GroupBrainstorm-Group:Jigsaw
From CS160 User Interfaces Fa06
Contents |
Brainstorm Process
Originally, we tried to focus our brainstorm on ideas that would involve Web technology, since this was closely related to each of our proposals. This hampered our efforts as it narrowed our thinking too much because the focus area was too closely tied to particular technologies and implementation details. We then expanded our focus to the arena of entertainment, while keeping open the possibility of ideas that may be outside that area of focus (we tried to write everything down). The goal here was to generate a large number of ideas in the hopes that an idea might provide a "jump" to a more promising set of ideas, or even, the "it" idea.
The list below was generated during the initial in-class brainstorm and a later group session:
1. sketches vector drawings 2. gym log book 3. flight attendant passenger requests (meals, special requests, etc) 4. hospitals - standard forms, charts, prescriptions 5. police traffic stops 6. sign up forms 7. interior/exterior designers 8. elementary school - real-time handwriting tracking, to see who needs extra help 9. automatic signature verification 10. conferences - realtime whiteboard tracking 11. turn-based game input - soccer 12. written tests to supplement online multiple choice tests - student and professors to enter diagrams 13. cell phone - written SMS messages 14. English paper editing - annotation to word processing 15. Bumper stickers 16. Device/accessory customization - ipod engraving, engraved cufflinks, sentimental trinkets 17. Advertisements for new movies/CDs that allow you to order from the paper - leaflets, newspaper ads 18. Network Pictionary - play Pictionary with teams that have members in person and dispersed over the net. 19. Netflix: when DVDs arrive, you get a sheet of the top n items in your queue. Check the x number to move those to the top of your queue, where x is the number of DVDs you are able to have out at any one time. When you return your current DVDs, the ones you selected will arrive. 20. Memorialize or add a different element to a Quiet Party. This is a singles event where there is no loud music and participants are only allowed to communicate with notes. For more info, check http://www.quietparty.com/ Electronic crossword puzzles Anoto enabled magazine subscription cards 21. automated creditcard activation - sign card and transmit 22. pen managed tasklist - write original items down, remove items by striking through 23. police citation 24. parking ticket payment 25. check/credit card security - automated signature verification 26. encrypted letters - this is a digital to paper to digital technology: A user types a letter and the application encrypts it in to a sequence of patterns. The recipient "decrypts" the letter by tracing the patterns on the printed letter and the application then displays the original text. 27. paper based end-user identification (related to above) - let's say some e-merchant wants to mass mail an offer to a limited target audience. He/she prints up a bunch of letters, each with an unique traceable pattern. Recipients can take advantage of the offer by identifying him/herself by tracing the pattern using a digital pen. 28. Monitoring so that parents can see what they're children are up to at school Anoto enabled telephone books 29. adapt existing Web apps - wikis, blogs, web service APIs ("mash-ups") 30. HTML prototyping / Website prototyping 31. restaurant ordering 32. testing - schools, DMV, standardized tests 33. prescriptions, medical charts 34. legal uses - contract annotations 35. notetaking 36. doodling 37. animation – flipbook 38. 3D shapes – CAD 39. video games - level design 40. calendaring 41. gambling: keno, lotto, NCAA tournament, bingo, sports betting 42. encryption 43. music composition 44. DJ scratch notation - http://www.ttmethod.com 45. song/hiphop lyrics 46. annotation of changes in photos 47. movie storyboarding 48. playbooks for sports - video games? 49. fashion design 50. comics 51. graffiti - automated tag portfolio 52. survey for movie focus groups 53. T-shirt design
Idea Selection Process
Before we began the idea selection process, we discussed and agreed on the criteria. These are list below in no particular order, with the exception of #1.
1. The idea must take advantage of the affordances of Anoto pen/paper. 2. The idea must be realistic and doable. 3. The idea must minimize dependence on OCR or other pattern recognition technologies (a nod to the relative lack of robustness in this software category). 4. The idea must hold some interest for all group members.
