Documentation & Reflection

Individual work

According to the previous feedback, this week I found more sound effects to express the sounds of different directions and different distances, which makes the game more vivid and can increase the difficulty of the game. It can also improve the game experience. And what I'm doing with my teammates now is to use voice control to control the start and end of the game. The completion of this part will make the game flow clearer and provide players with a better guide.

In addition, I also added the correct or incorrect prompt sound effect when the user defeated the zombie, which can make the user better understand whether his judgment is correct and provide more sound feedback for the user.

Specific sound effects include:

• Zombie calls (from different distances);
• Zombie death sound
• Alone Zombie Cries
• The cry of a group of zombies
• Wind sound
• Rain sound
• Thunder
• Thriller environment sound effects
• Error sound
• Correct sound

Team work

What I'm doing with my teammates now is to use voice ccontrol to control the start and end of the game. The completion of this part will make the game flow clearer and provide players with a better guide.

Regarding voice control, what we thought before was to use Arduino to implement, but after discussion and consultation with other professionals, we finally gave up.

Currently, we have decided to connect the Arduino by using unity. This means that we can directly use unity as the platform, receive the signal from Arduino through unity, and then play the audio.

We originally wanted to use Google Voice, but unfortunately Google Voice is not available in Australia now, so we will try another app to solve this problem in couples of days.

My progress

According to the last feedback and my plan, I have rearranged the game flow recently. A lot of details have been refined based on the last demo. The game's voice prompts are also more complete, which is conducive to improving the user experience, and also makes the game process and game description more clear.

Specific updates include:

• Added a basic introduction to the game before the game started;
• Added "Skip" option;
• Add the function of adding game character information (set game character name)
• Added congratulatory reminder for game clearance;

The following is the text of the game voice navigation（Take story mode as an example）:

-Welcome to Hasaki!

-Next, I will give you a brief introduction to the game. If you are clear, you can "skip" through voice control at any time.

-HASAKI is an audio game. In this game, you will pay attention to complete the battle mission according to the mission in the game storyline. In the game, all missions will appear in the form of audio, you can complete the whole game fights according to the voice prompts through the weapon in your hand. OK, please enjoy the game now!

-First, please select the game mode. There are three modes which are story mode, practice mode and challenge Mode.

-story mode:

-Welcome to story mode. In this mode, you will play a superhero fighting zombies to defend the dead.

Hey, superhero, how should I address you？Please tell me your name!

-Great, [X]!

Just moments ago, a wave of walkers attacked and cut the power to the entire building. Now, please fight them in the dark.

-The zombies are coming. Oh, here they come.

-Please judge the direction of the zombies and kill them in the right direction!

（sounds played）

-Another wave of zombies is coming!

（sounds played）

……

-It's awesome! Congratulations on completing this level.

-Next, let's move on to the next level. . .

Prototype demo appraisal

This week we commented on the prototype video demo submitted on Monday in the form of a team. After watching the video demonstrations of the various groups, I feel that everyone's ideas and prototypes are unique. One of the works I am most impressed with is the concept of team Supparoo. To summarize briefly, their design is a ball that can share positive emotions. Users can share any emotion they want to share with their friends through the cloud in the form of recording. I think the starting point of this design is very interesting. Most of the presentations in the video can clearly express the concept, but I still have some questions about the details, such as how do players specifically choose the object to send the information to? What if the user regrets suddenly and doesn't want to share it? Is there a "withdraw" operation? I also mentioned these issues in team appraisal.

Individual work

For my own video demo, I also received a lot of feedback, which has great significance for my future work. Here is the feedback I have collected:

Therefore, I have reflected on my own design work. In the next couple of weeks, I will focus on the following parts:

• Differences in zombie sound effects. For example, the difference in the sound emitted at different distances (the distance between the zombie and the player)
• Purpose and functionality of different sound effects
• Detailed instructions on how players navigate the game
• Insights into the details of the player experience
• How to better help users to exercise listening ability

In order to verify the design process, user testing will be conducted in each future attempt to collect feedback and use for any improvement. I am also looking forward to the completion of the final game!

Indiviual work

The prototype of my individual part has been completed this week. This part mainly includes game mode settings, storyline settings and game level settings.

Regarding the game mode, compared to the previous solution, I deleted the multiplayer mode in the most recent version, because the user's safety is considered. Because players are required to blindfold when playing games if multiple people are moving in a closed space, it is easy to collide with each other. Based on this change, the final game mode includes story mode, practice mode and challenge mode.

