Transcript ExploratoriumUserStudies

Cooltown User Studies
From Informing to Remembering: Deploying a
Ubiquitous System in an Interactive Science Museum
Margaret Fleck, Marcos Frid, Tim Kindberg, Eamonn
O’Brien-Strain, Rakhi Rajani and Mirjana Spasojevic
Mobile Systems and Services Lab
Hewlett-Packard Labs
Reality Check: User Studies
 What works with ordinary users?
 What is their experience like?
Cooltown User Studies
Research Focus: Cooltown User Studies
Web pages
Virtual
Physical
Exhibits
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Study actual use: how to interleave electronic
functionality with physical, nomadic activities
Inform design, stimulate design
Cooltown User Studies
Exploratorium – science museum
 Exploratorium mission
 Public exhibits space
 Educational activities, teachers programs
 Center for media and communication-“dissolve
the walls of the building”
 NSF funded Electronic Guidebook project
 Investigate use of handhelds, wireless networks
 Increase level of engagement and help learning
 Pre-visit, during and post-visit interaction
 Expand Exploratorium’s educational mission
Cooltown User Studies
Motivation
… stimulating…
… exploration …
Rich web based
content
Electronic
Guidebook
Cooltown
technologies
Cooltown User Studies
Challenges
… vigorous, noisy …
… hands-on …
… hard to navigate …
Cooltown User Studies
Proposed functionalities
 Informer
 Content delivered to the user next to the exhibit
 Suggester/Guider
 Things to do while at the exhibit, things to see elsewhere
 Communicator
 Communication among family members, field trip groups
 Experience sharing, virtual graffiti
 Rememberer
 Help remember exhibits/phenomena, increase post-visit
engagement
Cooltown User Studies
Phase I
Prototype hybrid Electronic Guidebook: Informer,
Suggester, Rememberer
 Variety of technologies (handhelds, sensing,…)
 Diverse user population (staff, teachers, students, …)
 User tasks (browse, bookmark, treasure hunt, …)
 Measure interactions with physical & virtual resources
(web logs, observers, videos, ..)
 Qualitative evaluation (interviews, surveys)
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Infrastructure overview
p
content
server
RFID
IR
802.11
real exhibit
Pi-station: beacon (infrared), barcode, RFID
plus processing, I/O and networking
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Internet
Electronic Guidebook Technologies
beacons
Jornada 690
barcodes
Jornada 540
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Hitachi E-Plate
Electronic Guidebook: User Experience
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User Experience: first step
• location sensing: get exhibit URL
• first web page automatically downloaded
Web page
URL
beacon
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User Experience: top page, follow to information nuggets
top page
(image map)
info nuggets
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Remembering content: personal scrapbook
 press bookmark button to save web page
 capture experience and make it memorable
postcard
collage poster
booklet
personal experience
personal
online scrapbook
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personal artifacts
Phase I experiments (Summer 2001)
34 users: teachers, kids, staff, developers (ages 10 to 50+)
Data collected: detailed web logs, observations, interviews
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Phase I key findings
Low-level & generic
 Verified feasibility of basic components
 Beacons/barcodes acceptable for location sensing
 Wireless connectivity (802.11)
 Browser UI
 Web pages easily accessible
 Issues with stylus
 Battery life will continue to be an issue
 Potential for getting lost in cyberspace!
Cooltown User Studies
Phase I key findings
Domain-specific (Exploratorium-related)
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Most appropriate user groups: teachers, explainers, repeat visitors
Easy adoption with younger visitors
Personalization of content is important
Audio needs earplugs
Users reacted positively to the 'my scrapbook' idea
Potential negative effects
 distraction from exhibits by on-line content
 carrying devices affects interaction at the exhibits
 Ongoing: evaluation of content for self-directed informal learning
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Choosing a tool
Web pages
Virtual
Physical
Exhibits
 Informer, Suggester
 Too obtrusive for many visitors
 Guider, Communicator
 Less frequent distractions
 Rememberer
 Minimizes attention shifts
 Extends engagement to post-visit
 User interest
Cooltown User Studies
What is Rememberer?
• Record of the exhibits to
remember. User controls what
is captured.
• Components
• "remember-this" technology for
selecting objects during the
visit
• the visit record
(set of web pages)
• a physical token, which
reminds the user of the visit
Cooltown User Studies
Phase II infrastructure: Rememberer
personal artifact
(web page, postcard, etc.)
content
server
RFID
IR
802.11
“remember-this”
real exhibit
Cooltown User Studies
Internet
Rememberer: research questions
 Interference with exhibit manipulation?
 Does the tool help with recall?
 Influence on discussion and social interaction
 among people who visited together
 with people who are remote
 Does the tool help as a resource?
 in itself
 as a launching point for further exploration
Cooltown User Studies
Rememberer: experiments
 Round 1: informally verified basic concept
 RFID tags, cameras, web pages for photos
 Users like having photos taken this way
 Web pages accessed after the visit and annotated
 Round 2: detailed evaluation (23 individuals/groups)
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Round 2: experiment description
 Experiment setup
 Mixture of exhibits; non-instrumented, with beacon,
with beacon & camera
 Individuals and small groups
 Control: no device, all exhibits non-instrumented
 Observations & interviews
 Diverse Exploratorium-associated volunteers (!)
 Kids and adults, male & female
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Use of ‘remember-this’
 Propensity
All instrumented exhibits
Exhibits w/ beacons
Exhibits w/ beacons and
camera
-
74%
67%
-
86%
 ‘Interference’
Beacon pickup: 10 out of 17 said “easy or very easy”
Observed beacon problems: 10% of 140 uses
Camera adjustment: 25% of 63 uses
50% said wanted more camera control (what/when)
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Time spent at exhibits
Time spent at exhibits
Beacons
1 min
5 sec
45
40
1 min
49 sec
Beacons w/
camera
2 min
3 sec
All exhibits
1 min
29 sec
Control group
50
1 min
40 sec
35
% of visits
No
instrumentation
30
All exhibits
No instrumentation
Beacons
Beacons w/ camera
Control group
25
20
15
10
5
0
<1
1-2
2-3
3-4
4-5
5-6
minutes spent at an exhibits
 Camera: visits 20% longer than control group
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Home use
 10 out of 17 revisited web pages
 4 twice
 3 of them about 10 days after the experiment
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Moving forward
 Continue analysis of Rememberer at
Exploratorium
 More widely applicable ‘remember-this’
 e.g. Jornada with camera
Exploratorium
Electronic Guidebook
Feb ‘02
Multiple domains
Rememberer
Cooltown User Studies
Conclusions
 Nomadic computing tools – simple applications that
enhance interaction with the physical world
 Cooltown physical hyperlinks are an effective mechanism
for invoking web-based services
 Exploratorium findings are likely to apply to other
domains that are dynamic with high demand on user
attention
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More information
Electronic Guidebook project information
www.exploratorium.edu/guidebook/
Most recent TR: HPL-2002-54
Backup slides
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Sample content: orientation page
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Sample content: exhibit instructions, information nuggets
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Research focus: Physical vs. Virtual navigation
Web pages
Virtual
Physical
Exhibits
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Phenomena under investigation
Higher order effects
complexity
(informal learning, engagement, social interaction, …)
Paths through physical and virtual space
(attention switching: exhibits, devices, content, companions, …)
Attention to artifacts
(exhibits, online content, …)
Basic affordances
(handhelds, beacons, web pages, audio, …)
Cooltown User Studies