Download Full Report (Part I – Spring 2011)
* best viewed in a PDF viewer as 2-page continuous layout

Overview:
This Capstone Project, covering two semesters, involves applying our skills developed in the Masters in Human-Computer Interaction (MHCI) Program to solve a real-world problem for a real-world client. Our team is partnered with Novabase Collab, one of Portugal’s largest IT and Contact Center Solutions Companies. Our goal as HCI consultants in training is to understand the conversations in social media that could ultimately affect consumer behavior. We plan to deliver a prototype that uses social media channels to promote mutually beneficial interactions between users and businesses.

Problem Description:
With the arrival and spread of social networks comes benefits and challenges for both individuals and businesses. While businesses have been able to take advantage of social networks to improve their visibility, marketing efforts, and customer support; they also have had to tackle the difficulty of reacting to and managing negative publicity that disseminates extremely quickly and is difficult to reach to and control.

This project tackles the challenges of social networks for companies like Collab’s clients. It explores how companies should expose themselves or use social networks as part of their existing portfolio of communication technologies. In particular, the project will try to take advantage of existing platforms at Collab (e.g. OneTouch and OneContact) to explore new ways that companies can use social networks to track, manage, monitor and expose their brand, products, and services.

Process:
Our project road map takes the form of three stages: Exploration, Generation, and Evaluation. In the first semester, we have employed several research methods to explore social media behavior and interactions with businesses and users. After synthesizing and analyzing our data, we came to key insights from which we generated our initial concepts. In the fall semester and final stage, we have completed ideation and concept validation. We look forward to three design iterations, each with user testing, and completing the project with a functioning prototype by the end of the year.

For an in-depth look at our process in the first semester, including research method details, synthesis, and analysis, see our Spring Final Report.

Overview:
Through the course of a summer internship, our team of two interns researched and developed a prototype for scrolling through a document using 3D (in-air) gestures. Along the way, we discovered the challenges of gesture design, namely, coming up with an effective modal switch (a start and stop) in order for the gesture to be recognized. After several iterations of our prototype, we were able to user test the performance of our final scrolling gesture against Synaptics’ established ChiralMotion scrolling. While many found the new gesture appealing and different, it had not been developed to the level of ChiralMotion and therefore, could not compete in certain aspects. However, the positive feedback we received proved there is potential to develop the gesture further.

Problem Description:
As the design of user interfaces advances, there is a growing need for interactions to become more natural and less dependent on peripherals such as a touchscreen, keyboard, or mouse. Gestural interaction has entered the market in mainly gaming systems such as the Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Kinect. However, not all tasks can be accomplished efficiently and effectively through gestures due to the constraints of gesture recognition and limitations of depth cameras, like the Microsoft Kinect.

This project explores whether or not gestures could be compelling in a productivity work environment. In coming up with an effective gestural scrolling interaction, we had to overcome the challenges of gestural design, including the difficulty in reading the “start” and “stop” of a gesture, latency in processing a gesture and executing the appropriate following action, fatigue (i.e., “gorilla arm”), and working with a limited gesture region.

Process and Technology:
Our process included surveying the current Kinect applications in the open-source community, brainstorming ideas that aligned with the company’s vision, developing iterative prototypes, running usability studies, and conducting an experiment comparing various scrolling methods.

We developed our scrolling gesture using Microsoft Visual Studio, the Kinect SDK, OpenCV 2.2 Library, and EmguCV 2.2.1 Library. As novices to the Kinect development world, we went through a few small projects to familiarize ourselves with the technology. These projects include background extraction/replacement, simple blob detection, and sending a mouse wheel event to an external application (such as Adobe PDF Reader).

With each major iteration of our prototype, we ran informal surveys as well as conducted formal usability studies to understand users’ preferences and physiological constraints. The results from these studies played a significant role in our decisions to design for just one degree of freedom, in picking between two gestures, as well as selecting a modal switch.

In our final experiment, we compared our scrolling gesture against Synaptics’ ChiralMotion and tradtional mouse scrolling. We gave users the task of locating a red, bolded line in an 1100-line document within a browser window. The task was repeated for various line distances from the top of the document and from various directions (beginning at the top or bottom of the document). Our results revealed that users performed the task more quickly using the traditional mouse and ChiralMotion, however this may be greatly influenced by their amount of previous experience in using mice. Many commented that our scrolling gesture was novel, fun, and if tweaked to the level of ChiralMotion, it could be a primary scrolling tool for specific types of tasks.

Download Final Presentation

Overview:
This semester-long project was the lab portion of the HCI Methods course at CMU. Each team was provided with a real-world client and was expected to apply the methods learned in class to deliver a solution grounded in the data collected and analyzed over the semester.

