Portfolio in progress

I have wrapped up my project basically and solely working on the portfolio contents. I have uploaded to the portfolio website for access. The team reflection paper is done too.

Reflection

Generally, the ideal intended outcomes and the actual matched pretty much.The process is entertaining and motivates users to do the breathing exercise continuously. Therefore, I would say the project is quite successful. However, one problem that is affecting the usability and my user experience is the sound sensor. As it can only detect breath within a short range, people tend to push themselves nearer to the sensor and blow hard to make it respond. I also realised that the blow has to be aimed accurately on the sound sensor to make it works. If the blow has to be so precised, the users, especially first-time users, are not able to relax themselves while doing the exercise. If I have a magic wand, I hope the sound sensor can change into a chest sensor instead, so that it can detect chest movement to accurately detect user's time of inhalation and exhalation. The detection of breath needs to be easy for the users because it affects the whole interaction, usability, usefulness and the user experience eventually.

THANK YOU

I would like to thank the teaching team, my team member and all my testers for all the supports given throughout this semester.

Working on the Portfolio

The website design is done and I am slowly adding contents to it. The project is done with some minor refinement added which is the reminder and reset system. During the exhibition, I will be able to present the interactions, alert and reset functions. Overall, I am very satisfied with my project outcome and love the design of my portfolio website! Looking forward to the up-coming virtual exhibition on Discord.

New demo video

I have also made a new live-demo after the refinement, presenting the buzzer and reset function with the painting. This will be uploaded on my portfolio website.

Final touch up

The sound sensor is securely attached to the painting now and I have used a powerpack to for powering up the Arduino so that the painting does not need laptop at the side to operate. For the exhibition, to show the reminder and reset function, I have adjusted to trigger the buzzer after 20 seconds of inactivity (no breath detected) and reset after the buzzer rings for 5 seconds. The original setting is, remind to exercise after 2 hours of inactivity and the painting will reset after buzzer rings for 5 seconds. Once reset, the user can redo the exercise again. As it is recommended to do 3-4 times a day, the lights will stay on for 2 hours after the exercise is done. This will prevent the user from over-exercising. After 2 hours. the buzzer will ring to tell the user it is going to reset and ready for next round of breathing exercise!

I love how everything is neat and portable behind the canvas now!

Reflection

After the appraisal, I realised my prototype and demonstrations have been a success however lack of some functions which will enhance user experience. According to the feedback, I understand that user needs a RESET function to allow them to do the breathing exercise again if they would love to. However, as my target audience is people with breathing difficulties and my intended experiences are improving lung capacity and promoting relaxation, I believe that the user should not have the control of resetting but I will code to make the painting reset itself after a period of time so as to prevent my user from over doing the breathing exercise and exhaust themselves which will backfire on my intended experience. I have basically completed the reset function, the painting will reset itself after 2 hours of being inactive (Inactive = no detection of breathing/exhalation).

Reset means the light path (7 led lights) under the camels will diminish and pyramid will turn back to blue.

Next to work on will be an alert system to remind user to the breathing exercise. I will be using the piezo to send buzzing noise as a notification to the user not to forget to do some breathing exercise. I am planning to make alert works 20 sec before the the reset. The buzzer will buzz for 20 sec before getting reset (basically it buzzes every 1h40s if no breathing is detected).

Next thing that brought up from the appraisal was a risk of misinterpretation of background noise. As user will be required to use my installation in a quiet environment, this should be under user's control. Overall, the sensor is a sound sensor, it is impossible to make it not detect other sounds. However, during my testing, the sensor is not sensitive to mild and consistent background noise like talking, it will only react to sudden loud noise near the sensor or a direct blow towards the sensor.

Regarding making the background customisable to keep up user's interests to continuously use the painting will be a challenge as the canvas painting is a fixed object. I tried using the servo and magnet to see if I can make the camels on the painting gallop but the magnet is too strong that once it is attached to another magnet that is attached with the camel paper, the magnet remains at the same place while the whole servo is doing the turning instead. Maybe a much smaller magnet might make it work but I don't have the small magnets and the noise of servo might be disrupting my user when they are doing the breathing exercise. Therefore, this idea will not be implemented.

For emergency

In case of any unexpected damage in the upcoming exhibition, I have purchased extra sound sensors for me and my team.