Our idea narrowing process worked in several stages:
1. Each group member selected 5 ideas that he was interested in. 2. We then discussed the relative merits and weaknesses of each idea according to the agreed criteria. 3. Based on the discussion in #2, we eliminated as many ideas as possible. 4. We assigned one or two remaining ideas to each group member for basic initial research, with a focus on existing solutions, potential implementation snags, and user group background (harder to come by but nice if found). 5. We discuss based off the initial research and decide on the final idea.
The list compiled from group member's choices, with brief comments from discussion. The ideas which were finally selected for initial research are highlighted in bold.
1. School monitoring so teacher can see who needs help: Hard to monitor 20 students at once. Lack of teacher interaction. Program can monitor deviations from stencils and highlight troubled students. Need a lot of pens. Really only applicable to handwriting. 2. Police citations: Unknown if process is already automated. Do police officers turn in forms after a shift or just call in citations after they give them out. Heavy dependence on accurate OCR and might require overhaul of citation forms. 3. Pen automated tasklist: Useful, but too plain. 4. Movie storyboarding: Unknown utility because of lack of knowledge about user domain. Less Anoto-heavy, more app. Heavy. OCR dependence can be varied. 5. Automated signature verification: Re-inventing the wheel? Touchpads already popular at retail locations. Potentially useful for newspaper order forms. Signature as digital key to message writer's identity. Authenticated faxes. 6. Website prototyping, HTML page generation or paper prototyping of site: low fidelity->high prototype. Lots of shape recognition. Might be easier to do with Dreamweaver. 7. Sports playbook: There is software to do this already and for gamers, designing plays in a game's play designer is probably easier. No use for physical paper. 8. Sketches to vector drawings: broad category and already incorporated in to many other ideas. 9. Gambling, specifically Bingo or Keno: Potential feedback issues. Bingo sheets are disposable and played on paper. Save casino waitresses some trouble. Real-time keno cards, they could play more rounds and make more profit. 10. Pictionary: Something already exists without the pen interface. Lots of pens needed. Much more natural to play with pen and paper. 11. Online class assignments/test – timed tests: Allows online classes to function more like a real life class. Natural written tests and assignments. Automated timing because strokes are timestamped (dependent pen security features). No math online classes. 12. Music composition: There already is music OCR. Edits would be difficult. 13. Conference whiteboard broadcast: Very common idea and probably already implemented. 14. Parent/child – school monitoring: applicable only to elementary schools. Limited utility. Requires streaming pens.
Below are the results of our initial research into the list of final ideas and summary of member assessments. Notice that a process of narrowing occurs between the compiled list of group member favorites and this list:
Keno: Maybe not such of a time saver after all; according to a web page. Keno drawings are held about every four minutes. Keno is usually found in social gathering spots - restaurants, taverns, bowling alleys and more. Keno can currently be played online, too (even MSN offers online Keno). This ideas looks less interesting because there doesn't seem to be much utility.
Pictionary: There are a dozen sites that offer online Pictionary play(http://www.isketch.net/). So really the only thing that we would be changing would be the use of paper and pen to play. Also, we cannot do this well if the Anoto pens do not come with wireless streaming capability.
Signature verification: An obvious application of Anoto technology with several existing implementations: http://partner.anoto.com/cldoc/15870.htm, http://www.anotogroup.com/cldoc/16074.htm. In addition, EchoSign (www.echosign.com) provides a fax based service for digital signatures. I can't see the advantages of an Anoto-based system over this, especially with the widespread availability of fax machines.
Website Prototyping: HTML and CSS layout using Anoto would involve a great amount of implementation work and heavy dependence on pattern recognition technologies - and in the end, we might save an experienced Web developer 5 minutes in tool like Dreamweaver. Also, paper is not really used in the implementation stage of Web development. However, paper prototypes are still heavily used in UI design and there are some tools that try to bridge the paper/digital gap: http://www.extremeplanner.com/easyprototype/screenshots.html. we could use Anoto to reduce the number of steps necessary to create something like this. For example, links could be created by drawing special symbols with the pen. We could also offer an area in which to label buttons, etc.
