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ShopAssist - guided by
Dr. Gregory Corso
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Duration: 10 weeks
Collaborator: Cory-Ann Smarr, Hwajung Hong, Jesse Smith, and Ronald
Stevens
Users: 14 – 75 years
Methodology: Brainstorming, Wireframes, Personas, Scenarios, Video data logging,
Preliminary Task Analysis, Functional Flow Diagrams, Decision
Action, Function Allocation, Interface and Workload Analysis,
Checklists, Heuristic Evaluation, Interview, Questionnaire, Survey,
Cost Projections.
For this project we have
adopted the mission statement of: “Helping goal-oriented shoppers at
major retailers get their shopping done quickly, efficiently, and
successfully!”
We chose this as our mission statement because it is representative
of the people which we would like to target. Our target shopper is a
person who comes to a store with the explicit goal of quickly
finding their items and leaving the store. We would like to help
facilitate an efficient shopping experience where shoppers get the
best value for their money and have a minimal amount of fatigue
navigating through a store as they gather their items.
We conducted a
survey to gather data for
our preliminary task analysis.
Complete report contains
Task Analysis, Functional Flow Diagrams, Decision Action, Function
Allocation, Interface and Workload Analysis, Checklists, Heuristic
Evaluation.
Final class presentation is available here.
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Learning by DesignTM
- guided by
Dr.
Janet Kolodner
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Children learn best when they try out things with their own hands
i.e. by doing. Based on this idea, we aim to help middle school
students understand complex concepts in science and to use what they
learn to generate scientific explanations. Children simulate
different hovercraft designs using our software
(Jacket's
Garage) and learn about
forces, friction and properties of air (that it can actually move
things!). They then build mini-hovercrafts using artifacts provided
by us and try out the designs. The next stage is to document their
observations in the online journal (available in the software). They
try to provide reasons for why something is happening (like - Why is
the hovercraft moving faster on the smooth surface as compared to
the rough surface?). At every stage proper scaffolding is provided
so that the children learn the concepts right and are able to
improve their mental model.
Phase 1:
Evaluation of Jacket's Garage
(Educational/Visualization tool)
Duration: 7weeks
Collaborators: Ganesh Bhat, Kim Weaver, Meghna Singh
Users: Middle school students
Methodology: Task analysis, User Observation, Video data
logging, Think aloud protocol, Heuristic evaluation, Qualitative
analysis
Objectives:
1. Measuring the learning that was happening through our software.
2. Did the software help the user in understanding a concept?
3. Were the children able to understand how to use the software in
order to find answers to their design questions?
Phase 2:
After analyzing the available data, we realized
that providing real world stories (videos, simulations, etc.) to the
children while they were building things, clarified a lot of their
doubts in a much better way and also helped them build a very good
mental model of the task. These stories or Cases discussed design
problems faced by other people while designing similar artifacts and
possible ways of solving those problems. They were able to draw
abstractions from these stories and make necessary changes in their
mini-hovercraft design. Hence, we decided to build a Case Library
that will be integrated with the existing software so that the
children can refer to the examples as and when they need during
their design process.
Design and Development of Case Library
Duration: 9 weeks (ongoing)
Collaborators: Ganesh Bhat, Jim Perkins
Users: Middle school students
Methodology: Brainstorming, Generating requirements document,
Wireframes, Data and Process flow charts, Interface Design, Low
fidelity Prototypes, Flash & PHP modules, Database integration
Currently under development, will be
released
this semester
Design Decisions:
Design of this library involved multiple
iterations since it was essential to find a common ground between
User-Centered Design and Learner-Centered design. Our target users
were middle school students, hence our design decisions were taken
keeping their browsing behavior and teaching requirements in mind.
Some of the design decisions are highlighted here -
1. Drop-down menus v/s individual buttons for every
available functionality: While buttons increase cluttering, drop-down
menus hide available options and may not be seen by the students. We
finally selected the drop-down menu as it was the best possible way
to display long texts and also reduced cluttering. To prevent the
students from overlooking the drop-down menu, it was placed on the
top-left corner so that it was the first thing that the students saw
on that page.
2. Learning theories: Research has shown that radio buttons are not
effective for educational purposes. Hence we avoided their use in
our software.
3. Recognition rather than recall: In order to minimize the
cognitive load of the student, we decided to make all the available
links, interactive animations, and explanation content clearly
visible. At the same time we took care not to "spoon-feed" the
student and developed the explanation content carefully.
