Kenneth Runnman Think Aloud

When you gather data you have to first consider the five key issues. So before I was doing the session I had to set goal for what I wanted to accomplish with the session. My goal with the session was to get answers to the questions.

The Questions:

• How can we make the app more user friendly? I want to see if there is any misunderstanding that can be solved with icons and if it is easy for the user navigate through the app.
• Find out if the user is missing any functions in the app that could be useful?

Identifying the participant: I did a think aloud protocol session with my cousins wife. She has only been in the country and the city for about three months and she has a kid so I thought that she would be a great subject considering that she fit both of our target groups: parents to children and tourists.

Relationship with the participant: I began with explaining what we were going to do and how I was going to use the information that was gathered during the session. She is from the Philippines and her english is limited so I asked her husband to be present so that he could translate when she couldn’t communicate properly in english. Then I explained how our prototype works and the purpose it has.

The five key issues also includes triangulation and pilot studies. The meaning of triangulation is that the investigation should be viewed from more than one perspective, and I think that we do that as a group because everyone is doing their own think aloud session. I am a little bit uncertain about the pilot study because we are doing only one think aloud session per person in the group. But we did one collective think aloud session before we did an individual session.

So I continued with the statement “Imagine that you are looking for a museum in Stockholm and you are using this app to find a suitable museum”. I took notes with the use of pen and paper because I think that the subject was more comfortable with that rather than a audio or video recording. As the session started I kept quiet and took notes, only to open my mouth when she was quiet for a longer moment. When that happened I asked her what she was thinking about.

The conclusions from the session were that the icons was hard to understand because there were many similar icons that could be the same thing on the first page. The icons was better on the second page but that there can be improvements to those icons too. It wasn’t very clear what “estimated time”  means, if it is estimated time in the museum or travel time to the museum. She also didn’t like the background that the app had, she didn’t think that it was neat. On the third page she thought that it would be great if you could see a star rating and feedback from other users to make it easier for her to decide. She thought that the fourth page could use a little more information about the museum and its exhibition as it can be a temporary exhibitions that would be interesting.

Kenneth Runnman

Reading seminar 2

The eleventh chapter of the course book deals with evaluation. More specifically it deals with the process of trying to improve your prototype with the help of paradigm evaulation and the framework DECIDE.

Paradigm evaluation is described in the subschapter 11.2 and it is a method for doing an evaluation on the product. There are four core paradigm evaluations: “quick and dirty”,  “usability testing”, “field studies”, and “predictive evaluation”. The techniques that is used in these evaluations are: observing users, asking users or experts for their opinion, testing users’ performance and modelling users’ task performance.

In the follwowing subchapter is the framework “DECIDE” described which is helpful for planning evalutions. The framework consists of the checklist:

1. Determine the overall goals that the evaluation adressess.
2. Explore the specific questions to be answered.
3. Choose the evaluation paradigm and techniques to answer the questions.
4. Identify the practical issues that must be adressed.
5. Decide how to deal with the ethical issues.
6. Evaluate, interpret, and present the data.

It can also be useful to to a pilot study before you do the main study to ensure that the study is well designed. A pilot sudy is a small trial run of the main study.

The theme of chapter 13 is “asking users and experts” and it deals with the different ways that you can get useful information about the product from other people. From the chapter we learn about the three styles of interviews which is structured, semi-structured and unstructured. Structured interviews can be replicated with large numbers of users with the help of surveys. Getting feedback from experts can also be useful, for exampel in a predictive evaluation is done by an expert who offer their opinions on the design.

The following chapter is about user tesing, which is a central part of usability testing. The test is usually done in controlled conditions like a laboratory. Many aspects of user testing is discucussed in the chapter ush as setting up test, collecting data and analyze the results from the test.

The question that I want to bring up at the seminar is: What are our ethical issues when it comes to our ideas and prototypes?

Kenneth Runnman

Parallell Design Update #1 - Conventional

Parallell Design - Conventional

While at this weeks exercise we were tasked with a brainstorming session. During this brainstorming we came up with a bunch of ideas and crazy things. This post is going to cover the first of these two design,  the conventional one. 

Our design is a website + companion app + printout in which you get a personal route in a awesome museum. The route is planned after all of your preferences; childsafe, contains a cafe, X km away, Y minutes away, history, technical, natural sciences, etc. Each museum needs to be indexed by someone, probably us, so that we might provided a route in the appropriate museum. So the design is really two parted; first it shows you which museum you might be interested in and then second gives you a more personal route inside that museum. A nice bonus is that all the information you will need for your visit in beautifully bundled together with your route thus delivering a complete experience.

