Contextual Inquiry-Group:Fatal Exception
From CS160: User Interface Design Sp12
Contents |
The Team
Neel Rao - Interviewed Jane and did a field test on the road, contributed to the Change of Project, Target Users, Task Analysis questions, Analysis of Tasks, and provided a mockup mini-game (Movement Tracking) for the interface design.
Brandon Young - Interviewed Stephen and contributed to Task Analysis questions and Analysis of Tasks, added Main Menu, In-Game Frame information and Turn Signal game to Interface Design section
Wenjie Zhou - Interviewed Helena, edited Competitive Analysis, added Parallel Parking Minigame to Interface Design section
Omar Ali - Interviewed Chuck
Change of Project
We have changed our project idea. Our original idea was a medical simulator, an app where users can use the kinect to explore a virtual body and learn various biological facts. The virtual body would mirror the user and users can point to various body parts to learn more about them. We planned on showing the skeletal system, the circulatory system, and the respiratory system. One of the problems with this idea was narrowing down the target audience. Is this app for students? For teachers? How complex should it be, and what age students should it target? If a teacher uses this app, how will he properly navigate it and demonstrate effectively to students? We also weren't sure about the feasibility of programming such an application. We would have to map biological systems onto a kinect skeleton, which may or may not have been difficult. Another issue was access to target audience. If we targeted students, it may have been more difficult to do task analysis and user interviews and testing. For all of the above reasons, we have changed our application idea to a driving simulation app. More details are below.
Target Users
Target user description We are targeting drivers and learning drivers with anxiety. Their anxiety is related to coordination, reflexes, and awareness. Roads can be a high speed, high intensity environment and not everyone is comfortable on them. Our target audience is averse to practicing in environments like a highway, or urban environments with short streets and frequent stops. Some may also be afraid of driving in general. Others have trouble keeping track of numerous high speed cars around them along with their own speed.
User 1: Codename Jane Jane is a college student who is from L.A. She is used to using the bus system and has never had any driving training. Jane saw no need to get a driving license because L.A.'s public transport system got her everywhere she needed to go. Now, living in a different city, she is starting to see a need to learn driving. Unfortunately, she still holds childhood fears of driving because she has never practiced before. Jane is unsure if she has the necessary reflexes to stop quickly if an obstacle presents itself in front of her. She feels like she is a klutz sometimes and believes that this will carry over into her driving experiences. She has tried driving in empty parking lots but feels like it is not real practice and that it will not prepare her for a real driving environment. Jane wants to learn how to drive well but is simply afraid of getting out there and learning from experience.
User 2: Codename Stephen Stephen is a college student from LA. He does not drive very much in the Bay Area but did when he was in Southern California. He reports difficulty adjusting between vehicles. He has a good ability to concentrate but has difficulty in situations with many unpredictable movements.
User 3: Codename Helena She is 25-year-old old office lady, graduate from University of California, San Diego with BA International Studies. Helena has had her license for years, but when it comes to driving, she is still extremely nervous.
User 4: Codename Chuck Chuck is a student as UC Berkeley. He tries to avoid driving as much as possible and relies instead on friend or public transportation or just walking. Having gotten into an accident before has only made him more anxious about driving.
Problem and Solution Overview
The problem: Driving anxiety
There are drivers (and learning drivers) who are afraid to drive for various reasons. Some are afraid that they won't be able stop in time when the car in front of them suddenly brakes. Others are afraid of losing focus and hitting a pedestrian or obstacle; or perhaps they lack the coordination necessary on the streets.
The goal of our application is to help drivers (or those learning how to drive) get over the anxiety associated with driving. To assist these drivers, our application will provide a virtual driving environment where users can play various mini-games and practice driving tasks. We aim to improve driving coordination, reaction time, and driving awareness with a kinect environment that takes away the high pressure nature of a real car in real streets.
Contextual Inquiry
User 1 Jane was not comfortable driving in a real environment for observation. Instead, I drove a car and she rode with me in the passenger's seat. As I was driving, I had her tell me which of my current actions would be difficult for her to replicate. As I was driving down Hearst, a pedestrian quickly moved onto the street a fair distance away from me. As I gradually slowed down, Jane mentioned that she would be afraid of not noticing the pedestrian. At another time, when I was approaching a green light around 25 mph, it changed to yellow. I had the choice to speed up and beat the red, or slow down and stop at the light. I made the judgement to speed up and Jane mentioned that a situation like that would likely cause her to freeze up and make a bad decision. While I was waiting at another light, it turned green but the car in front of me did not accelerate. After a few seconds, I honked and the driver in front of me noticed and started driving. Jane said that she would be too shy to honk in that situation.