4. Consistency: All the cases have the same layout so that the
student knows where to navigate to in order to find information.
5. Learnability: Absence of complex functionalities and use of
standard components like buttons and drop-downs minimizes the
learning curve.
6. Readability: Contrasting colors, optimal font size, and
adequate white space improves the readability of the content.
Wireframes and design iteration document
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Social Learning of Object
Affordances in robots - guided by
Dr.
Andrea Thomaz
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Duration: 5 weeks
Collaborator: Maya Cakmak
Users: No restrictions
Methodology: Literature review, Brainstorming, User Observation,
Video data logging, Interview, Questionnaire.
In this Human-Robot Interaction
project we studied the role of a social partner in learning affordances. We
used an upper torso humanoid having 8 degrees of freedom (created
out of parts from the Bioloid Robotics Kit) for this project. The
context of the study was that Bioloid try to learn the
affordances of objects by playing with them. It was to do this under two
different conditions: social and non-social. In the first case, it
interacted with a teacher who had control
on the objects with which Bioloid was playing with. In the second case, Bioloid
had no teacher and it had to learn by itself. We
compared the differences in learning under the two conditions and
investigated the ways people tried to teach object affordances to
a robot.
Project sign-off document
(contains Experiment design, Instructions to subjects, Informed
consent, Questionnaire/Interview questions, Experiment setup)
Progress summary
report
Result: Learning with
and without teacher are different but both scenarios afford unique
learning opportunities and have their own set of advantages. In
social learning, i.e. when people (or teacher) make things happen,
learning progresses at a faster pace as compared to non-social
learning.
(Final presentation)
Bioloid playing with a round object
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Investigating age-related
differences in the effect of robot emotions on attitudes - guided by
Dr.
Dan Fisk and
Dr.
Wendy Rogers
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Duration: 6 weeks
Collaborator: Jenay Beer
Users: Younger / Older adults
Methodology: User Observation, Questionnaire, User interaction data
log, Heuristic Evaluation
This project investigated the
effect of robot "emotions" on attitudes by measuring the performance
of younger and older adults in a lego-building task. We used
iCat to assess (via questionnaire)
the effect of robot "emotions" on the participants attitudes toward
the robot.
 Different
iCat emotions
I programmed the iCat to express various emotions and developed an interface
that helped gather the relevant user data during the study. The
design iterations and design decisions can be found in
this document. The
decisions had been taken keeping in mind the age of the users.
iCat interface (Final design) |
Aware Chair -
guided by
Dr.
Melody M. Jackson
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Duration: 2 weeks
Collaborator: None
Methodology: Literature review, Semi-structured interviews.
The Aware Chair (in the
Brain Research Lab) integrates research in Direct Brain
Interfaces with intelligent, content-aware communication,
environmental control, and navigation systems that will make brain
signal control easier for people with severe physical disabilities.
I studied existing environments and
controls which could be used with a powered obstacle avoidance
wheel-chair. |
Tackling Childhood Obesity
with Technology (collaboration with CNN) - guided by
Dr.
Bruce Walker
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Duration: 15 weeks
Collaborator: Michael Novitzky, Anya Kogan, Hyungsin Kim, Carol
Kinstle (Head of the Medical Unit, CNN)
Users: 7 - 11 years old
Methodology: Brainstorming, Task analysis, Personas, Scenarios,
Interviews, User Observation, Questionnaire, Heuristic
evaluation, Post-task walkthroughs.
This semester long project
addressed the widespread problem of obesity in children. The best
ways to help children attain and maintain a healthy weight is
through physical activity and nutritious eating habits. Our team
came up with three very diverse design alternatives that directly
addresses at least one of these issues. Finally, we prototyped and
user tested one of the designs. (Find out more about the designs,
technical issues etc...) |
Family Message Center -
guided by
Dr.
Bruce Walker
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Duration: 2 weeks
Collaborator: None
Users: 10 - 80 years old (including visually impaired and hearing
impaired people)
Methodology: Wireframes, Personas, Scenarios, Cognitive walkthrough,
Heuristic evaluation The idea behind this project
was to develop a message center that could be used by a busy family
to communicate, across time and across space. Some questions
answered by this design include location of the device in the house,
remote access, type of messaging supported and modalities &
interactions needed to support the requirement. (Find out more
about target users, design decisions etc...) |
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