t they ontribve way , but its

When they start interacting with the object they are still amazed, but the surprise and their dip in comfort are gone.

When continuing the walk they talk about the misterious object they encountered. They are again comfortably walking.

After five minutes they have nothing more to say about the object, but they do notice more of their surroundings because they are looking out to the next amazing experience.

When they are home again the memory of the object makes them feel satisfied and they are yet again very comfortable.

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Research Workshop
For the research workshop I prepared a model of third idea direction (music path) to see how people would react on clearly interactive pieces of the environment. I printed buttons and instructed Kah Kih and Hansen to perform a role-play and walk past them pretending to be in a city park. I was sitting next to the buttons to simulate auditive feedback from the buttons with my laptop (see pictures). When one of them would step on a button I would press the corresponding note to create a sound. I also set up a video camera and asked Francien to take pictures.

Of course they (Kah Kih and Hansen) started playing with the buttons to create some kind of music though Hansen seemed a bit anxious in the beginning. But after a while they seemed to be testing my accuracy rather than playing with the sound. After the test I asked Hansen an Kah Kih some questions regarding the concept. I think the most interesting results were gained during this part of the research. Some of the insights: They would like to see more interaction (for example draggin the tiles). There should be more features in the final product. Tactile feedback can be combined with this concept and makes it more interesting. The orientation of the tiles should be more playful (not a straight line). There should be something to prevent the scare effect. If someone accidentally walks on the tiles at night it shouldnt produce a sound. The buttons werent far enough apart. When placing the tiles a common step length should be taken in consideration.

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Results
Because I didnt have a clear research goal I decided not to do the same research as in the workshop with actual pedestrians. I realized that the goal of the research workshop was to get feedback on the product idea rather than test something specific (doing research because I should rather than having a clear goal). And I got useful feedback during the workshop so I had to set up a real research question. If you compare the feedback from the group members with earlier research it is logical to go with something clearly present but not hindering (like the buttons). In previous research I found out that people didnt even notice or remember the scent I used. Creating a combination of visual (buttons), auditive (sound) and kinaesthetic stimuli would be most interesting. In this case the visual part would have the function to attract attention (clearly present), the auditive part would have the function to stimulate interaction and the kinaesthetic part would add an extra surprise.

Look! Listen... Feel!

Whats that? Play! Wow!

Conclusion
I will further develop idea direction 3 (music path). In this concept I will combine all the human senses to create an interesting product. I will spend most time during the next cycle on finding the perfect lay-out of the product. I will have to focus on the interaction and sound and perhaps a little on the visual part. I can still vary in different button sizes, button sorts, orientations, kind of sound and so on. I will have to do some final research on how to perfect this kind of interaction.

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