In order to target people of all ages we will need both a website, a companion app and a analog version (a.k.a a printout).

This is the notes from the brainstorming session and the more detailed notes of our design.

As you can see we have not yet decided on a name yet but we do have a few candidates.

This is a rough sketch showing a example of a planned route. This sketch is made by Leif S, the rest is me (Alexander L.) and Kenneth R.

The plan is that the solution/design/website can give you a personal map of the museum based on all of your preferences.

This shows a rough sketch over the website interface and a few elements/views.

We are doing a very simplified design as our target audience for this website is extremely broad. This also has the effect of reducing our workload. 

This sketch shows the next views after our introduction/pop-up view.

Personas from 17/2 group meeting

Today's group meeting went good and we came up with 2 personas with a few scenarios. 

Tobias “Tubbe” Samuelsson Profile

Tobias “Tubbe” Samuelsson is 43 years old with no children.  Since Tobias graduated from High school he’s been working at the museum. He started working in the reception and now, years later he is in the position museum manager. He is feeling proud over his accomplish with working his way up in the museum hierarchy. Tobias is confidence with working in every position at the museum and has a good understanding of how the museum is working. Even though Tobias has never really evaluated their exhibitions other than reviews in magazines.      

Tobias faith is with the catholic church but his interest in religions is low. A big interest Tobias has is collection Trains. Tobias train collection is big and is growing for each year. Sometimes Tobias wonder why his museum isn't about trains. Tobias really like the new trains SL bought last year. Since he uses the subway each day to get to work and the new trains feels a lot bigger than the old ones.  

Tobias been working at the museum for a long time, Tobias loves his work and as a consequence of this Tobias have no children and no wife. Tobias lives in the quite suburb to Stockholm, Gribbylund. Sometimes Tobias is out taking a beer with his colleagues after work, A few weeks ago the museum hired a new receptionist that Tobias thinks is really awesome to talk with. He still feels that he doesn't have time for a relationship at this moment. In his free time, the little he have. He likes to volunteer at the homeless shelter. He is always been a caring philanthropist and thinks that everyone should have the same rights and opportunities. He likes to help with serving food and handing out cloths.  

  

Tobias is president of his local neighbor committee and strives for a safe and peaceful neighborhood. Last summer they decided to install a new fiber broadband connection and he was the one that organized the whole operation, which he is really proud of. The last meeting they discussed how to implement ramp for people in wheelchairs and how to make the garbage collection free from mice.

Picture of Tobias.

Andrea Rapp profile

Andrea Rapp is a mother of two children, Birker, 4 years old and Siri 7 years old. Birker has brown hair and blue eyes. He was a really large child when he was born but as the time passes by the other kids has caught up with his size. Siri on the other hand has always been a small child with blond hair and green eyes. Siri is a really fast runner and Andrea thinks she can be in the national team of runners one day.

Andrea makes her living from working at a local food store, Ica. She is in charge of the cheese. Andrea doesn't really know much about cheese but the only thing she needs to do is to put the cheese in the shelves.  

Andrea and her two children lives in a two room apartment in Abrahamsberg. Birker and Siri shares one room and Andrea is sleeping in the living room. The living room is bright with blue colors and the children room is in dark green, which is Andreas favorite color. They live at the third floor with a great view over the park nearby. Andrea really likes this apartment because it’s close to work and to the school where the children goes. The one thing Andrea is missing is a bathtub.   

Andrea is agnostic and don’t really care about religion. Since two years ago Andrea went through a divorce with her husband. Andrea thinks this was the right decision because they started to grow apart and didn't really share any interests. However they maintained a good relationship since the divorce and there is no bad blood between Andrea and her ex husband.

After graduating high school she enrolled university and started studying anthropology but had to drop out because of her children. Sometimes Andrea thinks about going back to university but doesn't feel the timing is right since she needs to pick up her children from school and need the money from work.  

On her free time Andrea likes to read books, especially books from the author Camilla Läckberg. Andrea also like to hang out with her friends. Lately more of her friends have newborn children and they like to talk about how their kids are doing and how to raise them in the best possible way. Even though raising a child can be difficult, Andrea feels confidence in that she is doing it in the best possible way and loves her children unconditionally.

