Patch Building Update - James Medd

I've been pretty busy this past week getting our interactive installation prepared for a prototype presentation this coming Monday. I thought it right to give a quick update on what I've been doing:


- Now that we have all our quiz questions prepared, I programmed in this section earlier this week. It was a little tedious after a while but paid off! There are a minimum of three questions for each of our five charms giving a good amount of content for the user to interact with. To keep a friendly feel to our age range, we have opted for a trial and error method. While this is not so much of a challenge, it does take out any potential frustration for the user.


Since creating the first version of the quiz, our graphics members have created the accompanying visuals which I have now integrated, thus making the quiz practically complete bar a few potential aesthetic tweaks!


- Now that every screen/section's main visuals are complete, we no longer have any blank screens to end up at (huzzah!) and most sections now have the core of their interactive elements in place bar a few additional graphics and informational content. These may not be entirely complete for the prototype viewing but it should be clear how each section works. With a bit of careful programming I have also been able to include some of the graphics members' subtle embellishments in certain areas too, this will be seen on Monday!


- Now that the majority of our audio elements have been recorded, the installation is no longer silent! Various elements of background and triggered sounds are now in place with all appropriate timing considerations and fades programmed in. There are still plenty to go but there should be enough included in the prototype for everyone to hear how they will work in the context of the installation.

There are probably a handful of things I have forgotten but anything that I have missed will be seen on Monday afternoon. Things are most definitely taking shape! Video/Images to follow prototype presentation.

Our Interface With The Touchscreen - James Medd

Hello all, just a quick post following my first practise using the interface on the touchscreen this morning.

My principal jobs so far with this project have been to work closely with the graphics/video members of the group in the design and creation of our interactive interface and to assemble the interface and content within MaxMSP – putting it all together!

I’ve been working over the past fortnight or so to build the interface at home on my laptop and today I took what I had so far to use with touchscreen. As planned, everything is nicely spaced and laid out, clear and most importantly, feels very easy to operate with the screen and runs very smoothly.

The video below shows me briefly operating the device, showing off the overall look and feel of the interface, with some of the animations and graphics now in place. Obviously there is still a lot of content yet to be integrated on the other pages but you get the idea of how it’s going to work.

Just a quick note to Rob, I have emailed you about this but we will need Max to be upgraded to the latest version (5.1.5) as some of the added functionality with certain objects is necessary to how our installation works. The DMG is on the desktop of the Mac Mini but needs the administrator password to be installed. Thanks!

Some Of Our Progress So Far/Second Pitch

In this video we expand on the previous pitch (see earlier posts for transcript and video of presentation) and also show some of what we have so far. These are the very early stages but should help to give an idea on how our interactive installation will function.

Pitch & Initial Feedback

Audio - James Howard-White

Spent much of yesterday hunting for possible foley sounds in town. The main aim was to acquire some busy background street recordings, however much of wanted street ambience was filled by an awful trumpet busker playing along to one of those chill out mood backing CDs that my Mum buys. Therefore I found myself having to work around this guy who's trumpet carried pretty much the entire length of the high street.

Nevertheless I acquired the sounds I needed and have been experimenting for the last couple of days (stay tuned for a couple of examples). Work has also begun on our vendors voice, considering my limited vocal talent we decided I come up with the voice before Callum and Tony work on his appearance.

First Steps With The Interface - James Medd

Just a quick note to say I've been doing some work on a skeleton interface. It's very plain and is obviously full of placeholder buttons, backgrounds and text right now but it's been giving me an idea of how our idea might be realised in MaxMSP.

I'll be convening with Tony and Callum shortly to get some of their early graphics and drop them into what I have so far. Then I'll post a quick video of me using this 'barebones' setup!

@Rob MacKay: Any chance you might be able to give us the resolution for the touchscreen? Cheers!

Pitch Transcript - All Members

Here is a near enough a full transcript of the pitch we gave on Monday. I believe Rob is making the video available this week, he was working on it in his office today!

