BLAbla | Prototyping and Testing
BLAbla was created as a part of prototyping study, the higher purpose of BLAbla was augmenting everyday life with music as per the task sheet requirements,
“Every day we encounter little things that we wish were better, different, enhanced, connected. Your challenge here is to generate concepts for devices / interactions / experiences that enhance or augment the little things in life. These can be practical, playful, useful, silly, small-scale or large — it’s up to you. They can connect you with other people, near or far, strange or familiar. It might be letting a loved one know you are thinking of them, or connecting with a random stranger over a shared hatred of queues. Remember these concepts should incorporate a physical/tangible element as well as a basic user interface (either in device, or by connecting with a personal device).”
BLAbla was designed to make mundane task more enjoyable to do, the concept was to augment different sound to different object in our surrounding therefore users can create music while doing chores like cooking, filling taxes, laundry — you name it.
The augmentation was inspired by several designs that has been made available such as
The Process
Since the focus of this project is to learn how digital and physical prototyping works, there were 1 video prototype testing to validate the concept and 3 prototype testing phases to measure the success rate of the interactions and whether the idea for the concept works on a higher level. To keep the focus on the interactions the prototypes were made to be as simple and as easy to setup as possible. The data gathering method used for each testing consist of visual observation, note taking and questionnaire given to the participant.
Video Prototype
The purpose of the video prototype was to help develop the best possible interactions for the product based on the type of musical instrument commonly used and by exploring the many types of musical instrument the interactions are aimed to use traditional musical instrument as a metaphor. A few questions that is looking to be answered by gathering this information are:
1. What metaphors are suited to be used as the type of interactions?
2. Do people need lightweight musical instrument?
3. Who would be the best target audience?
4. What situation best suited for user to use the product at?
5. How the product should be tweaked to fit those situations?
The testing process for the video prototype used to consist of observation and questionnaire, but to be able to gain larger response and since the product target group is still too broad for this prototype only questionnaire based data gathering are used, from this questionnaire then the data were divided into quantitative and qualitative data where the quantitative data were used to calculate the proximity on the percentage of specific target user.
Seeing how people responds to the questionnaire after watching the video, it seems that the feelings towards the concept is highly positive. The product should be built toward something that can be used easily in a public space such as bus stop or the bus therefore a possibility of using earphone as sound output are highly considered. Whereas the interaction will use tap, strum and twist (not limited to) as those interactions are highly metaphorical of musical instruments.
A rubric then created to act as a guideline for the milestones of the prototype as per the following
1st Prototype
The first prototype is a simple software side validation, a simple soundboard was created in unity3d. The functionality consists of 10 square trigger buttons that is based on the idea of a piano where users can use ten fingers to produce different sound, the idea were also based on finger drumming and several digital music instruments.
Each square sound can be changed into whatever sound the user desired from the sound library available in the software, there each user was also able to assign any keyboard keys that is to metaphorically test the concept of selecting which object the user would like to augment to which sound.
The following results were found,
1. What kind of interactions are suited?
Tapping might relate more to pianist and finger drumming for drummer. The interactions seem to be rather more intuitive to user because of the affordance of tapping, while hitting comes in second place it needs higher velocity and might not be practical for people to do while not in a comfortable place.
2. What is the appropriate amount of inputs needed?
Ten or more contact point would be comfortable for tapping, piano style playing or relaxed finger play, while more complicated tapping with larger movement area can also be done. While less than ten will be preferred for interactions with larger movement such as hitting, or strumming. Participants were ambivalent to this question.
3. What kind of adjustment users need?
Participants prefer a preset based on different genres even though customizing one to suit their need is appreciated, genre based presets were seen to be easier to use especially for people who were not so savvy with musical instrument or music theory.
4. What future directions can be taken by using the users input?
A simplification to the key and sound assigning is expected, as some participants find it redundant, and a genre based presets were anticipated.
2nd Prototype
The second prototype was to simulate assigning the sound to object, and whether users were able to relate to the testing metaphor for the primary objective of the second test. While the secondary objective was to see if the users was comfortable with the interactions to create sound.
The physical prototype was built with makeymakey, to simplify the prototype a metal wristwatch was to be worn by participants eliminating the need for the participants to touch the ground cable, meanwhile 5 numbered copper tapes were spread around to be put on objects to simulate assigning sound to objects for the participants to do. The software of the prototype was simplified, a selection of presets was given 5 inputs instead of 10 were provided for users to adjust the sound they want to use.
Then a set of instructions were given to the participants to follow, users found it easy to understand and they understand the simulation purposes and were keen to actually interact with the surface of the objects rather than the copper sticker.
While working on this prototype, a secondary physical prototype a more complex version using Arduino and a piezo (contact microphone) were created though unfinished the secondary prototype looks promising
3rd Prototype
The third prototype physical form were changed so the interactions were also changed, though the software part remains pretty much the same except the removal of sound selections as the user interface was not the focus of the third testing.
Instead of a bracelet for the grounding, conductive metal copper stickers for five fingers were given to the users where the grounding now attached to just one object. The idea is to reverse the augmentation, instead of augmenting the object with sound now participants were given the ability to augment their finger with different sound and a set of scenarios were given in the post testing interview to see how the participants would behave if they got the ability to make any sound possible out of their fingertips.
Participant found giving sound to their body part to be more intuitive rather than giving sound to the objects around them and sound liken it to having super power. The secondary physical prototype was done and tested as well, though it works good without having to use any grounding device or conductive material the participants found the main prototype to be more intuitive it just needs to be refined more.
The Result
Both augmenting surrounding and augmenting the user’s finger has been met with great enthusiasm. Both interaction method would treat different purposes, but it seems like to augment reality it would be better to augment the user’s fingers and let them able to create whatever sound they can wherever they go, but the limitations of the number of sound they could have will be limiting the type of things they can do with it. Meanwhile augmenting surroundings are better for larger sound sets, but it might not be very portable at all compared to augmenting the user’s body itself.
What I’ve Learned
Devising a test plan is a hard task as you could not have known what the users want and think at when they are going to use your design. The intended use of the design would change for each user, and the notion to keep the prototype as simple as possible is pretty hard considering how tempting it is to just put more functionality and features and add more what ifs scenarios in the testing.
But by keeping the prototype simple and focusing on the main issue of the design it makes reiterating the design much easier. Especially gaining direct valuable input from the users helps the design to be more accurate.
