User Testing For others project
One project I user tested in the recitation is Lane’s project “Embracing Sadness: End 2020”. This project concentrates on the sadness and negative emotions in the tough year 2020. When sitting down on the right position, plastic balls filled with feathers above my head would rotate, representing that the sadness would gradually flow away from us. Also, I could control two balls in front of me, and when rotating them, images on the screen would change. As I constantly rotate the balls in one direction, the sad emoji on the screen would be vague and finally fade away.
I really like the concept of this project as we should embrace our sadness and let go of them to enter the next brand new year. Especially after Lane explained to me her idea, I found the concept meaningful to all of us. Also, I really like the part that balls above me could rotate, it’s really fun to play with. The rotating balls add motion and engage to the project.
For suggestions and feedbacks:
1. I think the concept of embracing sadness might be a little bit vague when first looking at the project, I don’t really get the idea that the project conveys to me. Maybe the project can represent the sadness in a more clear way.
2. If I stay too long time sitting, the balls would rotate too fast and hit the frame poles. The motors might be adjusted to a lower speed so that the balls could rotate smoothly.
3. The image on the screen contains only a sad face. I think the idea of embracing sadness can be better convinced if the screen shows something more than the fading of sadness emoji. Something like a laughing face shown when the sadness disappears can be better.
User Testing For my project
When user testing out project, we haven’t finished adding all the sounds and images to the processing, also because we just set up everything from the cardboard to the laser cut Pipa, one of the lightness sensor is not working so well. So we tested the basic functions of our project as well as part of the music images. Through only a prototype, the project received plenty of comments and feedbacks for us to further work on.
Suggestions and feedbacks:
1. Our project has four laser strings but only one piece of music could be placed at a time, and the sound might repeat a lot if the user frequently “touches” the same string. I would adjust the program codes so that different strings can be triggered at the same time so that all four strings can be used just like a real instrument. Also, music should be prevented from playing over again before it ends.
2. It’s one of the difficult part to accurately install the laser harps and lightness resistors so that they could match perfectly. Or otherwise the project can’t actually function well. One professor suggest us to glue the laser harp and resistor at the same time using low temperature glue guns so we can adjust them easily.
3. We are using lasers strings representing the real strings on the instrument, so the users can’t really see the lasers. We received one feedback that we don’t actually need to see the strings, since it’s part of our concept that the project represents the heritage currently not reachable.
most and least successful parts:
For the successful parts, users like the pattern and music of the project a lot. The images, pattern and music are part of ancient Chinese culture, they are also the key points this project wants to convey. Through playing the instrument, the user can really interact with it and receive what the project wants to tell. However, the project we presented was still a prototype with only part of the functions, users can’t have a complete understanding and interaction with it, which are the parts we need to further work on.
During the user testing process, we have received a lot of useful and helpful feedbacks. From the way to interact, how to install and build up everything to even further develop the concept and meaning of the whole project. We would pay much attention to all these feedbacks and continually work on these specific parts to better complete and display our project.