Regarding the storyline of the game, after launching the brainstorming activity and affinity diagram activity, I summarized five types of storyline themes. Then I launched a voting campaign on these five topics. The options mainly include detectives to solve cases, heroes to save the beauty, zombie strikes, save the world, find love, and others.

Here is the result of the vote.

A total of 32 users participated in the voting, and the theme that received the most votes was the zombie theme. Therefore, based on this result, I first developed a zombie-themed game plot.

In the zombie theme, players will play a hero against zombies to protect the residents of the city from harm.

In the part of the game level setting, the simplest level is to identify the direction of the zombie according to the sound of the zombie, so as to shoot the zombie. The later levels are more difficult because players need to identify the direction of zombies in various interference sound effects, which is a challenge to players.

Prototype demo

In addition to this, the prototype video demo and supporting documentation needs to be completed this week. At present, my individual part has been basically completed, and the video editing work will be completed before next Monday.

This week I mainly did some game flow and game plot design. Regarding the flow of the game, in the original conceptual design, the user will complete the game operation step by step according to the sound prompt. Now, I have considered adding some tactile feedback to the game props. For example, during a game challenge, the user ’s actions can not only get feedback through different sound effects, but also in some special actions such as selecting the game mode, confirming or returning, there will be corresponding feedback on the game props through vibration or other form. The specific way we need to further discuss within the group.

In addition, about the design of the game story line, there are three main parts, which are the three modes of the corresponding game. In the original conceptual design, our idea was to set three game modes which are simple, medium, and difficult modes for players to choose. But now, I think it is not necessary to divide the game mode according to the difficulty of the game, because the difficulty of the game can gradually become more difficult with the design of the storyline and it can be run through the entire game storyline without setting the game difficulty separately. Therefore, based on this idea, I currently classify the game modes according to the purpose of the game, such as story mode, practice mode, multiplayer mode and challenge mode.

• Story mode

Story mode is a level-crossing mode that follows the main story line.

• Practice mode

In the practice mode, players will not be punished for failure, and they can fight for an unlimited number of times and indefinitely.

• Multiplayer mode

In multiplayer mode, the game will make some cooperative levels and other content according to the number of players.

• Challenge mode

Challenge mode is a way for players to constantly challenge their limits by refreshing customs clearance time or game scores.

The above are some changes to the game mode, but the specific details also need further discussion and negotiation.

What I did

My main job this week was to conduct user research. The methods that have been used include online interviews and questionnaires. In the interview, I mainly asked users about their interest in the game process and the storyline of the game. The questionnaire was more about the interest in the concept itself and how to make users like our project more. I think these feedbacks are very helpful for me to continue to improve the current game levels, and I once again feel that the substitution of the game plot has a huge impact on the user experience.

What to do next

Next, I will conduct a survey on the experience of game manipulation through online interviews and discussion groups. In addition, I hope to obtain different feedback through the investigation of experts, such as how to design the game control method to be more reasonable, how to take into account the barrier-free design, and security considerations.

In addition, I will organize my work one after another, and use these contents as the material for my video demo. In the next week, we will complete the summary of the survey results and make corresponding adjustments based on the data to develop our conceptual design.

On Tuesday, we made feedback and updates on our project according to the individual division of the project. Then during the class, we carried out the activity of discovery methods through Miro. Due to the epidemic situation, the way we make observations is mainly through video to avoid face-to-face contact as much as possible. We try to get some insights and inspiration about the project through observation.

At the studio on Thursday, our groups conducted discussions regarding the project and completed the group proposal report.

Next, what we need to do is to determine the physical parts used in the project and purchase them in advance, and the other members will follow their own schedules.For me, what I have to do recently is to conduct an analysis of user psychological needs and review the games currently designed for the visually impaired. On this basis, I will discuss with other members to determine the details of the project content.

This week is the second week for online course. We discussed our concept during the contact. Indeed, many friends have provided us with a lot of feedback. Some of them pointed out a new direction for our concept. Regarding the concept our team, we still decided to put the domain in the direction of blind games (or simulated blind games), because we think this starting point is very good and novel, which is in line with our team theme-Ability-centric interactions.

Team project

After unifying our domain, we discussed the content of the our project. We want to add some new interactive experiences to the original concept, such as through the plot of the game, feedback of multiple voices, multiple The choice of game mode, etc. At the same time, we also consider the user's safety issues again.

During this week's team meeting, we divided the work according to the content of the project, and each team member has his own direction and content to focus. Therefore, in the next week, each member of our group will also conduct their own part of the research and exploration.