Prototype submission

This week I have submitted my prototype documentation and video for demonstration. I am pretty satisfied with the work I have produced and hope to get some valuable feedbacks for further development.

Appraisal

During the studio, our team has came together and reviewed on the work of the other teams that we were allocated to. We discussed through video call and gathered everyone's feedbacks and comments before posting them to MIRO. I am happy that our team has worked things out efficiently and look forward to the final exhibition!

Continuous research

After the submission, I continued working on TAM survey for user research purpose for my prototype. I am also currently looking for ways to further develop my prototype. One direction that I am aiming at is to make a reminder system to remind user to do their breathing exercise at least 4-5 times a day as recommended by Lung Health Institue. https://lunginstitute.com/blog/pursed-lips-breathing-helps/

Work done

This week I have finalised my prototype and coded to make it work without any simulated aspects. The sound sensor is now able to detect blow from the mouth and the led lights will react accordingly. When the sensor has detected the blow, the pyramid will change from blue to orange. One light will lit up under the camels after each blow is detected. There is a total of 7 led lights under the camels. When all the 7 lights have lit up, the pyramid will change to orange light permanently to complete the whole painting.

I have also cut a hole in the canvas to embed the sound sensor in the painting so that user can blow directly to the painting for convenience.

Reflection

Overall, I am very satisfied and happy with my prototype. It looks and works how I wanted it to be exactly. Of course, there are always room for improvement but at the current stage, I am proud with what I have produced so far. I am not good with handcrafts or drawings, this project is challenging but fun at the same time because I discovered some painting tricks along the way and learnt how useful Arduino can be! I also appreciate the great supports from the course coordinator and tutors. Thank you!

This week has been very fruitful as I have created a few prototypes to explore different ways to presenting my concept and collect as many feedbacks as possible to make a decision on my final presentation of my project. I also have my sound sensor for Arduino this week to finally be able to code and test with the prototypes. It went well.

Prototype 1: The Midnight Garden

A garden which will come alive when user blows into the sensor. This very first prototype explains to my user my concept and the intended experience.

Prototype 2: Lego

This video shows how user can interact with the installation. Each blow will cause a light to lit up beneath the canvas.

Prototype 3: The Climbing Man

Each blow will cause a light to lit up and create a picture of a man climbing up the mountain.

Prototype 4: The desert

A combination of the 3 prototypes ideas. With theme, spotlight and merging the led light with the picture.

Feedbacks

I have done some interview and a survey with people I know. Even though they are not lung disease patients but some interviewees have experience in practising breathing exercises or meditation in their own time. Many expressed interest in my concept however they think breathing exercise is always and should be done in a still and calm state instead of moving around their head to blow into the sensor. Therefore, I have decided to focus the sound sensor in one point for user to target at while doing the breathing exercise. They also expect some indication on the picture to guide them on when to inhale and exhale for how long. For the current week, I have been producing different prototypes and designs to let users choose which one they prefer the most. Each design has their own supporters, hence I decided to create the camel in desert which involved all the good points that people like about the first 3 prototypes.

Prototype 1: Interviewees like the night garden theme and the blinking stars which create a calming effect that people usually want to experience during meditation/doing breathing control.

Prototype 2: Interviewees think the lego figures are cute and felt that the whole presentation seems cool to have light appearing underneath the canvas like a spotlight as you exhale from your mouth

Prototype 3: Interviewees like the idea of starting from almost a plain canvas not knowing what will appear and see lights appearing gradually and form a complete picture when breathing exercise is completed.

Prototype 4: There is a night theme, figures with spotlight, unknown light path and a complete picture when all lights are lit up.

Next...

LED strip needs to be soldered, for extension to make some blinking stars in the sky. The stars will appear when the breathing exercise has been completed as a reward and surprise to the user by further beautifying the whole picture.

Currently, the interactions are simulated. I used the delay functions to make the lights lit up one by one with an interval of 8 seconds. So the delay makes it looks like the light is responding to the breath. The codes will definitely be improved to enhance user experience and make the interactions real to ensure they are doing the breathing exercise correctly. I will also add some elements on the painting to act as a guide for user to control their breathing.

Recap

Domain: Body as controller

Problem space: Breathe for wellness

Target audience: People with lung disease

Breathing method: Pursed lip breathing

The original concept was a breathing lamp that can train people to do the 478 breathing technique. However, it is not scientifically proven of its effectiveness and some people have feedback that holding breath for 7 seconds in the middle was difficult. Therefore, the target audience has changed to lung disease patient and studies have proven that pursed lips breathing exercise improve their breathing conditions and wellbeing.