Introduction - Callum Ward

Hello,

We have been assigned the ‘health’ orientated selection of charms and the proposal we have in response to the brief and the criteria which it outlined is to create an interactive ‘apothecary’ store run by an eccentric salesman character who will guide the user through the content.

The ‘apothecary’ scenario allows us deliver information about the charms in a way which will hopefully appeal to the primary target age group of 14 to 24 year olds whilst also having something to offer for people above and below these ages.

After visiting the museum and viewing the interactive displays we discussed what we did and didn’t like and sought to incorporate our evaluations into the display concept throughout it’s development.

Three key words that we focussed on throughout all aspects of planning were ‘engaging’, ‘clear’ and ‘concise’. The nature of the subject matter and the positioning of the display within the museum demand that visitor’s attention is easily caught and any information imparted to them is done so in a simple and succinct but also memorable fashion.

The use of videos, written text, audio files and quiz sections within our proposed concept should ensure that every user will be able to find something in the display that will to appeal to them.

We each have defined roles within the group but we will be working closely on the project and intend to overlap our work to an extent to ensure consistency throughout all areas of production and clarity in the final outcome.

I’ll now pass you on to James Medd who will walk you through the interface aspect of our proposal in more detail.

Interface Design - James Medd

As Callum mentioned, the core of our interface is based around an interactive apothecary environment that the user will explore in order to gain information on the charms before taking part in activities driven by the shop owner character. We are aiming to provide enough interactivity to give the user a sense of the control and hopefully enjoyment, but an overwhelming amount of interaction that may lead to a frustrating or confusing experience.

As we have said and will continue to say, clarity and functionality are paramount in the project. We are hoping that relatively small amounts of concise text and obvious points of interaction will help achieve this. Despite the seeming simplicity of this design however, the interface will be embellished with audio, video and polished graphics in order to maintain an engaging experience, with a good amount of visual variation to avoid a static aesthetic.

A few additional notes now: control is something we consider to be an important part of the interactive experience, therefore among other measures, we plan to allow the user to 'cancel'/'skip' or 'go back' at anytime so as to keep their interest. As Mark stated last week when he was here, there's nothing more frustrating that being trapped somewhere you do not want to be!

Linked with this, given the potentially difficult age range we are dealing with, we realise not every user will be after the same sort of experience. With this in mind, there will be options available for those not inclined to take part in activities such as quizzes but who still wish to have fun interacting or gaining information about the subject.

Finally, we are also planning rigorous testing to avoid bugs and crashes! I'll let James Howard-White tell you about the audio side of our project.

Audio/Sound Effects - James Howard-White

Back in the Victorian era the sale of medicine relied heavily on salesmanship, perhaps more so than the actual effectiveness of the medicine itself. Vendors depended on terms such as 'secret ingredient' and 'ancient mysticism' to promote their cure all elixirs, amulets and charms. Using a fully voiced character, we intend to incorporate this bravado into our design. Our character will help by immediately engaging with the user, humanise our exhibit and add a touch of comical value. He won't be heavily scripted and the real trick will be ensuring we optimise the character with out over doing things, slowing down the users experience and ensuring that on screen information don't overlap and become confusing.

Diegetic will be a bit of a buzzword when it comes to sound. Everything will be taken from the environment. The voice-over, the bubbling of the latest elixir experiment and the hint of a busy shopping street outside.When looking up information on the charms we want to subtly mix in sounds of the environment in which they can be found. A sea shore, under the sea or in the case of the mother of pearl fishes, an eastern market. Other than the character, we want the sound to primarily enhance the realism without being a distraction.

Tony Ball will now expand on the visuals we'll be using in this project.

Video/Graphics - Tony Ball

Hi, I’m Tony and I’ll be collaborating with Callum with the design and production of all the graphical aspects of our installation.

We aim to emphasise the era and the purpose of the health charms with a Victorian styled apothecary. To illustrate this we’ll be opting for a hand drawn and computer rendered appearance that will balance the need of simplicity whilst avoiding looking too much like a child’s cartoon.