What to do next

Since our team has already clarified the concept and carried out a clear division of project, I will focus on the target audience and the overall content design of the game in the next week, including the storyline, interactive experience and game mode. I will continue to pay attention to these aspects of research and carefully review some of the previous related work and cases in order to improve our concept.

Here is a YouTube video that introduces how a blind user in the video played the ps4 battle game. I think this video can bring great inspiration to our design, about voice interaction and voice prompts, and the blind game control methods, etc. Anyway, I will continue to explore in related areas. . .

Due to the Coronavirus, all of our courses moved to online. Hence, from this week, we need to attend class through Zoom.

In this week's class, we presented as a group, and chatted with classmates, tutors, and teachers after the presentation, and collected a lot of feedback.

About our team's concept

Our team's concept is Hasaki which is a hearing-centric swordman somatic game. Our theme is Ability-centric Interactions, so under this theme we thought of designing a game for the blind to enhance their hearing. From the perspective of human value, we hope that this design can meet the needs of improving listening, perceiving the world, and entertainment.

Individual work

Made a simple sketch for this game for illustration:

The use of the entire game is as follows:

1. The user stands in the circle.
2. An aggressive sound is played.
3. The user judges the direction and then fights back with the weapon:

    If right — 4.Moving on to the next level.

    If wrong — Minus one health If right — 4.Moving on to the next level.

                                                        If wrong — Minus one health If right — 4.Moving on to the next level.

                                                                                                         If wrong — Lost all three health — game over!

Note: The user has three chances totally in each level.

Interactions

Game storie

• Design various stories to fit different levels

Game mode / difficulty

• Add ambient sound and touch (rain / wind…)-Simulate game scene
• Provide-provide interference
• Accelerate attack frequency

Action detection response

• Feedback is provided to the user in response to the action (via prompt sound effects)

The main feedback that we have collected

• considering looking into examples of vertical slices-I believe these will reduce the scope of what you'll need to do, so you'd only need to work on a specific section, allowing it to show off just the highlights kinda
• To enhance the intensity of interactions, and you can also consider the multi-player mode.
• Consider could be collaborative? Could be a wearable technology? For example, friends can wear the device to fight with each other.
• If there is only four speakers, this is too easy even for the blind people. Put more.
• On a technical note you can get full 3d audio just on a pair of headphones. The examples you showed had the people using their hearing to move getting more information from the surrounding environment than just enemy direction. Having people listen for quieter sounds and giving the player the ability to move around the room would add interesting complexity. Other control methods could also be added by using a cane as well for the user to be able to feel their environment.
• Safety is something that needs to be taken into consideration since waving around a sword of some kind leaves risks in it self. Another thing is that the target group (blind people) is a very sensitive target group and you guys should therefore be careful when making something for this group.
• Check the game “seeing” produced by Tencent to get more inspiration. More interaction could be considering what would happen when they fail to cut the laser, what would happen when they cut enough amount of the laser, how they can stop the game and what would be the gesture to start the game.
• It would be real interesting if the audio was moving instead of static sound at each speaker.
• First, attack methods can be more diverse, such as using multiple weapons. In addition, monsters can be varied to increase the difficulty of the game. The type of monster can be perceived by different sounds. Bseides, the sound of the hit can also be changed. For example, if the user cuts the monster, one kind of sound is produced; when player miss, play another kind of sound; when player hits the key, the third sounds can be played.
• Could be interesting to use sound to navigate around in a dark room / maze.
• Great idea, but instead of just 4 direction of speakers will you conside make it 360 around the player.
• At the moment it seems quite simple and could get boring quickly so I think you need to add another element / story / object to engage users.
• To add some new skills for the player? Or design some unique attack way for the enemy and make it a VR SEKIRO, or maybe you can combine it with fitness game cause repeat is acceptable in fitness.

Future Development

• Add a plot to this game.
• Research more technology backups.
• Try voice and gesture recognition system.
• Rethink the game mode-adding mutiple-player mode.
• Consider the safety issue for the player.
• Rich interactive experience。
• Detail the game contents.
• Consider wearables - headphone - 360-degree stereo surround

In class on Wednesday, Lorna invited Bash to give us an online talk. Bash is currently a UX designer working in the UK. In his lectures, he talks a lot about the future of work, including how to find a job, how to participate in internship projects and so on. In the process, he also made some small interaction, let us write a description of their own paragraph, and then step by step from the screening, and finally left the most important word! So that we know more about our shining point! I think these activities help us to know ourselves, in other words, inspire me to tell my future boss that I'm unique. This is something that is very important to me and worth mulling over.

