Designing Interactivity for the Specific Context of Designerly ...

CHI 2005 | Late Breaking Results: Posters

April 2-7 | Portland, Oregon, USA

Designing Interactivity for the Specific Context of Designerly Collaborations Eli Blevis, Youn-Kyung Lim, Muzaffer Ozakca, Shweta Aneja School of Informatics Indiana University at Bloomington {eblevis,younlim,mozakca,saneja}@indiana.edu ABSTRACT

collaborative design interactions and yield a shared knowledge base of design experience. Notions of design vary widely [2]; we define the notion of a design as a plan or explanation—an explanation about why things—objects, features of objects, affordances of objects, interactions between people and environments, ecologies of people and environments, futures and collective futures—are a certain way or why they should best be another way [4]. Thus, the knowledge base we have in mind contains representations of design explanations. Design explanations are composed of constituent elements that we call design components. Design components are framed to denote such notions as title, cover story, details, images, references, attributions, and indexing terms. Design components are not structured, but semi-structured—you might think of design explanations as relatively unstructured cases in a case-based reasoning system [8]. You might also think of design explanations as a relatively unstructured approach to notions within HCI of design rationale [7], in which metadata and search are used to establish relations between components of design explanations rather than explicit static links. Design explanations are also similar to the patterns of Christopher Alexander [1], except that we intend there to be thousands of them by hundreds of authors, rather than a small prescriptive collection.

We report on one of several exploratory, formulative studies that we conducted to help inform the thoughtful use of mixed physical and digital interactivity in a wiki-based system targeted at design collaborations. This study had two parts, both involving bar-coded cards, a bar-code scanner, and a projector. One part emphasized a creative, synthesis-oriented design activity. The other part emphasized a decision-making design activity. We learned that our method of designing the physical cards and the variance in the types of information we included on the cards significantly affected the collaborative behaviors. We also learned that the extension of interactivity from the digital to the physical world and back again successfully scaffolded both creative and decision-making activities in our context, although with some very notable differences in interactive behaviors between the specific activities. This latter point notwithstanding, we learned that allowing highresolution, small size physical cards to be arrayed and manipulated on a shared surface matters much more for the purposes of scaffolding the collaborative activities than the ability to scan and project large-size, low-resolution facsimiles of the same information, in specific contexts of collaborative story-creation and decision making. Author Keywords

One of the primary problems to be solved if we wish to make such a knowledge base accessible and shareable by a wide community is the problem of how to ensure that the representational formalism of our concept of design does not impede participation by creative people who may not necessarily feel comfortable dealing with formal representational structures. We propose to address this problem by means of the thoughtful design of interactivity as part of the Design Exchange system.

Collocated (co-located) collaborative design. Exploratory studies, Naturalistic studies, Design studies, Design, Mixed physical and digital interactivity, Presentation technologies. ACM Classification Keywords

H.5.2 [User Interfaces]:User-centered design. D.2.10 [Design]: Methodologies. D.2.10 [Design]:Representation. INTRODUCTION

The general motivation for our work is the development and discovery of fundamental knowledge and techniques that will enable people who participate in design collaborations to share, reuse, and agree on forms of knowledge that owe to actual experience with individual designs.

In design, the use of physical artifacts such as cards, post-it notes, and photographs, and the practice of arraying such artifacts on a vertical surface for collaborative organization and reflection is deeply entrenched. The use of barcoding is one way to allow these physical objects to refer back to corresponding digital representations and information. This approach has been thoroughly studied in the HCI literature for a variety of contexts, for which [3,6,9,10] are a very small sample. We decided to adapt this approach as one

As a step in this discovery, we have constructed a system called the Design Exchange which is intended to scaffold Copyright is held by the author/owner(s). CHI 2005, April 2–7, 2005, Portland, Oregon, USA. ACM 1-59593-002-7/05/0004.

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facet of the Design Exchange, seeking to understand how this method of mixing the physical and digital could support activities of creativity, decision making, and presentation in the specific context of our collaborative system for design. STUDY DESIGN

We report here on one of several exploratory design studies that we have conducted to help inform the use of interactivity in the Design Exchange, this one targeted at understanding the potential role of the aforementioned approach. By an exploratory design study, we mean that the purpose of the study was to help us determine what would be the most appropriate use of technologies and environments to support the Design Exchange system; we were not trying to test the system, nor were we trying to investigate the suitability of a technology in the abstract or invent particular technologies abstracted from a particular motivated task. This study involved seven pairs of participants who were asked to collaborate in an environment which included cards denoting design components that were affixed to a whiteboard on the wall by means of magnets. Each of the cards was barcoded. A hand-held scanner was provided and when scanned by a participant, the front of the card was projected onto a screen by means of computer projection. Some of the projected images used color or animation as a feature of the digital media not avialable on the cards. The following instructions were given to the participants:

Figure 1 : Selection, Photographs, Pair 6

Study Part 1 : creative story formation Select 4-5 photograph cards from the selection of 50 cards on the wall that you think can form a story about any subject of your choosing. Use the cards to present your story using the barcode scanner and projector in a manner that will be demonstrated by the researcher. If you find it difficult to construct a story, simply identify the 4-5 photographs you like the most and describe what it is you like about them during your presentation.

