My initial definition of interaction and its evolvement

Back to the time of the group project, my definition of interaction is a responsive process includes two or more subjects to get input, digest and produce output. After my experience developing and exploring the midterm project, my definition of interaction evolved that those subjects will have effects on each other. In my initial definition, I only considered the process of the process itself and I didn’t take the results of the process into account. During the user test of my midterm project, I found that users always started to have their own feelings after using the device. Their emotions and judgments for my project arose in their minds. Those feelings were important because they showed the effects of my project on them. I do think I need to take the results of the process into my definition of interaction because they still belong to it though at that time the process might stop. So now my definition of interaction is a responsive process includes two or more subjects to get input, digest and produce output, which will have effects on each other. 

Research for interactive projects

Interactive Mario Mushroom Block

This projects caught my eyes because it is both interesting and interactive. I played Mario before and know the magic of the question box. So it is interesting to see it in real life with its original function: push it upward and you will get the mushroom. Also, it satisfies my definition of interaction that it includes a responsive process between the user and the device with input, digesting and output. More importantly, there will be effects. In the video, the author only shows one of his arms and hands to give you the feeling that you are actually pushing the question box. When I was watching the video, I felt pleasantly surprised after the mushroom jumping out of the box. “This is cool” was my voice in my mind and this was the result of the process. My emotion arose and I also started to have my own judgments that which part should be improved. 

In Servo We Trust!

I think this project doesn’t line up my definition of interaction. It does include a responsive process with many subjects. However, the input and output are not clear and the process will be affected and interrupted by other people. This will make people confused and regard it as an art but not an interaction. 

My “new” definition of interaction

After the preparatory research and analysis for two “interactive” projects, my definition of interaction evolves again. Now it is a responsive process that includes two or more subjects to get clear input, digest and produce clear output which will have effects on each other. In the article “What is interaction?”, the authors emphasize that this word is a workhorse for our field that it contains so many kinds. However, what I want to do is to find its main characters. Regardless of its types, forms and even ideologies, the focus of interaction is always the responsive process, the subjects, and the effects. Based on this, more details of the process should be given, like its input and output should be clear. If not, the concept of interaction will be weakened in the process. These main characters form my definition of interaction and it has kept evolving to the present one: a responsive process that includes two or more subjects to get clear input, digest and produce clear output, which will have effects on each other. 

Recitation Exercise

I chose to draw and animate something new from recitation 6.  I wanted to make a small model of the video game because “keyPressed” function kept giving me this feeling. So I decided to make my own processing plane game. 

Drawing my plane and making it move with “keyPressed” function was quite easy. However, it took me a long time to think about how it can fire bullets every time I press “space”? I first used the same method to draw a circle bullet. I wrote its keyPressed function as if I press the space, y (the ordinate of the bullet) will keep adding 3. My mistake was that I used the same ordinate for both my plane and the bullet so that my plane would also fly straight forward when I pressed space. So I added new parameters for the bullet but then I had problems attaching the bullet to the plane. After a long time struggle, I fixed the bullet problem by not giving it an exact location in the beginning and making it fire straight forward at the real-time point of the plane. After this recitation exercise, I get a better understanding of the “keyPressed” both in an “if” statement and its own function. Also, I am now clear about the parameter setting in processing. It is important to clarify when a couple of parameters should only work inside a single function or the whole code. After learning the “Array”, I added more random ellipses as planets so that each time you open this “game” you will see a new map. I did this because I think novelty plays an important role in games. New maps mean new challenges and this will allow players to keep playing the game.

Recitation Homework

When I first saw the gif, I thought that was made by the movement of two ellipses. However, I gave up this idea because I found it was almost impossible. Then I thought it might be the change of stroke and the reference page the “stroke” function confirmed it.  I first drew the circle and made it move by the method I used for my plane. Then I make it periodically expand and contract by giving “if’ statement to the radius. Finally, I made it color change by using the colorMode and stroke function. However, I didn’t figure out how to edge a border for it. 

Step 1: Choose an image to be my motif

I chose this image because of its expression and processing of the color. The matching and reconciliation of its color give me a disordered sense of space. Various concave-convex forms depend on the audience’s imagination. 

Step 2: Draw my image in Processing

For my work, I wanted to imitate this sense of space but explore more possibilities of colors instead of only yellow, blue and brown. Also, the creator of the image I chose only put a single color inside a shape so I wanted to add more. To achieve this, I used the Simple Linear Gradient example for reference. 

I first copied and pasted the function for drawing the linear gradient. It creates a function called setGradient to set the drawing method. 

Then I implant the parameter that I wanted.

After that, I put the size and color I wanted in the setup.

Finally, I used the setGradient function to draw the background and four rectangles. For the diamonds and echelons, I used beginShape() and endShape(). It was a little bit troublesome to write a lot of vertex().

Step 3: Evaluation

Because of the time limit, I only drew one piece in processing but it started to have a little sense of space like the image I chose. Though the forms are simple, they are definitely more colorful. I do think drawing in processing was a good means of realizing my design, but not the best. On one hand, I could better control the exact locations and colors for different forms. On the other hand, I felt that I was limited by those numbers and functions and could not give full play to my imagination. Because I was drawing in a computer program, everything seemed so digital that I could not draw in a more optional way. What I drew in processing looks “standard”, but not “natural”.