As previously mentioned, we plan to include the salesman type character to play host to our patch. I’ll be working closely with James and Callum in creating this character making sure he is an accurate representation of the era as well as refining on his quirky characteristics and lifelike habits.

We will also be designing a variety of other objects with the potential of interaction: either acting as buttons or just small pieces of animation to bring some life into our patch. Again this is to enhance the user experience when using the interface.

To maintain Clarity we will be keeping our designs fairly minimal. This will hopefully ensure that interest isn’t lost in the confusion of what to press on screen. 

I believe at this point Callum then asked if there were any questions! You'll see those in the video!

Animation - Callum Ward

I started work on animating the interior of the apothecary scenario on 11/10/10 and the base layer of this animation is now pretty much complete as you can see in Tony’s post below. After I drew the images freehand they were scanned in to be retraced and coloured digitally by Tony. Next to come will be the front of store and smaller sprite objects that are to be placed within these environments such as the charms themselves and the shopkeeper character.

First Draft of Apothecary - Tony Ball

Hey Guys, Got a draft done of the apothecary. Comes in red or green (and darker ceiling if desired) I've tried my best but no doubt I could make it look glossier given time. I'm not sure why we have a metallic till. I was thinking of turning it into stacked boxes. Anyone have any problems with this?

Let me know and I'll get cracking on it in a few days. For now, I'm gonna dedicate some time into learning Jitter.

Critique of the Rotunda Interactive Exhibits (James H-W)

Huddled in the Rotunda museum we were all informed that we needed to write a critique on the two interactive exhibits they had available. Unlike the group of small exhibits and the larger dinosaur screen was quite distracting during our conversation and was very inviting. It was inevitably the first display I investigated once we were free to explore.

As it had appeared from a distance the Dinosaurs of Yorkshire exhibit was very engaging. There only a limited selection of options available at any one time which made navigation simple and easy. The interactive game where you could place the plants, current animals and Dinosaurs into your own setting was enjoyable. The game could be played properly but if the user wanted to fool around and create a bustling dinosaur metropolis where nothing would be able to move (like we did) the program handled it smoothly. Commentary from the expert was short and to the point, not an unnecessary over abundance of information. Although a few of the revelations the exhibit tried to teach were perhaps already well known by most “Crocodiles are at least as old as the Dinosaurs” left me wondering if that was really the best they could come up with. The game process worked very well, before being allowed to place your Dinosaur into the backdrop you first had to pick from a selection of eight, two of which were red herrings. There was a brief bit of information from the expert that was slipped in nicely before you could continue. I found myself trying to guess which species of dinosaur they were before selecting them and was occasionally let down by answers such as “Yes a Sauropod like this one” only letting us know the family of species the picture belonged to. Only a small criticism but I’m unlikely to be the only person who thought that.

The smaller exhibit on the environment seemed to be pitched towards an older group of visitors. The interface was smart if perhaps a bit crowded on a small screen and held a lot more information. My attempts to button bash it into submission were thwarted as it moved almost instantaneously and smoothly from one page to another. At times there was too much information to be read, I doubt many visitors took their time to read through the newspapers articles. The interactive game based on coastal erosion was simple and effective. Information was given about the terrain and budget of the people affected and the user has to decide from a selection of preventive measures which would be best for the situation. Reasons for correct and incorrect answers were short and informative. The drawback of the quiz was that in the middle of a question I thought the exhibit had frozen before I noticed coastal erosion meter started sliding down at the top of the screen. I presume I had run out of time although no timer was active during the quiz or anything that made me aware that I was running out of lives. Annoyingly this end process was rather lengthy in time and couldn’t be skipped.

To conclude, both exhibits were well put together and fun to use at times. I enjoyed the simplicity of the dinosaur exhibit and felt it was the more immersive of the two, whereas the environmental exhibit was more informative but overly informative at times. Both have their minor annoyances and of all the aspects I learned from the visit the idea of tackling tackle these minor details was the biggest eye opener. Problems that probably don’t become apparent until we approach our exhibit from the perspective of a user and the fact that once all the core aspects of the design are completed and perfected that there is always more work that can be done. 