After a short break, we went through the grouping process for our next team project. Based on the intentions submitted the day before, I am happy that my themes and teammates are aligned with my preference. The first thing to do is to get to know each other and set some rules for our group, such as our work standards, our time allocation and our regular meeting time, etc. . Of course, The most important thing was The group project. The four of us took another look at The posters under The topic of ability-centric installation and had a long discussion about The Umbrella, we wanted to add more interactive experiences to the design, such as displaying weather information, arranging different weather patterns through the contraction of the umbrella, or alerting passengers to the upcoming vehicle, or providing information about train times. Other students also want to add information such as time, the umbrella wall will be changed every hour pattern and so on. Also, we wanted to add sound effects to provide some interactive experience for the blind.

Then we talked about designing a game for the blind, but it wasn't a great idea after all. So we decided that each of us would look up some more material and then discuss it further in order to stimulate some new ideas!

On Tuesday, we have a very exciting world cafe event. In the activity, I participated in many topics, including Enhanced mundane spaces,Emotional totems,Emotional intelligence, Digital sensations,Sassy tech,Ability-centric interactions and Body as controller. My favorite theme is Enhanced mundane spaces. We talked a lot about this topic, such as what interactions people can have while waiting for the elevator to make the elevator less awkward and quiet. Or what people can do when they take a bath to make it more fun. I think the theme is both close to life and full of interest.

Another theme that impressed me was the Body as controller. I see Walley's idea of running hands. The idea of a finger-controlled game is simple and playable! I also saw The Umbrella designed by Horace, and I thought the visual effects of this interactive installation would be very touching. I was thinking that if I could apply this idea to other devices, there would be a huge visual boost!

In addition, many of the subjects in the emotion group were thinking in terms of stress relief. Among them, there is the use of smell for design. I think this starting point is very novel. But it's not an easy thing to identify smells, and my idea is that it's a chemical thing, and for some natural flavors, it might be possible to detect some particular chemical component through some chemical reaction, to pick out specific odors.

The theme of Ability-centric interactions is design for the target groups which focus on some specific people. This theme got me thinking, because a lot of the cases are products designed for people with disabilities. Compared to the other themes, this one is a little more serious and less interesting. My thought was, how fulfilling it would be to be able to design an interactive device that provides some entertainment for disabled people! So at the end of the voting process, I gave my vote to the topic, and I look forward to further discussions with the rest of the group!

All in all, the world coffee event really brought me a lot of new ideas as expected, and some of the inspiration can be applied to the design of Future group projects, this is the most gratifying point for me!

Presentation&Idea Theming

In this week’s contact, all of us finished the presentation of ideas. There were a lot of good ideas that I thought could be explored further. We then went through all of the posters thematically in order to put all the ideas together and prepare for next week's world cafe activity. Most of the students' thoughts are reflected in Health, Music, Intelligence, and Behavior Changes. In addition, there are many concepts in Emotion, Learning, Game, Stress Release and so on.

New ideas&Preparing for Next Week

After class I read classmates' posters, I think some functional ideas are practical but lack interest, such as the concept of smart homes. For example, I was impressed with Ryan's idea for a smart kitchen. The design is more like a small smart home system, with voice control, Recipe pre-set function. It combines a physical system with online system. The idea is to allow users to interact with the kitchen in the way they like, while increasing the efficiency of using the kitchen, with automated presets and voice controls, which meet the demands of human value and everyday life. However, I feel that this design lacks some novel elements, and some audacious ideas should be added to make this design more distinctive! I also had some new ideas and insights on some of them, which I thought could be further discussed in next week's world cafe. My personal preference is for more interesting, playful interactive installations, so I'll be focusing on themes like Beautify the Self, Altered Landscapesat, Bothersome tech, Musical things and Emotional totems next week's world cafe activity and I'm looking forward to finding teammates who share my interests.

poster

Description

The Heart-warming Maze is an interactive installation that combines light with a Maze. The design is based on an application in a meadow. It is designed so that when the user completes the maze, looking down at the grass from a high position, the path of the solution is a warm and encouraging word, the visual effect is very impressive.

How to use it

I have designed 2 versions for it, the day version and the night version.

In the day version:

1. Get start at the entrance;
2. Try to find the way to the exit and fill the path with flowers;
3. Finish the maze and see a heart-warming sentence formed by flowers when the user looks out over the meadow .

For the night version:

1. Get start at the entrance;
2. Try to find the way to the exit, lights will on when people move;
3. Finish the maze and see a heart-warming sentence when the user looks out over the meadow by the light effects.

Inspiration

The inspiration came from the light interactive installation by Studio Drift. What's more, I was inspired when I saw the view from my room of the hotel, because I saw the meadow and I would like to design something based on the grass. So I combined the two ideas and created THE HEART-WARMING MAZE.

