cooltown user studies margaret fleck, marcos frid, tim kindberg, eamonn o’brien-strain, rakhi...

Cooltown User Studies

Margaret Fleck, Marcos Frid, Tim Kindberg, Eamonn O’Brien-Strain, Rakhi Rajani and Mirjana Spasojevic

Mobile Systems and Services Lab

Hewlett-Packard Labs

From Informing to Remembering: Deploying a Ubiquitous System in an Interactive Science Museum


Reality Check: User Studies What works with ordinary users? What is their experience like?


Study actual use: how to interleave electronic functionality with physical, nomadic activities

Inform design, stimulate design

Physical

Virtual

Web pages

Exhibits

Research Focus: Cooltown User Studies


Exploratorium – science museum

Exploratorium mission Public exhibits space Educational activities, teachers programs Center for media and communication-“dissolve

the walls of the building”

NSF funded Electronic Guidebook project Investigate use of handhelds, wireless networks Increase level of engagement and help learning Pre-visit, during and post-visit interaction Expand Exploratorium’s educational mission


Motivation

ElectronicGuidebook

Rich web based content

… stimulating… … exploration …

Cooltowntechnologies


Challenges

… hard to navigate …

… hands-on …

… vigorous, noisy …


Proposed functionalities

Informer Content delivered to the user next to the exhibit

Suggester/Guider Things to do while at the exhibit, things to see elsewhere

Communicator Communication among family members, field trip groups Experience sharing, virtual graffiti

Rememberer Help remember exhibits/phenomena, increase post-visit

engagement


Phase I

Prototype hybrid Electronic Guidebook: Informer, Suggester, Rememberer

Variety of technologies (handhelds, sensing,…) Diverse user population (staff, teachers,

students, …) User tasks (browse, bookmark, treasure hunt, …) Measure interactions with physical & virtual

resources (web logs, observers, videos, ..) Qualitative evaluation (interviews, surveys)


Infrastructure overview

802.11

Pi-station: beacon (infrared), barcode, RFIDplus processing, I/O and networking

contentserver

Internet

RFID IR

real exhibit


Electronic Guidebook Technologies

Jornada 690 Jornada 540 Hitachi E-Plate

barcodesbeacons


Electronic Guidebook: User Experience


User Experience: first step

beacon

URL

Web page

• location sensing: get exhibit URL• first web page automatically downloaded


User Experience: top page, follow to information nuggets

top page(image map)

info nuggets


Remembering content: personal scrapbook

press bookmark button to save web page capture experience and make it memorable

personal experience

personal online scrapbook

personal artifacts

postcard

collage poster

booklet


Phase I experiments (Summer 2001)

34 users: teachers, kids, staff, developers (ages 10 to 50+)

Data collected: detailed web logs, observations, interviews


Phase I key findings

Low-level & generic Verified feasibility of basic components

Beacons/barcodes acceptable for location sensing Wireless connectivity (802.11) Browser UI Web pages easily accessible Issues with stylus

Battery life will continue to be an issue Potential for getting lost in cyberspace!


Phase I key findings

Domain-specific (Exploratorium-related) Most appropriate user groups: teachers, explainers, repeat

visitors Easy adoption with younger visitors Personalization of content is important Audio needs earplugs Users reacted positively to the 'my scrapbook' idea Potential negative effects

distraction from exhibits by on-line content carrying devices affects interaction at the exhibits

Ongoing: evaluation of content for self-directed informal learning


Choosing a tool

Informer, Suggester Too obtrusive for many visitors

Guider, Communicator Less frequent distractions

Rememberer Minimizes attention shifts Extends engagement to post-

visit User interest

Physical

VirtualWeb pages

Exhibits


What is Rememberer?

• Record of the exhibits to remember. User controls what is captured.

• Components

• "remember-this" technology for selecting objects during the visit

• the visit record (set of web pages)

• a physical token, which reminds the user of the visit


Phase II infrastructure: Rememberer

802.11

contentserver

Internet

RFID IR

real exhibit

“remember-this”

personal artifact

(web page, postcard, etc.)


Rememberer: research questions

Interference with exhibit manipulation? Does the tool help with recall? Influence on discussion and social

interaction among people who visited together with people who are remote

Does the tool help as a resource? in itself as a launching point for further exploration


Rememberer: experiments

Round 1: informally verified basic concept RFID tags, cameras, web pages for photos Users like having photos taken this way Web pages accessed after the visit and annotated

Round 2: detailed evaluation (23 individuals/groups)


Round 2: experiment description

Experiment setup Mixture of exhibits; non-instrumented, with

beacon, with beacon & camera Individuals and small groups Control: no device, all exhibits non-instrumented Observations & interviews

Diverse Exploratorium-associated volunteers (!) Kids and adults, male & female


Use of ‘remember-this’

PropensityAll instrumented exhibits - 74%Exhibits w/ beacons - 67%Exhibits w/ beacons and camera - 86%

‘Interference’Beacon pickup: 10 out of 17 said “easy or very easy”Observed beacon problems: 10% of 140 usesCamera adjustment: 25% of 63 uses50% said wanted more camera control (what/when)


Time spent at exhibits

No instrumentation

1 min

5 sec

Beacons 1 min

49 sec

Beacons w/ camera

2 min

3 sec

All exhibits 1 min 29

sec

Control group 1 min 40 sec

Time spent at exhibits

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

< 1 1-2 2-3 3-4 4-5 5-6

minutes spent at an exhibits

% o

f vi

sits

All exhibits

No instrumentation

Beacons

Beacons w/ camera

Control group

Camera: visits 20% longer than control group


Home use

10 out of 17 revisited web pages 4 twice 3 of them about 10 days after the experiment


Moving forward

Continue analysis of Rememberer at Exploratorium

More widely applicable ‘remember-this’ e.g. Jornada with camera

Exploratorium Feb ‘02

Electronic Guidebook Rememberer

Multiple domains


Conclusions

Nomadic computing tools – simple applications that enhance interaction with the physical world

Cooltown physical hyperlinks are an effective mechanism for invoking web-based services

Exploratorium findings are likely to apply to other domains that are dynamic with high demand on user attention

More information

Electronic Guidebook project information

www.exploratorium.edu/guidebook/

Most recent TR: HPL-2002-54


Backup slides


Sample content: orientation page


Sample content: exhibit instructions, information nuggets


PhysicalVirtual

Web pages

Exhibits

Research focus: Physical vs. Virtual navigation


Phenomena under investigation

Basic affordances(handhelds, beacons, web pages, audio, …)

Attention to artifacts(exhibits, online content, …)

Paths through physical and virtual space(attention switching: exhibits, devices, content, companions, …)

Higher order effects (informal learning, engagement, social interaction, …)

com

ple

xit

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cooltown user studies margaret fleck, marcos frid, tim kindberg, eamonn o’brien-strain, rakhi...

Documents

user studieswhat

user tasks

web pagecapture experience

diverse user population

downloadeduser experience

electronic guidebook

detailed web logs

teachers programscenter