Project EMAR

November 5, 2016

First Test with Users – A Learning Experience

emar

First Test with Users – A Learning Experience

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This week was our first pilot test with users we grabbed from the HCDE hallways. The Feeling Heard (FH) and Social Interactions (SI) teams recruited five participants.

The goals of the pilot were to learn:

  • How EMARs new script and eyes were working
  • What adjustments we might need to make in our study protocol

We positioned the cameras to record the interactions between the participants and EMAR and including the touchscreen. Meanwhile, the Physical Computing (PC) team was rushing to upload the newest robot script onto EMAR. They uploaded half of it just in time for the session.

What we learned

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Five participants came to try out EMAR. We learned a lot!

Users expect voice recognition

It was interesting to see that all of the participants attempted to verbally interact with EMAR. I guess we’re living in a SIRI and Alexa world where were expect our technologies to talk back to us. But, EMAR isn’t currently equipped with voice recognition. Good learning for us though that instinctively, users want to talk with EMAR (ß this technology is coming).

Technical troubleshooting

We also had some technical issues which impacted user’s experiences, and expectations. Right before the study we realized that the audio wasn’t working. There was a bent connection between the audio jack and the Arduino interface. As a result EMAR was silent, so we told users to interact with EMAR’s touchscreen instead.

Interacting through touch

We also learned that users expect all of EMAR to be touch sensitive. We observed them make direct attempts to touch EMAR’s face and arm in order to get a response. We also observed that

  • The touch screen with the visual analogue scale was a bit glitch, which impacts how participants interacted with it.
  • We need to work on the timing for EMAR’s prompts and responses. Adding more time might make it less abrupt.
  • The robot in its current state seemed a bit fragile and unapproachable, participants described being afraid to touch EMAR.

EMAR’s eyes: a big hit

On a positive note, EMAR’s eyes were a huge success, and participants found them very interesting as well as “cute.”  Overall, the teams will be hard at work this week in preparation for our next pilot study:

  • Creating a new more polished script
  • Making sure the audio works fully
  • Getting the script uploaded correctly and in its entirety
  • Fixing delays/responsiveness/text color/box color/jumping questions

There is a lot of work to do, but soon the teams can move on to integrating an internal video recording device, laser printing a duplicate robot form (EMAR V2 clone), making the robot more stable, and finally testing the robot in the field with teens!

Stay tuned for more updates!