She does most of her shopping at second hand stores where she can find cheap cloths and sometimes can be very fashionable. She really likes the vintage style and thinks it’s good with recycling. It’s a good way to maintain a healthy planet. She is specially fond of her latest purchase, a bright red winter coat which keeps her warm at winter.  

Andrea Rapp in her own Highness.

Scenario #1 - Tobias Samuelsson

Tobias started his day as normal, with a cup of coffee and walking through the museum. Tobias started to think about if people really appreciate the exhibition he created. He wondered how he could receive feedback from the visitors. They have been trying with formulas there people could give their thoughts but the response is very low and lots of the answers are not serious. What if he could track where people are going and for how long they stay at certain spots. Maybe we could use the current surveillance system to track where people are going Tobias thinks for himself.

Tobias keep sipping on his cup of coffee. Since they switched out the old coffee machine to this new one that have one specially good coffee, mixed latte with extra dark sugar and cream Tobias has started to come in early for work just to get a chance to enjoy this new coffee in peace.    

     

Scenario #2 - Tobias Samuelsson

Tobias is sitting at home in gribbylund at his desk, it’s Friday evening and it’s raining outside. He’s writing a report that is supposed to evaluate his museum. The government with Stefan Löfven sent out the request for the evaluation last week and it is due Monday. In the report Tobias is supposed to show different sorts of statistic data regarding his museum, but the only numbers he’s got are the ones regarding the amount of visitors weekly. This is a problem. The government is probably expecting a lot more detailed information. How could he get that information? Tobias starting to Google around for what data there is to get out of museums but doesn't find anything other then data over visitors. 

Tobias think’s it would be great to be able to present more numbers over how the museum is doing other than data over visitors. Perhaps statistic data over all the individual exhibitions and the overall enjoyment of all the different parts of the museum he thinks for himself.   

Scenario #1 - Andrea Rapp 

Andrea is at Tekniska museum with her two children Siri and Birker. It’s a good day to visit the museum because of the humongous rain outside. There are lots of activities for children at the museum, she is looking at her children running around and having great fun but she is starting the feel nervous because they are screaming and are too loud. Andrea is out of focus today because of this. She is feeling that she doesn't have time to experience the museum. Aimlessly is she walking around in the museum and looking out for her children doesn't get to see what she is interested in because of the need to look out for her children. 

Time flies by and they decide to go home and make dinner. A vegetarian soup of noodles and asparagus is on today’s menu. When they are home Andrea can’t remember anything from their visit to the museum and feels that the money she spent for her own entrance ticket was wasted.

Scenario #2 - Andrea Rapp 

Today is a slow saturday just after lunch. The kids are watching TV and Andrea is finishing up the last remains of her meal. Then she got this brilliant idea to spend their sunday doing something together! She wants to go a museum but does not know which one and thus need to find some information. On the internet she finds, via Google, that there are a lot of museums in Stockholm. She aimlessly clicks around to find something that is both interesting to her and the kids while at the same time matches her personal requirements. After a tad bit over 2 hours she has managed to grab hold of a fun museum and has already told the kids and they are excited! If only there was a more optimal way ... 

Interview and State-of-the-art Analysis

Interview:

An interview we conducted at tekniska museet, we introduced ourselves as KTH students and asked if we could do an interview and record the session. The interviewer was Eric and I recorded as well as transcribed the interview.

E = Eric, I = Interview subject.

E: Varför valde du att gå på just det här museet?

I: Jag har barn.

E: Yes…Vad tror du att de uppskattar här?

I: Vad de uppskattar, vad jag tror att de uppskattar är grävskopan.

E: Ja, de verkar ha det grymt kul i alla fall. Är det första gången ni är här?

I: Nej, jag har varit här ett ex antal gånger, kanske tre-fyra gånger.

E: Och det är just för barnen?

I: Ja.

E: Känns det som att du saknar någonting?

I: Jag har inte varit runt hela, kanske något pysselställe eller kanske… och någon som berättar lite om saker. Lite mera tourer, liksom. Man är lätt vilse.

E: Ja, det är helt tomt här. Vilken målgrupp tror du att det här museet har?

I: Barn.

E: Och vad vill ni få ut?

I: Glada barn.

E: Grymt, tack snälla!

