In this section, we make introduction and comparison with methodologies related to our research including interview, observation and dynamic interaction experiment tools.
2.7.1 Group Interview - Focus Group
Focus groups are structured group interviews, focusing on schemed topics, which quickly and
inexpensively reveal a target audience’s desires, experiences and priorities for their needs and their value.
Before we start to design our experimental prototype, we have to realize and gather information from people, and we can use a focus group to understand and get insights about how people perceive in their shopping experiences, as it is a way to get lots of firsthand experience in a short time, and give development an early, solid foundation from which to analyze our target product – vending machine and it’s possible user’s need.
The session is conducted by a moderator which follows schemed script of discussion guide. By preparing snack and set comfortable environment, audiences can reveal their thoughts and feeling at ease. They may share their views and assumptions that lie at the core of their experience and to relate them to real world situations. Focus groups are not a way to get usability information because it is impossible to show using in practice during the session, and what it gets are not statistically significant samples so the result can be extrapolated to large populations. In contrast, focus group can still give people a good idea of why the audience behaves how it does. Once the why has been determined, it can be verified through statistical research.
There are four types of focus groups, exploratory, feature prioritization, competitive analysis and trend explanation. Our study’s objective is to know what words customers talk about clerks, what criteria they use to judge them and what their expectations to an ideal clerk are. This approach can be sorted as the exploratory one. (Kuniavsky, 2003)
2.7.2 Obtaining Dynamic interactions
Spatial models are a necessary addition to the visualization techniques which support the designer to explore and test interactions. They are beneficial to create contexts for experience. Spatial models come in all kinds of forms throughout the entire design process, from simple paper mock-ups to refined full-scale working prototypes, ranging from low fidelity to high fidelity prototype, and can have high-interaction or low-interaction relevance (Rettig, 1994). The kind of experience which user has depends on the kind of model which is created. With low fidelity models which have high-interaction relevance, such as an easy made paper models. Simple paper models allow designer to explore the interactions early in the process, and clay or
polystyrene foam models are extremely suitable for exploring the appearance of products. A designer can study the aesthetics of appearance with more refined models. Detailed working prototypes are suitable to evaluate the context of use, the response of users and their behavior when interacting with the model. The special models are generally adequate to generate and demonstrate the hardware part but not the virtual part (software) of a digital product.
A way of obtaining a dynamic interaction is the use of a so-called “Wizard-of-Oz”, adapted from the movie of the same name. The wizard is the person who impersonated the product or computer. He interprets the interactions of the user with the product and provides him/her with appropriate feedback. The person acting as the computer is preferably invisible, so that the users can immerse themselves in the activity and create their experience. The Wizard-of-Oz approach enables the designer and user to test interaction concepts early on in the design process, without having to rely on a difficult and expensive (financially as well as in time) implementation phase.
Another way of obtaining a dynamic interaction is called “Interaction Relabelling” technique (Djajadiningrat, Gaver and Frens, 2000), which shows that every day products can also enhance interactive imagery. With this method, participants interact with props, existing products, pretending it is the product to be designed. The participants are asked to relabel the provided prop with their original mechanical components.
According to this method, researcher can get rich information mainly on the resulting richness of the gestures and stories, other benefit may show in the metaphor that participants think about.
These dynamic participatory design tools may focus on different demand. Interaction Relabelling are much benefit on exploring the richness of gestures, and it is much like a generative tool for inspiring designers’ innovation and exploring new manipulative possibilities. Making special models could pay much attention to evaluate the designed features. In order to observe and get information from people with a social product, after gathering customers’ opinions from surveys, we have to make experimental model to proceed the study. Making paper mock-up prototype can let us quickly explore and test interactions, while to be seized, turned, moved and used with a spatial model is necessary. Although the shape of the paper mock-up is not yet explicit, the possibility of grasping and using it is often enough to get a first feel of the interaction for us.
