Réhman, S., Sun, J., Liu, L., & Li, H. (2008). Turn Your Mobile Into the Ball: Rendering Live Football Game Using Vibration. IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, 10(6), 1022-1033
Please reflect on the following questions:
1. How can media technologies be evaluated?
For example in the text: Prototyping and usability test through questionnaire and observed experiments, usability defined as effectiveness (can the task be completed with the evaluated system? Success to failure ratio common way to measure this), efficiency (How much effort is needed to accomplish the task? Less effort is better of course) and satisfaction ("refers to the comfort and acceptability of the system to its users and other people affected by its use, questionnaire").
A technology can require experience or training before mastering the three aspects of usability. So to complement evaluation you can do a trainability test, as done in the text, to see if it’s any difference in usability afterwards. How much training is required before any difference is noticed etc.
2. What role will prototypes play in research?Prototypes can play a big role. For example it’s useful to only test parts of a system because you can prototype exactly the part that you want to test without having to spend time on completing the whole system before you can get any answers. In the text this concept could be used on live football for example, but in the tests their were no live football. I guess it both saves time and money. Since time is saved more alternative ways of doing stuff can be tested. The making of the prototype can also present the decisions that have to be made in order to make the system, which makes people understand quickly and have their own opinion on different paths. If those decisions are motivated they can be argued against or agreed which leads into choosing the most appropriate alternative.
3. Why could it be necessary to develop a proof of concept prototype?Other than it’s cheap and less time consuming than developing a complete system. It allows for mistakes and changes in a wider change than a complete system would. Imagine building a house and then having to eradicate it and rebuild it just because you decided it’d be better to use other dimensions than the first one had. So after other people have seen this prototype and expressed their opinion, or even when results from the prototype are evaluated maybe changes have to be made. Making those changes on a prototype instead of a complete system costs less. I think that prototypes also are a great way of presenting your ideas, it can get people understand and active within a concept easily. In comparison to only words a prototype is more convincing and interesting in my opinion.
4. What are characteristics and limitations of prototypes?Buggs, not full functioning, only a representation, doesn’t shut possibilities for future changes. Depending on what the prototype is, it has different limitation, maybe it’s just a mock-up or maybe it’s the real thing. If a prototype is made in a bad way, it can give inaccurate results or give a wrong impression.
5. How can design research be communicated/presented?
In every way: words, text, prototypes, pictures, models, mock-ups, substitutes, videos and more. I like different kinds of prototypes for the reasons mentioned above, different kinds of prototypes depending on what you want to present.
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For the lecture Wednesday, read the following papers written by Eva-Lotta Sallnäs Pysander and her colleague. Reflect on the key points and what you learnt by reading the text. Prepare one question that you would like to discuss during the lecture.
A technology can require experience or training before mastering the three aspects of usability. So to complement evaluation you can do a trainability test, as done in the text, to see if it’s any difference in usability afterwards. How much training is required before any difference is noticed etc.
2. What role will prototypes play in research?Prototypes can play a big role. For example it’s useful to only test parts of a system because you can prototype exactly the part that you want to test without having to spend time on completing the whole system before you can get any answers. In the text this concept could be used on live football for example, but in the tests their were no live football. I guess it both saves time and money. Since time is saved more alternative ways of doing stuff can be tested. The making of the prototype can also present the decisions that have to be made in order to make the system, which makes people understand quickly and have their own opinion on different paths. If those decisions are motivated they can be argued against or agreed which leads into choosing the most appropriate alternative.
3. Why could it be necessary to develop a proof of concept prototype?Other than it’s cheap and less time consuming than developing a complete system. It allows for mistakes and changes in a wider change than a complete system would. Imagine building a house and then having to eradicate it and rebuild it just because you decided it’d be better to use other dimensions than the first one had. So after other people have seen this prototype and expressed their opinion, or even when results from the prototype are evaluated maybe changes have to be made. Making those changes on a prototype instead of a complete system costs less. I think that prototypes also are a great way of presenting your ideas, it can get people understand and active within a concept easily. In comparison to only words a prototype is more convincing and interesting in my opinion.
4. What are characteristics and limitations of prototypes?Buggs, not full functioning, only a representation, doesn’t shut possibilities for future changes. Depending on what the prototype is, it has different limitation, maybe it’s just a mock-up or maybe it’s the real thing. If a prototype is made in a bad way, it can give inaccurate results or give a wrong impression.
5. How can design research be communicated/presented?
In every way: words, text, prototypes, pictures, models, mock-ups, substitutes, videos and more. I like different kinds of prototypes for the reasons mentioned above, different kinds of prototypes depending on what you want to present.
