Unit 23 – Task 3

Task 1- P3 – Design input and output HCIs to meet given

specifications

The HCI that I will be designing via unity is a dark blue sphere in a virtual 3D

space that I will be able to pick up and throw across the grid. The sphere

should also roll when I throw it via an underarm throw or by slapping it. The

input method that will be used to control the sphere is a leap motion

controller and the output method used to display this is a computer monitor.

Task 2 - P4 - Create Input and Output HCIs to meet Given

Specifications

When first creating my HCI the first thing that had to be done was insert the

leap motion in the computer as the input that was going to be used for the

human/user aspect of the HCI in order for the design to work at all. The grid

was the second thing that was done when creating the HCI. This was done due

to it being part of my design which stated that it needed to roll when moving

on it. This was created in unity by me right-clicking the hierarchy Panel,

choosing ‘3D object’ and ‘plane’ as shown below.

After this, the

grid/plane then

showed up on my

screen which in turn I

lowered its height

and adjusted it to be

below the leap

motion hands.

Unit 23 – Task 3 The sphere was next when being created. It was done very similarly to the grid.

Just as said prior, it was created when I right clicked the hierarchy Panel,

choosing ‘3D object’ and instead of plane, it was a sphere as shown below.

At first, when the sphere appeared, it was too large and had to be resized in

order for the leap motion to be able to pick it up. This was done by changing

the x, y and z scales of the sphere via the transform tab on the inspector panel

on the right side as seen below.

Unit 23 – Task 3 The sphere was then coloured to blue by adding a component in the project

panel called IE example and then choosing the dark blue version as shown

below.

The sphere as of this moment did not have any physics which in turn made it

not interactive. In order to fix this, I added a component called rigid body into

the sphere by first going to the add component on the bottom. The

component sphere collider was also added in order for the sphere to be

interact able with the leap motion controller and in turn my virtual hands.

Unit 23 – Task 3 When this was done, the sphere just rolled away and was not interactable. This

was fixed by me adding an interaction manager on both the sphere and leap

motion controller for them to be better at interacting with one another. This

was done by going to the assets icon on the top of unity and then importing

the leap motion interaction engine and all of its assets.

I then dragged the interaction manager onto the hierarchy panel in order for

its effects to come out. This was doing by me going to modules and then

interaction engine and then refabs. After that, the sphere’s interactivity and

my objective with it, came into fruition.

Unit 23 – Task 3 Task 3 – M2 - Explain the fundamental principles which have been applied to

the designs

The first fundamental principal that I applied to the design was colour. I

changed it to blue improve its aesthetic compared to the default of the sphere

which was white.

The second principal, that I applied to my designs was the one of Human as

component. This is the principal of human’s processing the information of they

intend to do and physically be the main input (with the assistance of leap

motion) of the application hence it being HCI (Human – Computer Interaction).

It was used because the leap motion controller was the input and was not

conventional in terms of its normalcy. It required the user (when using my

design/application alongside leap motion), to physically move their arms for

any interactions to take place between them and the application/computer.

This can be evidenced below with small video showing how explanation of the

principal has been implemented within my application’s design.

20190603_125136.m

p4

The third and final principal used is with the key action model. Since this model

is limited to human error it cannot help in terms of predicting that error when

in use by the user when they are interacting with the sphere with the assist of

leap motion. This was mainly used in relation with the physics of the sphere in

that if a leap motion hand model to be near it, it would

either roll away or if the user picks it up it would

correspond with their hand movements. This can be

evidenced with the image below shows an example of

may happen within the model as I explained with the

two scenarios.

Unit 23 – Task 3

Unit 23 – Task 3 Task 4 – P5 -Test the HCIs created

Physics

After applying rigidbody to the sphere, its physics worked just as I intended

within my design in terms of it both rolling and doing it on the surface of the

grid.

Interaction

At first when I tried to interact with the sphere, it did roll just as expected from

me testing its physics, however when I tried to further interact with it. It would

erratically roll away from my leap motion hands very quickly.

20190605_134641.m

p4(Video of the problem)

I then figured out that the reason that this scenario kept on occurring was

because of both me not installing the rigidbody correctly and the leap motion

controller being smudged which in turn did not work. Unfortunately, the

rigidbody problem was so complex that my teacher recommended me to

restart the whole process with the same method that I had used before but

Unit 23 – Task 3 install the rigidbody component in the right section. After following through

with his instructions and installing the component in its right section, the

problem seems to have been fixed and its interactivity had been returned to

normal as evidenced with the video below.

20190605_134650.m

p4

Behaviour

When testing the behaviour of my HCI, I noticed while everything seemed to

be in order, when I tried to lift it, the leap motion controller often took around

one to seconds for it to recognise my hand movements and register it on my

screen which in turn suggest that it had a slow reaction time and was lagging.

Unfortunately, I tried to find a method to fix this issue by restarting the

creation process for the second time and by also trying unity and the leap

motion controller on another computer nothing seemed to work and, in the

end,, I decided to give up and accept its time delaying flaw.

Unit 23 – Task 3 Task 5 – M3 - Explain how the effectiveness of HCIs may be measured.