Rotunda Museum Visit (06/10/2010) - Tony Ball

On Wednesday 6th October the group and I had the opportunity to visit the Rotunda museum and explore the "Shell Geology Now" exhibition as well as seeing the workspace where our interactive patch will be installed. We spent our time familiarising ourselves with the environment and installations already on display.

The main room hosted a variety of installations. I was immediately drawn to the largest wall mounted screen which was identifying fossils around the room and relating them to dinosaurs materialised on screen. I didn't read any of the information around the room but found it was possible to complete the questions proposed by the quiz nevertheless. I felt that the option to 'try again' with incorrect answers was good way for the user to not lose interest and it barely affected the momentum of the game. With frequent opportunities for the user to create their own prehistoric scene it succeeds in keeping the users concentration.

I enjoyed the occasional (yet optional) additional information given by Dr Martin Whyte of The University of Sheffield about various animals or plantation. However with the commotion of a large crowd I found that I was only catching half of what he was saying. I felt a pair of headphones or a small caption box would have been ideal for this situation. A caption box would also cater for those hard of hearing.

The screen's touch response I felt was good. I found it was easy to navigate and the layout was always clear to what I had to do. I did however find the colour scheme occasionally didn't quite match up to my expectations. For instance when applying Dinosaurs to my prehistoric scene some colours I felt were quite bold and unnatural. As a dinosaur's appearance is currently undetermined, I can't say their colour scheme is outright wrong. However I felt choosing more subtle colours, or even just opting for a similar colour scheme to the one used in 'Jurassic Park' would have enhanced the reality of the subject matter.

The usability of the installment overall I felt was good. It contained clear linear structure which I found easy and enjoyable to follow. The freedom to be slightly silly in creating the prehistoric scene helped it become a more memorable experience from my visit.

I then moved onto the podium style touch screen installments. I spent most of my time exploring the section on coastal erosion, reading through the information presented. Like the previous installment the layout was clear and attractive to look at. These particular installments were clearly aimed at a different audience as they contained a lot more in depth information. However, I found myself loosing interest quite quickly purely because I felt inundated by the information. I felt presenting the information in this fashion wasn't effective in keeping user concentration.

I proceeded onto interactive game expecting it the match the dinosaur installment by giving me the same information, boiled down and delivered in an interesting way. Instead it testing me more on the knowledge I should have gained from the previous pages so I already felt my enthusiasm to continue begin to diminish. I felt to add more interest to the interactive game they could have shown the consequence of the coastline when they pick the wrong form of protection.

From this particular experience I've concluded that Information needs to be brief and digestible. I expect there will be occasions where someone will have limited concentration and an interactive game should cater for this. Passing over useful information in an interactive game is a fun and effective way to engage with the younger audience whilst ensuring they come away having learned something.

As our installation will be set up at the end of the corridor outside it is quite possible for our installment to be passed by unnoticed. So, it is essential that we cater for all types of audience making sure they are kept entertained by our presentation and information. After meeting up and discussing our experiences at the Rotunda museum I feel confident this will be achieved.

Visit to Rotunda Museum - Callum Ward

On 06/10/10 we visited the Rotunda Museum to see the where our work is going to be located and also to learn more about the interactive exhibits the museum currently has on display.

The museum had two interactive displays offering different content; one installation was contained entirely on a single large touchscreen, the second was presented on four separate screens and intended for simultaneous use by multiple users.

These two installations appeared to be aimed at different ages, with the former being targeted at a younger audience and the latter being aimed at more mature age range.

The large touchscreen installation offered a simplistic question and answer activity followed by the chance for users to ‘create their own coastal environment’ by placing images of prehistoric flora and fauna into an empty landscape. Upon correctly responding to a question a short video clip would play in which a small amount of information was given further qualifying the user’s answer. I found the quiz to be engaging and believe that it would succeed in holding the attention of the younger audience at which it is aimed. The information provided is not overwhelming and doesn’t risk losing the users attention. By alternating rounds of the questionnaire with rounds of the ‘create your own environment’ activity I felt this display was extremely effective at engrossing the user in what they were doing and encourages them to work their way through the entire interactive sequence.