Concept Sketches

After doing some researches and watching many videos on projects that are done with Arduino, I have came out with my concept sketched below name as "The Midnight Garden". The garden will come alive after all the mic sensors have been blown!

Concept and Intended experience

When user blows to each microphone sensor, the object will light up respectively. For instance, if the user blow at the windmill, the led lights on the windmill will be activate and if the user blows at the tree trunk, the branches will start lighting up etc. In addition, I am considering of adding speaker with cricket sounds as the background to fit the picture theme even more, to provide further and better immersive experience to the audience while they practise their breathing technique. The design of the visual and audio effects on my installation are aiming to promote relaxation and calmness as much as possible. As recommended for lung disease patient, it is best to do the breathing exercise

Prototype draft

To convey my concept to the audience easier, I have make a simple prototype to show how to interact with the "garden" and the responses they will receive. This is only one of the object, each object will be embedded with a mic and lights up when receiving the blow out from the mouth.

Inspiration

Arduino

I have received both kits and purchased some materials that I need for my installation. While waiting for the delivery, I have play around with the LED light strips and LED ring, using FASTLED library in Arduino. They are pretty and amazing. I have also purchased some rgb led strips that can be addressed individually so that I can program them to different colors and patterns.

Next

1. Prepare interviews to collect feedbacks and gain insights.
2. Get some art and crafts for the installation and do some testing with Arduino
3. Set up the prototype and video

Work done

Team and individual report have been submitted this week. During the studio, we explore what are the alternatives methods of doing observations and interviews to gain insights. I have chosen my top 3 methods to be conduct online video interviews, online surveys and online discussion forum with target user group. Reasons being it is still direct contact with the target group and able to retrieve first-person experience and information to gain more accurate insights. I have also confirmed my target audience as lung disease patient who can benefits from the pursed lip exercise to improve their breathing patterns, relieves shortness of breath and promotes relaxation.

Next

One week of Easter break, I will be doing some reading and playing boardgames to relax. For the project, I will need to decide on which sensor will be the most suitable to use for my design and interactions. Currently, I am thinking of using the microphone sensor to detect user's blow but there are alternatives like humidity sensor or motion sensor to detect movements. I will also try to complete the mind map on Miro to brainstorm more on my project.

Reflections

During this week contact session, our team has discussed and reviewed on the feedbacks from our last presentation. We agreed that we will have education as our problem space but later we found it was too broad and we need to narrow the problem space down to perhaps targeting at specific audience. Hence, we decided to make our problem space as educating university students. Our team has also decided to work under the same domain and problem space but develop our own concepts. I decided to use my original pitch idea which was the BIBO light, a light that teach people the 478 breathing method to reduce anxiety and improve sleeping quality.

From my pitch feedback, I was told that some people think 478 breathing technique is not very useful and suggested me to change to another breathing method that can help people with respiratory problem. Currently, I am also exploring at different breathing techniques that are used to treat people with Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). COPD is a health condition that affects an individual’s ability to breathe well.

However, my team mates have some difficulty thinking of an idea with the domain and problem space we set earlier on, therefore we changed our problem space again to improving people's wellness through breathing which was the problem space that my BIBO light was exploring, with target audience set at university students and working adults. So now, we will all be working on ideas that use breathing (domain: body as controller) to create interactions between the users and our products. Each of our team members will implement different breathing methods on our individual concept to suit our target audience and intended experience.

Next...

The proposal is almost completed. I have received my Arduino kit this week and will be looking forward to the next workshop session to learn Arduino. In the meantime, I will need to do further research on how to develop my BIBO light and which sensors to use. I will I am new to Arduino as I made a VR game using oculus quest for my digital prototyping course. I need to master on how to use Arduino to be able to make my BIBO light works well.

Team pitch feedbacks and reviews

Our concept is about creating a plan video game that can be played using hand gestures. From the feedbacks, I learnt that this is not novel and innovative enough to stand out from existing games in the market. We were told our project is too similar to Kinect and leap motion games, therefore we need to rethink about our concept. From the feedbacks, it is better that we shift our concept to a non-game based and allow people to move away from screens when using our designs.

Moving forward, my team decided to develop our own concepts under the domain Body as Controller.