Studio Drift

Work Done

This is the first week of the physical computing course. Everything is a new beginning. This week we are mainly focusing on the introduction of the course and inspiring ideas. Class activities have given us a clearer understanding of physical computing, and by looking at some previous students' work, we can also understand what physical computing is and come up with some new inspiration.

• 7 Grand Challenges of HCI

In class, we also discussed seven challenges. In today's society, technology has really changed people's way of life to a great extent. The appearance of new technology brings more convenience to our life. One of the challenges I was assigned was learning and creativity. In this new area, technology will support and promote new learning styles, multi-modal learning capabilities, and lifelong learning. Technology assisted, enhanced and mediated learning is not a new concept, and many types of technology are already being used in schools today. Hardware includes computers, projectors, interactive whiteboards and Smart Mobile Devices, so I think there are a lot of design directions to think about in this topic. Changes and innovations in educational methods can really provide great convenience to people and thus improve their work and learning efficiency.

Another challenge we discussed is Ethic, Privacy and Security. Now social media has become a very important role in our lives. People use social media almost every day. Therefore, in such a social situation, security and privacy for the user is really very important. We're also seeing a lot of news about new scams, mostly by criminals who use social media to exploit security and privacy vulnerabilities. This issue is not just about privacy and security, but also about personal security through the disclosure of important information.

• Card Brainstorming

Another activity we conducted is card brainstorming. what we did for this activity was to draw four random cards in either suit, so one club, heart, diamond and spade, and then generated some potential concepts based on these prompts.

My solution was: Design to 「reveal」 in an 「office 」using「smell」with the quality of 「mechanical」

A device that can detect the degree of intimacy between people based on their smell.

A close friend or family member may also become a colleague. We know that people who live together often share a common smell. So the device can identify employees' odors, match them to the similarity, and see the possibility of closer relationships between some employees.

How it Relates

At this stage, my idea is more of an interesting one. From the perspective of playful, try to create a better interactive experience for users of all ages. Things like light sensors, or interactive sound effects, are all fun and relaxing. In addition, inspired by the learning topic, I also had an idea to design a device for children to receive toys, but this idea is not mature. It could be a physical device that provides interactivity, but at the same time has an APP to assist, or even to increase parent-child interaction. I need to think further about something deeper.

Work to Do

My next work will focus on developing ideas and selecting the most appropriate project from among many ideas for future work. Therefore, I will continue to read some materials, read more cases to stimulate my imagination. Before deciding my personal thoughts, I have many options to think about. Over the next two days I will finalize the ideas and make the necessary sketch for next week's presentation.

Work that Inspired/Interested Me

As far as ideas are concerned, I have not found a specific direction, but in the divergent thinking of the bold to imagine. By chance I saw two good designs designed by a Dutch production group on the Internet and I thought they could give me some inspiration. They are:

• Shylight

This is a lighting installation. The work "Shylight" is inspired by the response mechanism of the plant -- The MIMOSA is stimulated to close up, the ACACIA droops its leaves in the dark and stretches them again at sunrise. Fascinated by the way nature interacts, the artist created this light installation: When the light is turned on, a flower bud shaped chandelier drops from a nine meter high ceiling, with the fall of the show as a epiphyllum-like blooming of the beautiful moment. If the light is turned off, the flower closes its petals gently as the light slowly changes. The whole process has a strong breath of life.

• Flylight

In "Flylight, " the artist uses a streamlined light tube to simulate the flight of birds and a sensor inside the tube to change the light as the environment and the crowd move around it. In the artist's view, the harmony of the flock's behavior is due to the organic interaction between living creatures and their environment, which gives the birds a sense of natural beauty when they fly. The artist tries to use the light to restore the beauty which is born from the organic interaction, and let the viewers experience the wonderful changes of the natural world in the light and shadow flow.

who I am

Hello, everyone! I am Bonnie, I'm a master student in Interaction design. I like to try new things, design for me is not boring professional learning, but in the process of trying new things! Therefore, I love the design course very much, especially when I have completed one after another interesting project, I will fill the sense of pride! My personality is lively and I hope in DECO7385 course with each creative designers to create new amazing works!

Expectations

What I expect by attending this course is to improve the finality of my product design, I mean, the ability to prototype the functionality of the various parts closer to the final real product, including some technical expertise. In addition, I hope that through this course, I can experience the process of the final product exhibition more realistically and get closer to the work in the future. Of course, the most important thing is to be able to design an interesting but functional and interactive device!