CONTEXT AND SIGNIFICANCE

Back to the Group Project, we focused on the change of input. Instead of emphasizing the use of our body, we wanted to trace back to the source, which is our brain. However, the output was not much obvious because daily life activities are so normal that you get used to it and will not have a strong perception. So this time,  my thought was to focus on the output, making it more clear to give the user stronger feedback. At the same time, I upheld the idea of breaking the conventional image of an input. I wanted to use an implicit signal from our body that you can not see directly and my goal is to make this implicit signal be seen in an indirect but interesting and meaningful way. My definition of interaction is: a responsive process includes two or more subjects to get input, digest and produce output. After half a semester understanding the meaning of interaction through various projects, I start to have my evaluation of an ideal interactive product. I think it is more important to focus on “responsive”, “input” and “output”. Users will more value these three elements when they are using an interactive device. The significance of my project is the enhancement of these three elements as I mentioned before, breaking the conventional image of input and making the output more clear to show the responsiveness. My project is designed as a heart rate game but means more than a game. In our daily life, the regular medical examination is sometimes boring, especially for children. My project is of its special value because it provides a possibility of adding more fun to the medical examination. It would be much better if the heart rate examination can be a funny game. 

CONCEPTION AND DESIGN

To help the user better understand how to use our project, my partner and I designed a couple of user-friendly components. We laser cut our project name in the front in order to tell the user that this device is related to your heart rate and somehow we need your high heart rate. On the top, there are words “Boom! Boom! Boom!” with a picture of a person covering his chest to emphasize the connection with heart rate. Below the words and picture, we put three patterns of heart with gradually intensified heart rate. Corresponding to this are a motor and LEDs, below which is also a gradually intensified number of the heart rate. All these hints are designed to tell the user that if his heart rate rises, LEDs will light from the left to the right and finally the motor will rotate. Also, we designed the ear stuck in the front with the heart rate sensor clipping on the earlobe to show the user that he needs to clip the heart rate sensor on his earlobe in order to detect his heart rate. We chose the cardboard to laser cut because it is easier and quicker. We once thought about using plastic or glass to be the external packaging. However, the most important reason why we gave up was that we did not want to show the messy inside of the box. 

FABRICATION AND PRODUCTION:

The biggest challenge we faced is the heart rate sensor.  It is really a tricky sensor. In the beginning, no matter what we changed in the code we just could not keep it working after the motor was active. However, Eric helped us found the problem that the heart rate sensor would somehow recognize the rotation of the motor as the user’s heartbeat. To solve this problem, we had to make it stop detecting once the motor was rotating. So we changed the original plan of using couples of the motor to use LEDs instead and put the only motor in the end. By coincidence, LEDs are actually better because they can bring stronger visual impact to the user, or we can say stronger feedback. Expect the heart rate sensor, other parts of building circuit and coding were quite smooth. We successfully fixed the code we copied online into our own code and make the whole device work well. 

User testing gave me so many ideas for improvement. 

The biggest problem we found in user testing is that most people did not know where to put the heart rate sensor. One student mentioned that we can use 3D-printer to make an ear model for a visual explanation. We took that advice, put it into practice in the second version, and found that it became much more effective. With an ear model stuck in the front, later users have come to know where to put the heart rate sensor without our words explanation. 

The second problem was that the feedback of increasing heart rate was not strong enough. There were only three outputs and we mistakenly put the motor in the middle so that most users did not know what they should do to interact with this project without our explanation. One faculty advised me to use a row of LEDs from the left to the right to make the rise of heart rate more visible. We also took that advice and the result has proved that the advice is effective. Later users understood what they were supposed to do with our project.

The basic evaluation for me to account for and justify the various production choices I made for my project was to see whether the choice was suitable for it as a complete device but not only a project in the college. For example, we chose to put the main body of our project inside a box because every commercial product in the market are well packed but not directly showed what’s inside. 

CONCLUSIONS

Our goal was to design a game that if your heart beat increase, a couple of things will happen, including the light of LEDs, the rotation of the motor, and the song playing by the buzzer.  I do think our project results align with my definition of interaction. Two subjects, the user and the device, were contained in a responsive process that includes getting input, digesting and producing output. My audience produces output, which is his heart rate, and offers it to the device as the input. The device digests it and gives feedback like the light of LEDs to be the output of the device and the input of the audience. Then the audience digests this feedback and has his own emotions and thoughts. This is how my audience interacts with my project.

The Ultimate User Test

If I had more time,  I will improve my project by adding a display such as LCD to show the user of their heart rate in real time. Also, I will limit the time of the game to 1 minute to make it harder and more like a game. What I have learned from failures is that I need to be more careful to find the problem and if I really can not fix it, I should call others to help. What I take away from my accomplishment is that first, the accessibility of a product is important. I know how my project works because I create it, but others don’t. Sometimes we need to stand on the side of the user to think whether my design is user-friendly to them or not. Second, cooperation with my partner is important because sharing out the work will notably increase our efficiency. Third, there are multiple ways to present data. Here we use LEDs and motor to show a user’s heartbeat. This is a visual way to show the data. Also, we can use a display to show the exact number and this is the digital way to show the data. 

During the whole making process of the project, the most important for my learning process is that we should learn how to expand based on what we have already learned. To be frank, I had no ideas when I first started to build the circuit for my project. Instead of creating a new one and wasting a lot of time, I chose to expand the circuit that I had learned because it has the same component of my project, which is the motor. 

So I first built this circuit I learned in the class.

Then we started to expand both the circuit and the code. We added new components like the buzzer and the heart rate sensor, and we also updated the related code. By doing so, we finally completed our project and I do think we succeeded. For me, this strategy is both useful and meanful. I will keep using it and try to do better in the next project.