Therefore, our prototype needs reactions and feedback and these have to be achieved by using a simulated tool – Wizard of Oz. (Hummels and et. al., 2001)
2.7.3 Observation of task performance
Observation of task performance is a method for observing users (Argyle, 1990). In our study, we try to observe behavioral indications such as nonverbal gestures, eye-gaze by using observation of task performance, as opposed to self-report measures such as questionnaires and anecdotal accounts because behavioral observation have the potential to offer greater information over self-report ratings
Individual subject’ behaviors were observed by researcher when they operate and execute given task, and then analyze the concepts and relationship between them. There are two ways to go through this method: (a) Complete observation involves: Researcher participates with highly involved in the subjects’ task, and asks questions or different point of views to subjects. They act with frequent interaction during experiment. (b) Passive observation: Researcher records and observes from the sidelines during the task was proceeded by subjects. After finish the experiment task, researcher ask questions base on their findings in video coding or voice coding.
As the feeling and percept from subjects are important, it will be much better if their engagement could be much immersed in the schemed scenario and the interaction with our prototype. Another reason is that the sequences of task are uncomplex and fixed, and we have certain features need to be assessed while having no wide range of freedom to afford extra operations. So in our concern, we tend to not interrupt their operation during whole task for augment the immersion.
2.7.4 Perceptive Sorting
Perceptive sorting (PS) is a method inspired by the field of visual research. By combining card sorting and keywords it may be used to gain responses to product familiarity, product function, and aesthetic considerations. Our study refers to a use for gathering information about how participants assess product
attributes, assign value, and tell stories of product use (Forlizzi and et. al., 2003). When people evaluate an image, they project meaning upon the image and thereby reveal apperceptive knowledge about how they structure their experience. Stimulus images can also serve as records of social artifacts that help reveal what a particular user group values.
We are interested in the use of photographic images as a stimulus to assess the perceived function and associations of our prototype after operation in experiment.
2.7.5 Affinity Diagram
The affinity diagram, or KJ method (after its author, Kawakita Jiro) is a creative process, used with or by a group, to gather and organize ideas, opinions, issues, etc. Though it wasn't originally intended for quality management, this process has become one of the most widely used of the management and planning tools. In Seven New QC Tools, Ishikawa (1990) recommends using the affinity diagram when facts or thoughts are uncertain and need to be organized, when preexisting ideas or paradigms need to be overcome, when ideas need to be clarified, and when unity within a team needs to be created.
In this study, affinity diagram is used for sorting and organizing qualitative concepts into naturally related group
s
from people’s opinion. It was built bottom up, by grouping similar raw concepts into categories, taken as the first consolidation step, and it also helps researchers to think for all the rest of gathered information.Chapter 3
DESIGN PROTOTPYEBase on a premise: human-product interaction is fundamentally social. The objective of this study is to demonstrate how motion could convey social intentions and discuss about social motion cues from knowing people’s response, opinions and expectations toward socio-product.
Vending machine were chosen as target product because it has a similar function, selling things, as a social role, clerk, which make it easy to compare the differences since they both proceeding similar task ”selling things”. The most important of all, vending machines these days do have some interactive problem as we mentioned in chapter 1. In order to shape a similar experience from human-human interaction and implant social attributes into a vending machine, we have to realize how a good clerk interacts with their customers and what attributes are most appreciated by people.
Although social-emotional interaction is something that all human/users have some expertise in it (we all have experience with human-human interaction), but to transfer this expertise into human-product interaction is difficult, and seldom researches have been made toward product design. Hence realizing popular attributes of clerk will be approach first, and an experimental prototype have be made on our on.
Information was collected in two surveys for extracting design ingredients from a pre-existing relationship between two social roles – clerk and customer, where have interaction for certain specific tasks, modalities and causal behavior patterns. Interview data were then aggregated, organized.
According to these insights, we then make a paper mock-up with social motional attributes for following assessment.