#3 Evaluating
The aim of this post is to explain the evaluation of your proposed application. Before analyzing the evaluation of our project, EZ-worm, I read a case study, called The Clouds and the Twinkly Lights Project, looking for how they evaluate the project.
Case Study: The Clouds and the Twinkly Lights
This project hopes to find a way to encourage people take the stairs rather than the elevator, and the aim was to determine whether an ambient display that provides dynamically updated information could affect people’s behavior. The research team finally choose The Clouds and The Twinkly Lights to take a test.
The Clouds were designed as a large fixed ambient display, where the number of people who have taken the stairs and the elevator would be represented as two moving clouds of colored balls (an orange and a grey cloud) hanging from the ceiling in the atrium. The Twinkly Lights were designed as an abstract representation, that was meant to be playful and attractive, luring people to take the stairs.
The research team had conducted an experiment for six months in the building to collect a baseline of star/elevator usage, but there are two technical challenges that they faced. One was how to track people at appropriate time and to measure how many people took the stairs or the elevators. At the beginning, two types of sensor technologies, infrared movement detectors and pressure mats, were considered to address this problem, but because there was no conveniently placed walls in the open plan building, the infrared detector was given up and the pressure mats has been implemented. The other one was how to introduce the installation in the building and the people should not realize it is for a research project. The solution is deploying the displays on a Sunday when few people work in the building.
During the evaluation, the research team used several methods to collect data, including the sensor, observation, interviews, online survey and logged data of stairs and elevator usage. Finally, they’ve found that Twinkly Lights are more useful than the Clouds, cause the lights can draw people’s attention and then people would follow them towards the stairwell.
The project: Ezi-Worm
As I talked in the previous blog, our Ezi-Worm,a probe that goes through a process of vermicomposting, is essentially re-creating and simplifying the process and use of a worm farm whilst keeping it low maintenance. The reason for this concept is according to a research that the intended target group feel a bit difficulty in gardening due to physical constraints and sometimes feel the process is a bit complex. During the group discussion, our team members all agree that Ezi-Worm matches more human values compared to other concepts, like everyone could make a contribution to a community since leftover would be produced at every house. Also, people could participate in a change for sustainability which is a standard for the smart city. We hope people are willing to learn more about technology after understanding what our project is.
In order to know how the thing goes on, we conducted an evaluation where 19 participants took part in investigating the uses of Ezi-Worm and received several feedbacks, but I have to mention that we didn’t get data on the number of people contributing to the worm farm. This evaluation is to test whether the process of the worm farm was designed well and users can understand signs clearly.
It is interesting that these participants were interested in how the worm farm works and the technology has been applied. They wanted to know the method of collecting the data to ensure the temperature and capacity shown on the alert box are realizable. During the evaluation process, we’ve found there were a few minor confusions: (1)The function of the flag. Without letting the users know, we intended on using the flags to inform people whether the capacity is full or not (red for full and green for empty), however that caused confusion as to whether the flag changes were in response to the capacity or temperature output. (2)Temperature reading on the alert box, they were unsure of whether the temperature is that of the atmosphere or inside the container.
In addition, We’ve found that there were a few details we had not taken into consideration for the process. For example, if the temperature in the container is too high, how will the users know the worm is still healthy or alive and what can they do to lower the temperature? Another general concern shown by most participants is about the technology probes. They are fear that the power cannot be supplied consistently. This is really a serious problem, but on the other hand, it provides us a direction for the future implementation. To be specific, we would need to find what kind of renewable energy can be used to power the probe if the Ezi-Worm is put in an area without electricity supply.
On a more positive note, users found this probe to be interesting and would definitely be more encouraged to contribute. One suggestion that we got is building a separate reservoir for food scraps, because it would be more convenient that users do not need to wait for the corm container’s capacity to be empty. People could throw scraps into a reservoir at any time. When the container is empty, the reservoir would open the door and then the leftover would be transferred to the container automatically.
Overall these feedbacks are useful to help us realize how to improve our Ezi-Worm so that it could contribute to the garden, as well as what kind of technology are need to find in the future development to make the community garden more sustainability.