User 2 His most difficult situation is when in the middle of a mass of cars which are moving, during traffic congestion. He feels a sense of claustrophobia and has difficulty when lane changes for other cars are often and there is a lot of merging. He must keep awareness of other cars and process many different stimuli at the same time, such as the varying speeds of multiple cars. A car that is helpful in dealing with these situations must have mirrors which are easy to manipulate, since he will want to check cars that he cannot see directly. The rearview mirror must also be wide enough to view the entire rear window. Another important skill he mentions is spatial awareness of the car, where it begins and ends, which is useful not only in driving generally but in parking and parallel parking. When he is parking a large car such as an SUV, he will deliberately drive the front of the car onto the curb so that he can make sure the car is close enough to the curb. He also prefers speedometers with digital readouts, as the relative distance of numbers in analog speedometers can vary and cause drivers to misread them. Digital readouts allow less errors.
User 3 Helena is still extremely nervous, especially when hitting on the freeway. She is terrified for driving because she fears being in an accident. She is extremely fearful of changing lanes, both locally and on the freeway. Changing lanes may seem very easy on the freeway, but with her being scared of speeding up, she is basically stuck on the right lane where people merge in from on-ramps. With so many drivers going over 75MPH zipping around each other without signaling, she is again stuck on the same lane. Changing Lanes locally is not any easier for her either, especially during traffic hours. Helena is also very bugged by “Blind Spots”. If blind spots could be avoided by having larger rare mirrors, she would feel much secured and perhaps not as fearful of driving, as blind spots are often the cause of many accidents. Many cities have streets that contain no traffic lights, meaning that the drivers would have to be 120% alert of pedestrians crossing the streets. This may not be an issue during the day, but for drivers like Helena who is not able to see clearly at night/under the dark, it is very nerve-wracking for them, especially when pedestrians wear dark colors which further prohibit them to see clearly. Thus, a type of light that is specially made for night blindness would be preferable.
User 4 He worries about ending up in an accident so much that he tends to drive at speeds slower that the rest of traffic. He loses focus and becomes annoyed when there are a lot of cars on the road. When he is driving on roads that have a single lane in each direction of travel, cars begin to build up behind him. When this happens, he gets distracted by them as he tries to find a way to let them pass. Ever since he got rear-ended after a pedestrian walked in front of his car, user 4 has been worried of getting into a similar accident again.
Task Analysis Questions
1. Who is going to use system? Anxious drivers will user our system.
2. What tasks do they now perform? Currently, our users drive in environments which are uncomfortable to them. These include highways, city streets, and busy streets. They feel uncomfortable and sometimes refrain from driving because of it. They are less likely to practice driving and improve because practicing itself is daunting. They may also have difficulty adjusting to new vehicles or more complex driving environments, such as those encountered during traffic congestion.
3. What tasks are desired? Users desire a comfortable driving experience. This could mean different things for different users. Most importantly, it means that users will have all of their attention on the road and will not spend time worrying about driving. They would like the ability to react to all necessary stimuli in a calm and effective way.
4. How are the tasks learned? The tasks are learned through engaging mini-games. Users will have to perform targeted tasks such as braking in time, steering away from obstacles, and following moving targets. Each of these mini-games hopes to improve the driving experiences of users.
5. Where are the tasks performed? Users perform these tasks while driving. They may be driving on a highway, in an urban environment, a desolated street, or a busy intersection.
6. What’s the relationship between user & data? To develop users' reaction time and a feeling of control over the interface, which hopefully will translate to a greater sense of control while driving, the user will have real-time feedback from the system, such as a visual simulation of the road and an awareness of their body position through indicators in the application. The user will provide data on their position, focusing on coordination of their hands and feet, while the system will return feedback on the effects of their body on the program.
7. What other tools does the user have? During using the test simulator, the additional chair would be needed. It will be pretended as a driver seat, which make the simulation closer to real driving.
8. How do users communicate with each other? Since only one person drives a vehicle at a time, it is not necessary for this application to handle two users at a time.