Figure 2 : Selection, Environment Cards, Pair 2

Study Part 2 : reasoning and decision making An innovative special task force on basic principles and directions for environmental and energy policy has been created that includes ordinary citizens. You have been invited to participate on this task force. There are 10 alternative fuels on 10 bar-coded cards on the whiteboard. Your initial task is to divide these cards into three groups, denoting (1) which fuels you think should be promoted for use by the government, (2) which fuels you think should be discouraged from use, and (3) which fuels you think can be ignored. You also need to order your selection within groups (1) and (2) from “most promoted” to “least promoted” and from “most discouraged” to “least discouraged”, respectively. When you have finished making your decisions, use the barcode scanner to present the cards and describe why you made your selection decisions.

Figure 3 : Presentation, Photographs, Pair 3

presentation stage. To keep things straight, we refer to the selection phase of the creative story formation using photographs as the Story/S phase and the presentation phase as Story/P phase. We refer to the selection phase of the reasoning and decision making using environment cards as the Decision/S phase and the presentation phase as the Decision/P phase. At the conclusion of both parts of the study, participants were asked to complete a short survey

As described in these instructions, there were two parts to the study, and each part had a selection phase followed by a

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targeted at eliciting their visceral, behavioral, and reflective responses to the study; these terms owe to Norman in [5]. The content of the cards in the Decision phases of the study are instances of one of many types of design components that may be represented in the Design Exchange. Our primary goal was to understand how the use of the cards, scanner, and projector would scaffold collaboration in the Decision phases, and if the observed collaborative behaviors would be different than the contrasting content of the Story phases. We had a number of secondary goals as well, namely (i) we wanted to understand the relationship between the high resolution, small size afforded by the printed cards and the low resolution, large size afforded by the projector, and (ii) we wanted to understand the relationship between the one-at-once properties of the projected design components and the many-at-once properties of the barcode-encoded physical card-based design components.

Figure 4. Environment Card Front “Octane Number: ~25 Physical State: Liquid Main Fuel Source: Soy bean oil, waste cooking oil, animal fats, and rapeseed oil

OBSERVED BEHAVIORS AND INTERPRETATIONS

Types of Vehicles Available today: Any vehicle that runs on diesel todayno modifications are needed for up to 5% blends. Many engines also compatible with up to 20% blends

Figures 1-3 illustrate the study. Figure 1 shows participants standing back to survey the photograph cards together during the Story/S phase. Figure 2 shows participants examining detailed information on the environment cards in the Decision/S phase. Figure 3 shows a participant presenting a story using the scanner and projector in the Story/P phase.

Maintenance Issues: Hoses and seals may be affected with higher-percent blends, lubricity is improved over that of conventional diesel fuel. Energy Security Impacts: Biodiesel is domestically produced and has a fossil energy ratio of 3.3 to 1, which means that its fossil energy inputs are similar to those of petroleum. Fuel Availability: Available in bulk from an increasing number of suppliers. There are 22 states that have some biodiesel stations available to the public.

There was remarkably little use of the scanner and projector during the selection phases of each part of the study. This was more the case for the Decision/S phase than for the Story/S phase. Especially during the Story/S phase, the scanner and projector were used sometimes as envisioned— a photograph card was selected by one of the participants and then projected using the scanner to invite collaboration (5/7 pairs). During the Decision/S phase, the scanner was rarely used; rather an invitation to collaborate was most often extended by one participant handing a card to her or his partner and saying something like “what do you think of this?”

Safety Issues: Less toxic and more biodegradable than conventional fuel, can be transported, delivered, and stored using the same equipment as for diesel fuel.” Source: http://www.eere.energy.gov/cleancities

Figure 5. Details from the Card back

review the general or background information on both sides. More than occasionally, both participants in a pair held and read the same card at once. In some pairs, they read aloud to each other (4/7 pairs). This became a natural alternative to the scanner and projector for the selection phase as the system was only programmed to project the summary presentation information on the front of the card. Figures 4 and 5 show the content of one of the cards.

A related observation is that during the Story/S phase, the participants nearly always left the photos on the whiteboard when trying to view detail. Some pairs eventually learned that they could remove selected or candidate photo cards and place them on another whiteboard in order to isolate them from the entire collection (4/7 pairs); nonetheless, they did not pick them up in order to view details, but rather to assist in recalling what was being considered or what had been selected. During this phase, participants nearly always leaned in towards the cards to view details of the photographs. In only one case and instance, a participant leaned in towards the projected image to view more details.