There are two sub groups on how the effectiveness of HCI’s can be measured.

These are:

1. Quantitative measures of effectiveness: This is based on

measurements obtained using a more rigid measurement process which

can be counted such as:

• Throughput: Throughput is a measurement method of how many

units of information a system can process in a set time. Its main use

has been to measure the effectiveness of computers that run many

programs concurrently and compared them. Its very effective in

measuring the effectiveness of HCI’s because before a product is

released with human interaction in mind, the hci developers can

stress test the product on computers that are running both the

application for the HCi, and other resource intense applications. This

in turn helps them tune any problems that they may occur if

unchecked such as what kinds of failures are most the valuable to

plan for, fixing security flaws that are exposed when under stressful

conditions and to also test the hci strength to see if it can be

corrupted.

• Comparisons with other systems: This measurement method is an

effective way to measure an HCI’s effectiveness because it shows

how much better or worse the product is with interacting with users

compared to other software applications. Within this measurement

process, this method also shows developers how they can improve

their application (if its for commercial use) and how they better

adjust for consumer use in comparison to other applications intended

for HCI, which in turn may help the sales of their software.

• Costs of Staffing: This is an effective way of measuring an HCI’s

effectiveness due to it factoring things such as salaries of the

developers who both created it and may have to keep maintaining

the application for further enhancements for better HCI which in turn

adds to the expense of the application and when measured, lowers

its effectiveness.

Unit 23 – Task 3 Qualitative measures of effectiveness: This is based on measurements

obtained using a more subjective measurement process which can be open to

interpretation such as:

• Ease of use: This is an effective way of measuring an HCI’s

effectiveness due to it allowing the application to have a broader

audience because of its streamlined presence and interactivity. With

this method alongside the method of comparing the software with

other systems/software, the software’s effectiveness can be

measured by certain factors being measured within the method such

as the ease of accessing one section of the software to another, the

simplicity of the software’s interface when a user is browsing it and

also lastly how easy it is for a new user of the software to learn how

to use it, at least to a intermediate level.

• Meets Requirements: This is useful in measuring an HCI’s

effectiveness because if the software cannot meet a set number of

tasks its required to do during its testing, then its effectiveness in

being interactive with a user will be lowered to a software that meets

them.

• User Satisfaction: This is important tin measuring an HCI’s

effectiveness because if the user is not satisfied with the software

that they are interacting with, then the effectiveness of the software

is lowered. This can happen in a few scenarios for example such as

bugs within the software that diminish the interactivity, the simplicity

of it while interacting with it and finally, how long the user enjoys

interacting with the product and continues using it.

Unit 23 – Task 3 Task 6- D2 Evaluate the HCIs developed.

Overall

I am very pleased in the HCI that I develop. This is because of me struggling in

building due to a lot technical errors on my part and even when I didn’t have

those errors I always struggled in placing the parts within the right places such

as the camera angle, hand position, leap motion controller and also how much

space to give between the hand models, controller and the sphere. My

application meets all the requirements within my design as evidenced

throughout this draft’s images and videos. While there were things I wish I

could have implemented but couldn’t due to the lack of online resources

around that specific creation and no spoon-feeding allowed from teachers in

terms of them directly doing the work for me which in turn would have

lowered my grade for the unit, such as adding another object like a cylinder

and multiply them to create the application into a sort of interactive bowling

game/simulation.

Within my original mock-up/plan I originally wanted to create a slider as

suggested by you (or Mr James Holder, if he isn’t the one reading this) but

when I wanted to create it, there was a lack of resources on how to create one

and the only site that a tutorial on how to create was the main leap motion

website in which there wasn’t and it was just an example that I could just

download and play around with. It is quite drastic from the mock-up to the

transitioning of the final design. The reason as to why I drastically changed my

idea on how to create the application I wanted was because I wanted to create

something that fit a simple criteria, was balanced in its complexity to create

and had a lot of online resources which check upon to see my progress and see

from other points of view in case I didn’t understand or was confused on how

one person wrote their instructions compared to another.

I believe that the best thing about my design is its easy of use and the lack of

needing a lot peripherals. This is because when it comes to remote less

software applications there tends to be a lot peripherals needed. For example,

Unit 23 – Task 3

This shogi AI playing robot found within the barking first needed a huge power

supply to power it, a shogi board compatible with its pre - determined

algorithms and a second player willing to play and interact with it. While all my

application requires is a desktop/laptop with unity, my software and a leap

motion controller that’s inserted in one of its usb ports. On the other hand,

this robot compared to my application is much more advanced in terms of its

capabilities and interactivity with users due to it being able to learn to improve

its capabilities and cater its strategy to that specific user to defeat them at

their game.

In conclusion, if I had to restart the design of my application, I would have

increased the complexity of it by making a fully- fledged game of it and adding

an AI component if possible, like a game in Greenfoot. I would also take

inspiration from games such as Play Go

within the barbican centre due to it being like Othello but having both an AI

component and co-op mode for two players at a local level. I would’ve also try

to have two leap motion controllers work for 2 player mode for full

interactivity.