To summarize this interview; we interviewed a father of two lively kids who enjoyed their visit at the museum. His main goal with the visit to tekniska museet was to make his children  happy and the children's interest in the museum was to explore all the things and at the time of the interview that thing was an excavator. The thing that the interview subject felt were missing at the museum was a place where the children could do arts and craft and perhaps arrange for a guided tour around the museum.

State-of-the-art analysis:

We went to to tekniska museet and observed a part of their exhibition called Digital Revolution, consisting of three big screens projecting an animated version of the person interacting with the screen. The screens were able to do this with sensors on pillars that was behind the person and the screen, and would record the motion of the person. It works kind of like Xbox Kinect does.

Each of the screens had their own respective functions, but they all had a similar theme of birds.

For example would the person's projection be an image of the person but with wings and if the person did a specific motion would his projection fly upwards. The screens were on a big stage that was in a very large room with other inventions. When we did our observations of this part of the exhibition there were a class of teenagers that was interacting with the screens. But there could only be two person per screen so there was a queue for this part of the museum.

An instructor was there to explain what kind of motions they could do for the projection to do different things. One thing that I liked was that they did not only try to immerse the person visually but also with audio. I think that it made the experience more immersive. I think that most of the users had a great time exploring what you could do with the screens. I think that the creators intentionally made a low number of functions for the screens so that persons would only use it for a short time period. The few improvements that I could think of would be to make it more visually stimulating with maybe more colours and more details, but they went with a silhouette style on their projection wich maybe is an artistic choice. I did not try out the device myself but I think that there can be improvements on the sensors and to make the device more responsive.

A picture of the three screens from the exhibition Digital Revolution.

//Kenneth Runnman

Reflektioner angående studielitteraturen: Prototyper

Reflektioner angående studielitteraturen:

Eftersom att vi har blivit tilldelad en uppgift så går många tankar till uppgiften när man läser från boken. Hur kan man applicera denna metod på projektet vi arbetar med? Boken hjälper även till med detta då den ställer retoriska frågor i texten för att få läsaren att tänka. Det kapitel jag tyckte var mest intressant var kapitel 8 som handlade om prototyper, design och skapande av produkten.  Målet med detta kapitel är:

·         Beskriva vad en prototyp är och de olika metoder för att göra en prototyp.
·         Göra det möjligt för läsaren att göra en simpel prototyp.
·         Göra det möjligt för läsaren att gör en konceptuell modell till ett system och även kunna försvara       ens val till modellen.
·         Möjliggöra försök till vissa aspekter av fysisk design för läsaren.
·         Förklara användandet av scenarier och prototyper i konceptuell design.
·         Diskutera standarder, riktlinjer, och regler som finns tillgängliga som hjälp för interaktions designers.
·         Diskutera de alternativ av hjälpmedel som finns tillgängliga för interaktions designers.

Så när jag läste detta kapitel så tänkte jag på hur vi kan använda oss av denna information i vårat projekt och jag kom snabbt fram till att det kanske inte är fullt realistiskt att vi i slutet av kursen kommer kunna ha en färdig produkt att visa upp och att det är mer realistiskt att skapa en prototyp som man eventuellt kan göra en produkt av. Efter jag läst detta kapitel så förstod jag även att det man inte kommer ha en färdig prototyp efter ett försök utan att det är en iterativ process. 

Min första fråga jag ställde mig efter att ha läst delen om prototyper var: 

• Vilken metod ska man använda sig utav för att skapa en prototyp? 

Man kan antingen använda sig utav hi-fi(högre nogrannhet) prototyper eller lo-fi(mindre nogrannhet) prototyper.  En metod för att göra en lo-fi prototyp är att man låter en användare testa ett program som styrs av en människa för att fejka upplevelsen. Denna metod kallas för ”Wizard of Oz” metoden.

Fältstudier på Nordiska muséet

Vi gick tillsammans till Nordiska muséet på Djurgården och genomförde en smärre fältstudie. I takt med observationerna diskuterade vi möjliga idéer och koncept, och fick dessutom tala med museivärden Pernilla Jansdotter som berättade om hur systemet fungerade och vad som kunde förbättras (datorer, telefoni, etc). Detta markerar vårt första steg i kursen.

Emil kunde tyvärr inte följa med, då han var sjuk.

Medverkande (fr. v. t. h) Kennet Runnman, Alexander Lingtorp, Eric Hallström, Leif T. Sundqvist, Mathias Björkman