Problem Description:
ReefBot Web is a SPARK and Sprout Fund-sponsored project that extends the ReefBot console experience within Pittsburgh’s PPG Aquarium. The ReefBot console allows children and their parents to maneuver an aquatic robot that is equipped with an underwater camera, enabling users to capture photos of the marine life in the ReefBot tank. The Web portion of this project is designed to continue the learning experience and initiate discussion at home about ocean life and coral reef preservation. Our team of five students delivered a visual prototype of our solution to help bridge the aquarium experience back to the home.

Process:
Our team heavily relied on contextual inquiries to understand our target users, families with young children between the ages of 4 and 8 years old. With the families’ permission, we conducted three contextual inquiries (CIs) at the aquarium, which involved following and observing a family’s interactions with the museum and aquarium exhibits. Our focus was primarily on how the family picked out a toy from the Aquarium Gift Shop as our solution was inspired by how souvenirs that are brought home affect post-visit conversations and education.

Using the video footage captured in each CI, we modeled our data from a variety of aspects: flow of information, cultural factors, and sequence of actions. We omitted the physical and artifact models that we also learned in class as we did not feel these models were appropriate to our context. Using these models, we were able to locate breakdowns that inspired our end solution. In addition to CIs, we also created personas that helped us envision who we were designing for.

After coming up with an initial design of a personalized online trading card, we tested the concept using think-alouds with our paper prototype and tweaked our interface design based on the feedback provided by our participants. We also tested the efficiency of dragging vs. clicking interactions using CogTool software.

Our final high-fidelity visual prototype consisted of colorful screens that stepped through the process of creating an online trading card. The site first prompted the user with the code received from the ReefBot console after taking a photo using the ReefBot submersible robot. Once the photo was correctly identified, the child and parent would be able to create a personalized card. The child would be able to enter his/her name, identify their fish, answer various questions about the fish’s lifestyle, and were finally given the option to name their fish. Trading cards could be printed, shared, and saved.

Our recommendations for this solution were well-received by our client, who was excited to continue this project with a newly issued government grant.

“Flirt with Dessert” Cookbook

In the course Communication Design Fundamentals at CMU, our final project was to create a cookbook that combined each classmate’s individual recipes, using any theme, layout, and style of choice.

[Show as slideshow]

Aeron Chair Brochure

Again, in the course Communication Design Fundamentals at CMU, we were to design a brochure given only the copy and a few starter images of the Aeron chair. This assignment emphasized grid, layout, and color.

[Show as slideshow]

MHCI Newsletters

In my spare time, I co-authored and designed newsletters with another MHCI student, Sony Verma, to capture the memories of our class.

[Show as slideshow]

Download Full Report 

Overview:
In the HCI Methods course at CMU, our homework assignments were cumulative in nature regarding one specific design challenge to which we would apply the key HCI tools and techniques learned in class. In Fall 2010, each of the homework teams were given the challenge of designing a digitally-augmented environment to support parents in dealing with the transition from being parents of dependent children to parents of adult children. This experience simulated a realistic design process that emphasized designing from data. We started with selecting a research focus, then modeled and analyzed contextual data, derived key insights from the data, and finally came up with a couple designs that were evaluated using results from a “think-aloud” evaluation.

Project Description:
Parents who have adult children leaving the home are faced with a transition into the the role of “empty nesters.” Much of the burden of sorting through the children’s belongings falls on the shoulder of the parents, who are trying to reclaim space in their homes while making sure to keep useful or emotionally significant items. In order to facilitate this process, our team designed the Empty Nester iPhone app.

Process:
Our group applied the following methods to this design challenge:

Contextual inquiry & design – The design team followed parents as they sorted and organized the items cluttering their home. The parents’ activity was then examined from 5 different perspectives and translated into models: Flow, Sequence, Cultural, Physical, and Artifact.

Think-aloud – A parent was recorded as he uploaded photos of his child’s belongings to Flickr, a photo sharing website. The parent voices all of the thoughts that go through his head as he performs the task. Our group then analyzed the recording and identified critical incidents that could be used to inform design decisions.

Keystroke-level models – Our group built software models of an expert user uploading photos to two photo sharing sites: Flickr and Picasa. The user and system performance was then broken down and explored for ways to optimize the process.

Based on the data collected with these methods, our group designed a powerful and highly usable smartphone application targeted at parents with children moving away from home. Key design aspects we developed from our data are:

• Providing the user with a logical workflow for organizing their child’s possessions and removing clutter from his or her home.
• Integration with smartphone contacts
• Asynchronous communication between the parent(s) and children
• Gathering input remotely from the children
• Batch notifications between users
• An alert/alarm system to keep the parent(s) on track with their house-cleaning goals
• Saved history of processed or archived items
• Tips, tricks & useful information to help anyone reclaim the cluttered spaces in their home

The result is an application perfectly suited to its task, integrating a novel set of features to provide the end user with a solution that truly meets their needs.

To view our design walkthrough and rationale, a retrospective account of the methods we used, and an appendix of models/artifacts created, please see our Full Report.