9. How often are the tasks performed? There is a varying frequency of usage as tasks are performed on demand as they come up.
10. What are the time constraints on the tasks? The regular driving test: time would be between 15 min and 30 min. Long distance experience: time would be set greater than 60 min.
11. What happens when things go wrong? We want to avoid reinforcing users' fears of driving, so it would be disastrous to have very dramatic, serious in-game results if a user was unsuccessful, or results that are too humorous, considering the consequences of poor driving. We do want to stop the program so all the users' attention is focused on their error, but offer in-game support and suggestions for improving their performance.
Analysis of Tasks
Easy Tasks
- Movement tracking
- The user has to learn to associate his movements with the steering wheel to real movements on the road. Hand eye coordination is necessary to relate the angle of the steering wheel and position of hands to turning.
- Signalling
- The user has to manipulate controls that are fixed in space, turning them on and off.
Medium Tasks
- Reaction braking
- The user is on a highway going very fast, and suddenly the car in front of him slows down rapidly. The user has to brake as fast as possible to avoid a collision, and cannot turn out of the way because there are cars beside him.
- Parking
- The user must steer with his/her hands in order to align vehicles of differing sizes with a target box. When done at faster speeds, this is an emergency stop.
Hard Tasks
- Swerving
- A car or other obstacle may suddenly obstruct the users path, and he is forced to swerve out of the way. He cannot brake because either there is not enough space or time. He has to turn quickly and turn in the right direction, away from other obstacles. He has to swerve quickly or else he will be in an accident.
- Parallel Parking
- The user must combine fixed controls (the gearshift) with steering in order to align vehicles of different sizes with a target box.
Interface Design
Startup Screen/Main Menu
 |
Like the mockup below, there is space for the gray frame shown and a sidebar, which provides consistency for the interface through all its gamestates, as well as a space separate from the game activity itself to change game settings and general interface options, such as volume. When not playing a game, it provides a convenient way to select options and actions while giving visual feedback on the side of a preview of those actions' results. All games provide in-game feedback through the window shown.
Mini-game Sidebar
 |
The sidebar above accompanies every mini-game, providing a common suite of options and feedback without obscuring the game screen. Most feedback will not require physical action by the user outside of the game, which allows the game to be played without interruption while improving player performance. The usage of this sidebar avoids unnecessary pauses, which better reflect the driving process, in which feedback must elicit a reaction in realtime.
Movement Tracking Mini Game
 |
This minigame will improve hand eye coordination by making the user follow targets on screen. This emulates the movements of hands on a steering wheel, which correspond to events that are happening in front of the user. By playing this mini game, drivers will improve coordination between their hands and movement in front of them. This directly applies to our first task under easy.
Parallel Parking Mini Game
 |
Two main part for this Parallel parking minigame. part 1 is the theory learning part: Show the above image, with instructions displayed: 1. Slowly and carefully reverse into the space, turning the steering wheel fully towards the curb. 2. When you can see the outside rear corner of the vehicle in front of your space, straighten your wheels as you continue to reverse. 3. Then turn the steering wheel fully toward the road to bring your vehicle in line with the curb. 4. If your vehicle is not parallel to the curb, drive forward to straighten. 5. When you are properly parked, set the parking brake and move the gear selector into park, or shift into first or reverse gear if your vehicle has a manual transmission. Turn off the engine. Remember to remove the key from the ignition. Check traffic before opening your door. Lock your vehicle.
part 2: practice
 |
The user then plays the game by guiding a vehicle into a space, using their hands to pivot the vehicle and a pushing motion to alter the forward-backward motion of the car. This game rewards precision and develops spatial awareness of the vehicle.
Turn Signal Mini Game
 |
This game teaches the user to use turn signals in sync with turns themselves, taking control of the turn itself out of their hands so they can focus on the signalling and develop this skill as a reaction to the movement of their vehicle, in a fun coordination game in the spirit of Dance Central or Dance Dance Revolution. Instructions for how the game is played is in the image.
Competitive Analysis
Kinect Joy Ride XBox 360 Game http://www.gamespot.com/kinect-joy-ride/videos/kinect-joy-ride-video-review-6283879/
Analysis: Target User Group: The target user groups of "Kinect Joy Ride" are people who like to play game and have fun, while our target user group is those anxious drivers; thus, our target group is more specific to anxious drivers but not those who just want to have fun from game.