It may have been the case that the participants were at first unaware that they could hold the photograph cards in hand, for reasons we may call the “Gallery Effect”. That is, we are not used to taking finished looking photographs off the wall, without prompting. The fact that the environment cards contained critical decision-making information on the backs required the participants to hold the cards in hand. Therefore we cannot claim that the participants preferred to hold the environment cards more than the photograph cards. Nonetheless, we can claim that in both cases, the scanner and projector were not really required during the selection phases of both tasks for assimilating details of the materials, and that the need to read and comprehend the detailed information on the environment cards in order to make

During the Decision/S phase, the participants were much more inclined to take the cards in hand in order to view detail, since they were told that there was additional detailed background information on the backs. Once the cards were in hand, the participants often flipped them to

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during the Decision/P phase is a promising insight that merits further study. The implications of this research for the design of the Design Exchange that motivated it is that we will in fact adopt a mechanism in which every “wiki” page that represents a design component in the system will be barcoded so that when it is printed as a card, it can be referenced back from its physical form to its corresponding digital representation, primarily for the potential use in presentations, rather than collaborative selection activities.

informed decisions made the use of the scanner and projector during the selection phase even less necessary than with the photo cards. On the other hand, the scanner and projector occasionally helped with collaborative decision making in both tasks, the Story/S phase more than the Decision/S phase. In 2 cases, the participants didn’t even use the scanner and projector during the Decision/P phase, despite the fact that they had been instructed to do so. We believe that this occurred because once the information that was available on the environment cards had been assimilated and used to inform a decision, the results could simply be told without the need for visual aids, in these 2 cases.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We gratefully acknowledge the contributions of Martin Siegel, Yvonne Rogers, William Hazlewood, and the study participants. REFERENCES

In addition, the detailed cards took on the role of “cuecards”, inviting the participants to use the factual information on the cards to support the reasons for their decisions during the presentation phase. Even when the scanner and projector were used by the other 5 pairs in the Decision/P phase, the spoken information content was different than the projected information as many of the speakers frequently referred to the details on the backs of the cards. In one case, a participant complained during the presentation about the image on a particular card and its consequent projection, saying that the image (of an electric hybrid car surrounded by wind power generators) made the particular fuel seem more attractive than the facts supported.

1.

Alexander C, Ishikawa S, Silverstein M. A Pattern Language : Towns, Buildings, Construction: Oxford University Press; 1977. 2. Atwood ME, McCain KW, Williams JC. How Does the Design Community Think About Design. In: DIS2002; 2002; London, UK: ACM Press; 2002. p. 125-32. 3. Binder T, DeMichelis G, Gervautz M, et al. Supporting Configurability in a Mixed-media Environment for Design Students. Personal Ubiquitous Comput 2004;8(5):310--25. 4. Blevis, E. What Design Is Matters Less Than What Designs Are: Explanations for HCI and Design, a Case Story. In: Zimmerman,J.,et.al. Workshop on the relationship between design and HCI. Conference on Human factors and computing systems, Vienna, Austria. ACM Press;2004. k2.iguw.tuwien.ac.at:8080/movabletype/design_hci/ 5. Blythe M, Hassenzah M. Interview with Don Norman. Interactions 2004;11(5):43--6. 6. Lange BM, Jones MA, Meyers JL. Insight Lab: An Immersive Team Environment Linking Paper, Displays, and Data. In: 1998 conference on Human factors in computing systems; 1998; Los Angeles, CA, USA: ACM Press; 1998. p. 550--7. 7. Moran TP, Carroll JM, eds. Design Rationale: Concepts, Techniques, and Use. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.; 1996. 8. Riesbeck CK, Schank RC. Inside Case-Based Reasoning: Lea; 1989. 9. Rogers Y, Scaife M, Gabrielli S, Smith H, Harris E. A Conceptual Framework for Mixed Reality Environments: Designing Novel Activities for Young Children. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 2002;11(6):677-86. 10. Stanton D, Bayon V, Neale H, et al. Classrom Collaboration in the Design of Tangible Interfaces for Story Telling. In: 2001 conference on Human factors in computing systems; 2001; Seattle, Washington, United States: ACM Press; 2001. p. 482--9.

PARTIAL SUMMARY OF SURVEY RESPONSES

Of the 14 participants, 12 consider themselves to be designers and all 14 consider themselves to be at least somewhat creative. Slightly more than half are women and slightly more than half are under 30. Visceral: 13 reported that they like being able to see all of the cards at once, with 1 neutral response. 9 reported that they like the ability to see and discuss the large projected image, with 5 neutral responses. 7 reported that the animation and color available in the projected images that did not appear on the B&W cards adds to the task, with 3 negatives. Behavioral: 5 reported that the images in the environment cards study adds to the decision making process, with 6 negatives. 13 reported that it is easy to use the barcoded cards and projector in both parts of the study. Reflective: 9 thought the system was a good way to do collaborative design. 9 thought it is easier to use the system to do the Story phases than the Decision phases of the study, 3 thought it about the same, and 2 were neutral. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH

Although the barcode scanner and projector added some benefits to the collaborative activities we studied, the contribution of this technology was less significant than the act of allowing high-resolution, small size physical cards to be arrayed and manipulated on a shared surface. That the barcoded cards may have prompted the participants to provide a narrative, rather than read aloud from slides

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