Month: November 2018

The Work This Week:

With a shortened week this week due to Thanksgiving break, Picture Yourself spent our time finalizing our prototype and doing some playtesting in the ETC lobby.

With our prototype, we tested the complete experience, including the “Where are you from?” question and the Share page.  The UI directed towards the Share page didn’t seem intuitive, as guests frequently stopped the experience after viewing their picture on the wall.  Guests either showed some hesitancy towards taking pictures, while some leaned directly into taking wacky ones, so giving guests freedom in this space in both of these directions will be important.

We also got the chance to speak with Mike Christel at the ETC, discussing the best methods in which to write our documentation.  He suggested that we go light on doing a design doc showcasing all our decisions over the semester, and instead lean into the technical and troubleshooting aspects of the documentation.  He also suggested that we have a lot of images to support the text.

With regards to our upcoming handoff, we got the chance to speak with Clear Story, a vendor based in Pittsburgh who designs and installs installations like ours.  They expressed some concern over using edgeblending in our projectors, stating that having them on a table near in the ground is inviting guests and other people to bump into them and mess up the blending.  That being said, they were enthusiastic in talking with us and seem interested in potentially being partners with our installation in the future.  When we meet with our client next week, this will confirm their involvement in our future endeavors.

Finally, with regards to our prototype development, we finalized the second question (“What are you interested in?”) to test tomorrow for Softs.

In this design, guests can choose from a selection of interest hashtags and will then be directed to a mosaic of the associative CMU department that specializes in this interest.  There will be a text description overlayed on the mosaic to explain the connection:

For example, if a guest chooses #InformationSystems as their interest, they will be directed to mosaic that reads “Heinz” along with the text “CMU’s Heinz College is an interdisciplinary program for the next generation of leaders, connecting People, Policy, and Technology.”

Going Forward:

Next week is soft opening and our next client meeting.  We are looking forward to all of the feedback.

The Work This Week:

This week saw the team completing the prototype for the interaction, including implementation of the “Where Are You From?” question.  We also met with Deep Local this week, giving us some final notes heading into the last few weeks.

The Prototype:

From last week, we added the “Where Are You From?” page to our iPad interaction, which will come up immediately after users submit their taken photos:

From here, users can select from a list of countries where they are from.  Because we’re using the selected country’s typography as the mosaic in the wall display, we chose to have users choose from a preset list rather than inputting their own text.

After this interaction, the user is directed to interact with the wall display, which now takes the form of the selected country:

Also, taking feedback from our client as well as from Playtest Day, we added a highlight to pinpoint where the user’s photo is:

This process can then be repeated for further questions that we add into the design.  Once the user is done, they can then return to the ipad to share their photo with their email address.  We also took pictures of CMU campus that can serve as a backdrop for these shared pictures.

We also updated the Kinect sensor so that it only detects the user closest to it.  Therefore, users in the background will not break the flow.

Meeting with Deep Local:

In meeting with Deep Local, we got very specific advice about how to improve our live space:

-They suggested we use of an actual good camera to take photo as opposed to tablet?
-They suggested that we have a couch or something tangible for visitors to sit on / interact with so they’ll be more comfortable taking the photo.
-They said that even just having a rug/carpet or a short wood stage that signifies the selfie space will add uniqueness

-They suggested we think of potential alternatives to Kinect, because it can be finnicky.  From here, we began thinking that we could possibly have users interact directly with the wall, or have a designed stand that holds the iPad in which users could move the wall display screen by pressing buttons on it that connect electronically to the projection.  This would be a solution that is out of scope for our semester, but could be included in our documentation.

-They suggested we have a wood frame for the projection, so that it stands out.

-They said they’d put us in contact with vendors both for installation and for designing a potential wood frame.

-They said that when users share to their email addresses, the photos should be vertical, for more easy sharing to social media.

-They suggested we have a more “personal step” in the iPad interaction before the large-scale mosaic pops up.

-Lastly, they said that streamline to focus on the aspects that you like, and that the key point is making the selfie experience more fun.

Because we are not directly installing the live space, this feedback will be something that can incorporate in our final technical documentation that we hand off to our client, which we started on this week.

Going Forward:

With our prototype completed, we plan on playtesting in the ETC lobby next week in preparation for Soft Opening the following week.  We also will continue work on designing the sketches for our live space, and we have a meeting with Mike Christel on Monday to discuss how best to design our documentation.