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For the lecture Wednesday, read the following papers written by Eva-Lotta Sallnäs Pysander and her colleague. Reflect on the key points and what you learnt by reading the text. Prepare one question that you would like to discuss during the lecture.
1. Moll, J. and Sallnäs, E-L. (2013). "A haptic tool for group work about geometrical concepts engaging blind and sighted pupils." ACM Transaction on Accessible Computing. 4(4), 1-37.
2. Huang, Y., Moll, J., Sallnäs, E-L., Sundblad, Y. (2012). "Auditory feedback in haptic collaborative interfaces." International Journal of Human-Computer Studies. 70(4), 257-270.
1. How does a collaborative setting differ from a single user setting as regards methodology used and the results obtained?
I guess you need to define what’s collaborative in the specific context; it might be a common ground, awareness in-between the participants, awareness of their actions, awareness of their own actions, their goals, who takes initiative etc. Based on earlier work, studies and theories you might find what’s collaborative and how to measure it in the context you want. However I think that collaborative work include many different answers to why a specific outcome occurs, it’s often a unique context since you can collaborate in so many ways and places, hence more variables. Previous quantitative methods, performed studies, and theories within collaborate settings might not always answer to why a specific outcome in a specific context occur. Maybe qualitative methods can contribute to more understanding of why/why not something is collaborative and what effects come from it. If a user test is performed, it might not be a bad idea if the participants know each other depending on the study, this could prevent insecurity from having an effect on the result, in a single user setting this problem doesn’t occur, that is the relation between the collaborates.
2. How can qualitative and quantitative methods in the same study complement each other?Qualitative methods can bring results not encountered for; these results can then possibly be used in quantitative methods in order to measure and analyze them. Qualitative data can also give deeper understanding of the quantitative data. It can for example answer to why a specific quantitative or qualitative result was maintained. For example in the third text: ”qualitative analysis showed that the auditory and haptic feedback was used in a number of important ways”, qualitative data helped answering to why haptic feedback was used and in what way it was used, not only that it was used or used in certain predefined ways.
3. How can using both subjective and objective methods give a better understanding of a phenomenon?
Subjective method. Gaining data about how the subject interpreters and experience the phenomenon, does it conform to the objective data or does it differ, how, when and why? Objective method, can give less varying results, which then might be easier to compare with results from other studies or in the same study, generalize, and analyze with quantitative methods.
1. How does a collaborative setting differ from a single user setting as regards methodology used and the results obtained?
I guess you need to define what’s collaborative in the specific context; it might be a common ground, awareness in-between the participants, awareness of their actions, awareness of their own actions, their goals, who takes initiative etc. Based on earlier work, studies and theories you might find what’s collaborative and how to measure it in the context you want. However I think that collaborative work include many different answers to why a specific outcome occurs, it’s often a unique context since you can collaborate in so many ways and places, hence more variables. Previous quantitative methods, performed studies, and theories within collaborate settings might not always answer to why a specific outcome in a specific context occur. Maybe qualitative methods can contribute to more understanding of why/why not something is collaborative and what effects come from it. If a user test is performed, it might not be a bad idea if the participants know each other depending on the study, this could prevent insecurity from having an effect on the result, in a single user setting this problem doesn’t occur, that is the relation between the collaborates.
2. How can qualitative and quantitative methods in the same study complement each other?Qualitative methods can bring results not encountered for; these results can then possibly be used in quantitative methods in order to measure and analyze them. Qualitative data can also give deeper understanding of the quantitative data. It can for example answer to why a specific quantitative or qualitative result was maintained. For example in the third text: ”qualitative analysis showed that the auditory and haptic feedback was used in a number of important ways”, qualitative data helped answering to why haptic feedback was used and in what way it was used, not only that it was used or used in certain predefined ways.
3. How can using both subjective and objective methods give a better understanding of a phenomenon?
Subjective method. Gaining data about how the subject interpreters and experience the phenomenon, does it conform to the objective data or does it differ, how, when and why? Objective method, can give less varying results, which then might be easier to compare with results from other studies or in the same study, generalize, and analyze with quantitative methods.
Thank you for your extensive comments on the articles.
ReplyDeleteLeif
Hi!
ReplyDeleteGreat blog post, lots of good insights. As you said with prototyping it is important to not create something without testing it as a prototyp. The whole idea with prototyping is to fail and to do it fast. One problem that seems particular common is that people tend to get emotionally attached to their prototyp - as it was the actual product and thus the prototyp becomes useless. Kill your darling is an expression that is applicable in more areas than film.
Hi Simon,
ReplyDeleteGreat reflections! As mention above the emotional attachment to a prototype can play a significant roll and I think it’s so important to be a bit distant when developing one. Keep up the good work!
Sofia