Functionality: This Kinect Joy Ride Game provide users the ultimately fun, wile our proposed idea will improve user's drive skill which will help the user in its real life.
Usability: The background of this Kinect game is too fancy and full of non-realistic, wile our driving simulator will make the background as realistic as possible and making the using thought they driving in the real road.
Summary:After observing the Kinect Joy Ride Game, we found that the functionalities offered by this game was different from our driving simulator. The Jay Ride Game bring fun and exited time to users, the users will never learn thing from playing this game. However, our simulator teach users how to react correctly during driving.
Kinect GEL Ride http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWbLOFGSEDo
Analysis: Target User Group: The target user groups of "Kinect GEL Ride" are people who like to play car race game, while our target user group is those anxious drivers; thus, our target group is totally different from the car race game. one group is the people who is anxious on driving, while the other is the people who cry on speeding.
Functionality: This Kinect GEL Ride Game bring the users to the car race environment, wile our driving simulator bring the users to the environment that as close to real world as possible .
Usability: In Kinect GEL Ride, the hands and foot control of the car is not fully utilized when the player driving, wile our driving simulator will make the user control the direction of the car by hands and speed of the car by foot.
Summary:After observing the Kinect Joy Ride Game, we found that the functionalities offered by this game was different from our driving simulator. The Kinect GEL Game bring fun and exited time to users, the users will never learn thing from playing this game. However, our simulator teach users how to react correctly during driving.
Driving Simulator Hire http://www.kinect-hire.co.uk/driving-simulator-hire/
Analysis: Target User Group: The target user groups of "Driving Simulator Hire" are people who want to experience the real car race, while our driving simulator targets user group who want to experience the real driving without encountering any physical dangerous situation;
Functionality: This Driving Simulator Hire bring the users to the car race environment, Wile our driving simulator help users to deal with the situation that they will encounter in the real world driving.
Usability: In using Dring Simulator Hire, the player has to sit on the seat, hands on wheel and step on the panels, wile our driving simulator will make the user control easier by using only a seat, but not physical wheel and foot panels.
Summary:After observing the Driving Simulator Hire, we found that the functionalities offered by this simulator was different from our driving simulator. The Driving Simulator Hire lead the play to experience the situation that they rarely encounter in the real world driving. However, our simulator teach users how to react correctly during real word driving. The Driving Simulator Hire need more tools other than Kinect, such as physical driving wheel, break and accelerate penal. Yet, our driving simulator not.
WorldViz: A driving simulator game with Vizard R4 using the Microsoft Kinect for hand tracking http://www.electrictv.com/?p=4039
Analysis: Target User Group: The target user groups of "WorldViz" are those people who are car race game fan, while our driving simulator targets user group who want to learn the driving skill.
Functionality: WorldViz allows user in using hands to control the direction of driving, but no way to speed up, slow down or stop by user cotrolling, Wile our driving simulator will allow user fully control the car with, direction control, speed control, slow down control and stop and parking control.
Usability: The WorldViz does not design how to stop by user controlling, while our driving simulator allow to stop the car by using foot as step on break penal.
Summary:The functionality provide by WorldViz is different from our driving simulator. WorldViz allows user in using hands to control the direction of driving, but no way to speed up, slow down or stop by user cotrolling, Wile our driving simulator will allow user fully control the car with, direction control, speed control, slow down control and stop and parking control by using user's hands and foot.
City Car Driving http://citycardriving.com/
Analysis: Target User Group: The target user groups of "City Car Driving" are those people who want to experience real traffic situation and learn how to drive correctly. This is almost target the same group as our driving simulator. But, our target user is narrower, anxious drivers.
Functionality: City Car Driving allows user controlling the car by click on key board, while our driving simulator allows user controlling the car by their physical body.
Usability: The City Car Driving is a nice application the teach the user to learn how to driving correctly theoretically, since all the process during the game was controlled by click key board, while our driving simulator not only teach the driving knowledge but also let user hands on the driving, which is more likely a real driving.
Summary:The functionality provide by City Car Driving is different from our Kinect driving simulator. Even though City Car Driving is a nice application the teach the user to learn how to driving correctly theoretically, since all the process during the game was controlled by click key board, while our driving simulator not only teach the driving knowledge but also let user hands on the driving, which is more likely a real driving.