The Work This Week:

The work this week started with a debrief from ETC Playtest Day last Saturday and ended with our client meeting, giving us a direction for the last third of the semester.

Playtest Day Results:

Overall, Playtest Day went well for us.  Guests understood the core interactions and their suggestions for next steps were close to what we’re currently designing.  Overall, the common findings from Playtest Day were:

• Guests moving too close to the screen
• Guests wanting feet symbols/line to know where to stand
• Guests having trouble finding their picture / wanted it to be bigger / highlight user picture
• The Kinect was too sensitive
• Guests liked ideas of archiving famous alumni and featuring them
• Guests wanted to be able to use avatars
  • For those uncomfortable taking the photo but who want to participate in information

From this results, we began work on our core next steps, which include:

• Adding boundaries for where you can stand
• Fixing the sensitivity of the Kinect
• Highlighting the guest picture in some way (so that it’s easier to find)
• Implementing use of avatars
• Implementing the “Where are You From?” Question

Of these, the last bullet point is of our top priority, as our prototype will not be complete until the Question is implemented.  The others are additional fixes and polish that are not as significant, yet still needed.

Client Meeting:

Our client meeting reiterated some of these findings.  Feedback from this meeting was that conceptually, the idea is continually solid, but it needs a more concrete, understandable, and visible plan on how it would look like upon completion.

Specifically, they want to see:

• The guest photos be customizable (complete with different CMU backgrounds or potential filters for each picture)
• The UI for how guests send the photos to themselves
• The specifics on how alumni and guest info is shared on the wall.  They need to see these details before they begin the process of contacting the alumni network for their info.
• A more specific schematic on the layout of our space.  They remain a fan of our pitch to use projectors as our display, but they want to see how we intend to lay these projectors out, how we plan to deal with natural light, and any wiring/electrical means needed for the exhibit.

We also discussed issues of privacy concerns that have come up.  They said that, indeed, they can bring their legal team in on this to implement a fully functional Terms & Conditions page, but, again, they need to see the specifics of what specific information is being asked of the guests, how this information is being shared, etc.

Going Forward:

Going forward, there is much to do.  We need to finish implementing the Questions, as well as the last few pages needed on the iPad (i.e. the page where guests can customize their photos, the page where guests can share their photos to themselves).  We also need to figure out how to visualize guest & featured alumni information, and we need to fix the sensitivity issues on the Kinect.

We also need to begin our documentation work.  The hope is to have a completed prototype, along with the documentation necessary so that our client can take our code, and then be able to customize it and add additional content (i.e. additional questions; additional videos for specific events, etc.).

Therefore, we need to begin detailing and outlining every step in the exhibit, and also develop the schematics of the space.  Plus, as part of the technical aspects of the documentation, we need to make sure that a potential vendor can follow our code easily.

There’s still a lot of work to be done.  Now begins the final sprint to do so.

The Work This Week:

Our client meeting was pushed back to next week.  So, this week, our core focus became finishing our base prototype to be able to test it on ETC Playtest Day.  We moved forward slightly in terms of setting up a physical installation in the ETC lobby, but eventually decided to host our prototype in our Project Room, as we could better control the space there.

The Prototype:

In our prototype, we are testing the base user interface with the iPad interaction followed by the user being able to see his/her photo appear on the forward wall.  We were not able to finish the “Where are you from?” question yet, so this prototype doesn’t ask any of our grouping questions, but merely combines all pictures into one CMU-text mosaic:

In the prototype, users step up to the iPad and, as follows:

• Accept the Terms & Conditions of the experience
• Take their photo
• If they don’t like the photo, they can go back and take it again.
• Once they like their photo, they can submit it.
• The iPad then directs users to move closer to the wall.
• Users can then move back and forth, using the Kinect sensor, to zoom in and out of the CMU mosaic, and try to find their photo.

In hosting our prototype in our room, we used white paper on our wall so that the projection would be bright enough.  We also ordered an iPad stand from Amazon, with adjustable height, for the iPad interaction.

Our playtest plan for Saturday is as follows:

Playtest Day Plan

Going Forward:

Our results from Playtest Day will help us determine what additions to make to the prototype.  We also will be meeting our client next Wednesday to get additional feedback, and hopefully will get to check out the SimpleBooth Technology, which, going forward, we would like to use as part of the iPad interface.