Stage 4: Concept Refinement
After evaluative research, we redefined our design solution to be an intelligent system to improve the automobile repair training experience.
Our system integrates theory and practice in mixed reality educational environments that support collaboration, problem solving and data-driven learning.
Rather than a single tool or technology, our synthesis revealed the need for a system-level solution that will likely involve several different technologies working together to support dynamic, embodied learning. While other elements might emerge as we continue along our design process, as of now we imagine our MR solution will involve some combination of the following: Visualizing real-time sensor data, Viewing detailed work log, Contextual information overlays, Manipulation of digital components, View-sharing.
We created two personas — a student Jesse and an instructor Alex, and tried to tell a story of their daily teaching and learning experience. This helped us understand our imagined features within a real context.
Jesse, a 19 year old automotive student and his instructor Alex. Jesse is an automotive student enrolled in a traditional vocational training program. He’s interested in the content, ambitious to learn, and loves cars but really just wants to graduate and get a job. He also struggles with mastering the curriculum’s abstract theory in a hands on learning environment.
Alex is his instructor with more than 20 years of experience as a mechanic and and engine diagnostics instructor. In addition to teaching, he also works at a car dealership in the evenings to make extra money and keep his skills fresh. He wishes he could share some of his real world experience and case studies with his students in the classroom.
Alex is teaching his electrical class of 20 students and is walking them through a hands-on exercise. He needs to show them what’s happening underneath the car so he activates the shared-view feature of his Mixed Reality system.
This gives Jesse and his classmates a close-up view of the problem and how Alex is fixing it. While he explains what’s going on, Alex can tap a component to send his students a digital version of it.
Out in the workshop, Jesse tries to understand why the brake lights on the car aren’t working. From his theory, he knows he needs to access the light’s wiring to check out the circuit. He’s not entirely sure how to access the ends of the wires and so pulls up the circuit diagram for the car he’s working on and reviews the relevant information. With this information at his fingertips, Jesse is able to solve the problem and notifies Alex when he’s done.
While all of this is going on, the Mixed reality system records each step Jesse takes o Alex can review his workflow and give him feedback on how he can improve for next.
Next Step
We are going to create low-fi prototype. Since there are two key interactive component in the smart system. We decide to paper-prototype the tablet user interface and video-prototype the AR concept. And then, we plan to go back to Rosedale and test our ideas with instructors for feedbacks.
We made a presentation on our Evaluative Research Process to the Microsoft Design team on 4/12. A copy of the presentation can be found here.