An additional benefit of placing this content on the large screen is that it can be both viewed by and participated in by a relatively large number of people; with a young target audience I believe this to be an extremely positive aspect of the display as it’s content leant itself towards group involvement.

The second interactive display was clearly intended for an older audience. It offered a greater range of subject matter and went into greater detail in each area. Features such as activities involving scrolling through past news stories and interactive diagrams and question and answer sections sought to put across a more comprehensive view of the subject matter but in its attempt to engage the user I felt it sacrificed some of its clarity. The content seemed to work against itself, with the interactive aspects making the information seem scattered and diffuse and the abundance of information making the interactive element flow less naturally for the user. Even though the smaller screens were clearly intended for one or perhaps at most two people to work through the content in their own time thereby allowing more information to be given, because of the way in which it was presented, I found myself tiring of this exhibit more quickly then I had the previous one.

However the overall aesthetic appeal and graphic design used within this display was to a much higher standard then the large screened installation and appeared much more professional.

Of the two displays I feel the large screened installation was more fit for purpose, however there are aspects of each I hope to emulate whilst working on my group project; finding the balance between over simplifying our display and overwhelming the user will be crucial.

The intended location of our display requires users to be drawn in as it is not a place all visitors may pay too close attention to and once they are using the display it is essential the content is both informative and entertaining enough to hold their attention. 

But it’s okay, we’ve got a plan. 

(I also enjoyed the fossils. Unfortunately these had no interactive element... shame)

Rotunda Museum Critique - James Medd

Visiting the Rotunda Museum gave us a chance to have a look where we will be setting up our installation and see what sort of existing audio-visual interactive installations the museum already had for inspiration.

In the room we explored there were a handful of various installations, although those most of interest to us were of course the touch-controlled, interactive screens. Of the machines in this category there were a few small screens on stands and one large, wall-mounted screen.

Something I found immediately obvious was that one screen would essentially be enough for this type of installation. That said, having ‘feeder’ screens displaying video loops surrounding the interactive screen, or a screen mirroring the interactive the screen would allow for more interesting and easier viewing for bystanders. This was evident in the fact that, on the lower down interactive screens, it was difficult for anyone other than the person operating the installation to see what was happening. However, the larger and higher up installation allowed for groups to observe someone taking part and get involved themselves, as we did around the larger screen. Given where our installation will be situated – on a dead-end corridor – additional screens should also help entice our potential audience towards the interactive screen.

Visually, both of the installations were quite suitable for their purpose and gave me some good ideas for our own piece. The graphics and colour schemes were well balanced and aesthetically pleasing and also worked well in conjunction with the interface layouts and fonts to make it clear how to operate the installations. The interfaces on both were quite clutter-free but at the same time not overly simple, balancing clarity and visual appeal. Despite this, occasional large chunks of text on the smaller installations were off-putting and I was not keen to read through all of it. This in turn scuppered me when it came to answering questions, making me lose interest further. To combat this effect when designing our own installation, I believe we should offer short and concise pieces of information in a manner more appealing to our 14-24 age range; the complexity of the quizzes or activities should also reflect these.  Alongside this I think we could also offer an option for additional, more detailed information for those inclined to find out more.

In terms of audio, I did not notice much in the way of background sounds or sound effects. I think this was not necessarily a bad thing but the inclusion of some audio to reflect the onscreen display may help enhance the user experience. There were voiceovers present, particularly in conjunction with video, although I was not a great fan of this. I had often read the passage of text or gotten the gist visually without the need to wait and be told in speech.

Overall the installations provided me with some good ideas about how my team and I should proceed with our project and provided me with some concepts which I am sure we could adapt to make an enjoyable and informative installation.