Individual concept

I would like to develop my original pitch, which is the BIBO lamp. User will need to use their breath to control the brightness of the lamp. It fits into the theme in 2 ways: 1. Detecting of air from the mouth 2. Detect motions from chest (Inward and Outward) as they exhale and inhale.

The problem space my team will be exploring will be health/mental health aspects. To be decided...

Critiques

Many teams have really interesting ideas in terms of the interactions and visual effects they are putting in their products. However, some concepts failed to consider the practicality and feasibility.

The dancing elevator

Lift is not a good setting because people might need the lift for different reasons. try to shift the concept to another location. Plus, we are not suppose to jump in the elevator.

Fitlody

The exercise mat is interesting and motivating. Motivate users to exercise by producing music when they workout. Can also add a setting of goals and heart rate detector.

Lome

Lovely concept. Suggest adding more variations to how the flower and its surrounding will react to different emotions and words, to make the whole thing more interactive. Also if the flower keeps detecting negative emotions, what can be done to motivate or lift up the mood of the family? Prompt the user to talk to someone perhaps? Or show some motivational/inspiring quotes and messages?

Garfunkel

What is the purpose and meaning behind all these sounds the objects will make? What can people learn from the concept and why people will be interested? If every object is going making some sounds without any melody or tune, it’s not music, they are noises.

Fire safety using audiometrics

To combine physical and digital co-exist and interact in real time, consider mixed reality for greater immersive experience. Thoughtful concept.

This week we did world cafe and formed into our team. The world cafe exercise is very beneficial in helping us to think deeper and further for each themes. For example, one of the theme - Body as controllers, as it is highly related to movements of the body, it is therefore a useful theme for improving people's health/fitness and increasing interactive experiences.

Overall, world cafe is a useful and meaningful exercise to help designers to think more in depth of each themes and develop better design concepts that might have good impact and contribution to the society in future.

TEAM MOBODY

We have formed into a team of 4, called The Mobody which is the combination of the two words 'Move' and 'Body'. Our theme is Body as controller.

Concept

After getting to know our teammates and drafting out the team charter, we have some discussions and brainstorming on modifying a concept of using fingers to play game, designed by one of our team mate. This round, with a team, we decided to change this game to a fighting jet game where player can use their hands to fly a plane and do some shootings with different hand gestures. This week we will work on defining our concepts, our target audience, looking for more inspirations on interactive games, thinking of possible constraints/limitations and some scenarios that people will want to play our games.

Above figure was a sketch that we have drawn about our game play during the team meeting in the contact.

Next...

We will have to do a pitch next week to inform the class of our team's project!

Soldering and Laser cutting

The phys comp cube is done with the laser cutting machine, and soldering done to make the red light works! Fun and the light is working with the switch :)

Wood cutting

Many ways to cut the wood into the shapes we want and third finger can be used to protect our hand when getting close to the blades. Still, those machines are pretty intimidating o.o" but a good learning experience.

After all the concepts have been presented, we categories them under different themes. Next contact will do world cafe with these themes and form a group.

Critiques reflection

Some suggest to add sound/music to the BIBO light or make the light "breathing" maybe by making it glows when inhaling and dims when exhaling. Also, a suggestion to install a fan on it to make the whoosh sound. I think all these can be taken into consideration and experiment it later to see if they increase user experience.

Concept

My concept is to design a lamp that can only be switched off using the 478 breathing techniques. Inhale through nose for 4 counts, hold it for 7 counts and exhale through the mouth for 8 counts. The exhaling part will then dim the light a little after sensing the 8 seconds of "wind". After 4 cycles of 478 breathing, the light will be completely turned off. User can say the word "RELAX" to switch on the light again.

Sketches

Inspiration

Problems/Benefits

Reduce anxiety, stress management and sleep better.

Source: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/324417

Context of Use

Anywhere that is quiet so that user will not be distracted. Can be used as a bedside lamp, and do the breathing exercise to turn off the light to get a better sleep. Can be used in office to calm yourself down in stressful working environment.

Hi my name is Paula, currently in the last semester of interaction design. I am always interested in game development and new technologies that aim to benefit people's health and fitness.

Expectations from this course:

• Exposure to different types of interactive designs
• Learn or improve the skills needed to develop the concepts into a successful and meaningful product in the most efficient way
• Explore technologies and tools available that are useful for interactions