Teacher/Handwriting tool: Most of the literature found dealt with using digital media to improve education. A common theme is the idea of a digital portfolio of student work and/or using digital storytelling to improve education. Our original focus is too narrow given the relative utility. In order to make this idea viable, we would need to re-brainstorm a way to tie traditional pen/paper learning to the digital domain. Some relevant articles: http://www.thomastown-east-ps.vic.edu.au/portfolio1/portfolio1.html#Anchor-Portfolio-57926 http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/webwatch/2006/08/pencils_down.html#comments
Movie storyboarding: There are many commercial software packages of considerable maturity in this field. Some links below: http://www.screenstyle.com/boso.html http://www.write-brain.com/frameforge3d_main.htm http://filmmakerstore.com/stbdart.htm If we are going to do anything along these lines, it would have to be targeted to filmmakers who still work "old school" style or who don't have the money or time to bother with creating elaborate electronic storyboards, but if these filmmakers aren't really digitally inclined what does the Anoto do for them? Also, filmmakers who aren't necessarily good artists would probably be more interested in collage-style storyboards and/or using existing software (they usually provide 3D models as stand-ins for the actors).
Online class assignments/test – timed tests: There are many schools currently providing online classes. http://www.foothillglobalaccess.org/ http://smconline.org/ http://www.uopxonline.com/howitworks.asp with class demo Most assignments and exams are text based, multiple choices and essays. There is a time counter on the Web site that limits the time for the exam. Using pen and paper in online assignments and exam seems a new idea. Math can definitely be one of the subjects that Anoto Pen can help. Anoto-based tests would allow more student work to be shown and provide for more rigorous exams. User group: In order to put Anoto Pen into the online classes. Class provider and students should both be our target user. Like PRS, the school should agree include the Anoto Pen as one of the required course materials.
Final Idea Selection: Paper-based UI Prototyping using Anoto Technology
From the research, we decided that online testing and UI paper prototyping were the most promising ideas and took best advantage of Anoto pen/paper affordances. We ultimately decided on the idea of using Anoto to enhance the paper prototyping process in UI design. We felt we could streamline the process with Anoto technology, make it more natural, and potentially offer more features than existing solutions in this arena. This decision was based mostly on group member interest.
Target User Group
The target user group for paper-based UI prototyping using Anoto technology would be UI designers who use or would like to use paper prototyping during the low fidelity prototype stage. The initial focus of the project would on Web designers, but given time constraints, the project may be expanded to include UI designers in general.
Problem Description
Using paper to design an interface is efficient and encourages group participation, but subsequent documentation and testing of paper-based low fidelity interfaces, particularly Web-based UIs, can be improved using digital technology. Existing digital solutions depend on the awkward process of scanning in paper-based prototypes. Since one of the primary advantages of paper prototyping is the ease of use and speed, it is important to remove as many hurdles as possible in the digitization process, while adding features which improve/enhance paper-based prototyping.
In particular, testing of paper-based interfaces, particularly Web interfaces, can be greatly improved by digitizing the paper-based interface and allowing test users to interact with the lo-fi prototype on a computer (a more realistic test scenario), eliminating the potentially awkwardness of having to interact with a designer playing the role of the "computer." Computerized testing of lo-fi prototypes would also allow designers to gather detailed interaction data quickly and accurately. For example, the testing application could record a user's "click trail" as he/she moves through the lo-fi prototype.
Problem Context
Paper prototyping is still widely in use among UI designers. It is a fast, efficient, and cost-effective way to iterate through ideas quickly in the initial stages of interface design. Rapid iteration and testing of lo-fi interfaces is a great way to test ideas before entering the implementation phase, where creativity might be stifled by schedules and technical costs. In addition the universality of pen/paper promotes participation from experts in multiple disciplines, a key to success in UI design.
Why the Anoto System is a Good Technology for the Problem
Anoto pens and paper dovetails with how existing UI designers would use pen and paper during the lo-fi prototyping process. UI teams can take full advantage of the mobility and technology-neutral format of pen/paper while automatically digitizing their work.
Solution Sketch
Below is high-level diagram of how Anoto enhanced pen/paper prototyping (we are calling the solution "Jigsaw") might work. The Jigsaw software could provide additional functionality like vectorization of stroke data to allow for ease of editing and to "straighten" out line drawings, creating a more professional-looking test prototype.
