Week nine update:
This week we have spent most of our time preparing for halves and formatting all of our information in a concise, easy to read fashion.
In addition to prepping for our presentation, we have also crystallized a lot of concepts that we formerly worked off of as assumptions. For example, our master diagram:
As well as illustrations on how the host and guest spaces match up conceptually:
As far as feedback goes from our halves presentation, we felt like we did a decent job showing off our progress so far, and we got a lot of useful feedback:
Plus:
- Seemingly simple, but important topic in this area.
- You’re exploring some interesting VR etiquette issues.
- Door mechanics is very neat, well thought out.
- Srujani’s dress is fire 100% (Sahar)
- Good choice putting portal outside.
Minus:
- The current avatar choices seem like weirdly blended gender characters that don’t quite read well. (Could go more simple, think of Nintendo Miis)
- Your avatars aren’t diverse, they all look like boys with lighter skin tone; how are you addressing identifiability and avoiding uncanny valley?
- Avatars don’t address customization or personalization features – are you doing lip sync too?
- Could explore more general social cues on how you cue people it’s time to go.
- Portal outside of the door seems like a problematic choice in terms of interactions; coming and going is tricky.
- Could also use lighting to reinforce the exit rather than a timer.
- Explore roles of host and guest more (i.e. family, strangers, neighbors, etc.)
- The context for having conversations doesn’t always seem considered well.
- Need to explore how MMO’s explored these issues.
- Not clear on playtesting data.
- Seems hard to test exvitation when your playtesters don’t have a task they are planning to do after the guest leaves. Maybe introduce a scenario?
- How do you plan on having a guest know that they should leave? What if they miss the exvitation clues? What if the host/guest do not want to stop interaction on exvitation?
- Are the notes too text-heavy or hard to read?
After compiling this feedback, we decided to sit down and outline what we want our final product to look like at the end of the semester:
Documentation of playtests:
- Playtest data (raw data)
- Conclusions/Observations from each playtest (per prototype or per test??)
- Video Archives
- Transcription of interviews?
- Refined timeline/master diagram of entry/exit.
- Archive of design artifacts.
Final Product:
- Host has a list of methods that they can choose for entry/exit of the space as a showcase.
- Categorize them based on different aspects – asynchronous, or best for family/close friends, or non-committal visits, etc. Think difference between letter/text/phone call.
- Host can choose which environment they want to be visited in – garden or hearth space.
- We can use this to investigate the different social dynamics surrounding entry/exit of spaces of varying privacy.
- Guest should have a distinct home space to start from.
- Additional part of our timeline that is missing – gifting.
- Props that can be picked up and rearranged – persistent in both spaces?
- Users should be able to tell what objects are actually in the physical space.
- Interactions: Decide something and stick with it.
- Interaction doesn’t have to be meaningful – it just needs to contextualize the exit.
- Keep 36 questions.
- Scrapping garden interactions.
- Entry/Exit
- Should work for both spaces.
- At least one environment that is very well refined.
- Refined hearth/garden space layout: consider angle, position of chairs, host/guest dynamic, etc. How to highlight what exists in which physical space.
- Aesthetic presentation, things that guests can look at and talk about.
- Potential Question: “How will users in the future sync up with each other, etc?” At the very least, we make the assumption that people will have a chair in the space.
We have a lot of work ahead of us till finals, but we feel confident that we can pull through.