November 18, 2016

Poster Session and a Public Test

This week was a busy week for the team! Part of the week was spent presenting a poster at the HCDE Research Showcase, and our meeting was spent testing EMAR in a public setting for the first time!

POSTER PRESENTATION

The Human Centered Design and Engineering Research Showcase was held in the Husky Union Building (HUB) on campus at the University of Washington, Seattle. It was a chance for different research groups to come together and share what they have been working so hard on.

A team of students within our research group worked on designing a poster for Project EMAR. Our poster specifically addressed what EMAR is about and the current research we are doing this quarter. Project EMAR was a hit at the poster session, and many students and faculty came to check out our research and ask questions.

GUERRILLA USER TESTING ON CAMPUS

In order to gain more user experiences, we set EMAR up at the student Husky Union Building  – a popular space for students to hang out. We set EMAR up on a table around an area where people were eating, studying, and lounging. People who came by and looked interested were asked if they wanted to interact with EMAR.

This public testing was a success, mostly because it informed us of what still needs work! In this public space, we discovered the following bugs:

• The audio worked, but was not up-to-date with the most recent touch screen display script
• There was repetition and skipping in the EMAR’s speech
• The touchscreen was oversensitive to the participant’s touch – almost predicting their responses before they made contact
• The visual analogue slider defaulted to the low end of the scale rather than the midpoint.

WHAT’S UP NEXT

The team is now working to fix the bugs we found in our public user research session so that EMAR will be up and running for our upcoming high-school research sessions in Seattle and Tacoma!

Thanks again for checking in, and stay tuned for more updates as we near the end of the quarter!