CPSC 581
Human-Computer Interaction II
University of Calgary - Fall 2015
Project Three
The Proxemic Display
Sketch, design, implement and
document via a portfolio a
display whose contents react to
the proximity (distance) of a
person from it, and can be
manipulated by gestures
appropriate to that distance.
Digital displays used to be largely limited to monitors on a person's desk. This has changed.
Displays are now often found scattered in many environments. They exist in the home (e.g., an
information appliance dedicated to photo viewing or home calendars or gaming), in the
workplace (e.g., a digital whiteboard displaying on-going work), and in the public (e.g., digital
signage). For many such displays, interaction (if available) is done via touch or gestures rather
than through a mouse and keyboard.
Unlike the desktop computer, digital displays need to be designed so they work both as
background (ambient) displays that people just past by, as well as foreground displays that
people can interact with. Several researchers have investigated the use of proximity to regulate
this transition. That is, the display will change its contents (as well as how people can interact
with it) as a function of distance and orientation.
Your task is to design, implement, document and demonstrate a proxemic display that fits a
particular context of use and particular personas. You will be using the Microsoft Kinect and its
API in this project to determine distance and recognize gestures.
Possibilities are endless, but should be based on realistic settings, personas, and use cases.
Be creative. While your product should be functional and relevant, it should also be aesthetic,
engaging and intriguing within the scope of your audience.
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As a starting point of inspiration for your own project ideas, here are a few possible use cases
of such a proxemic-aware display:
•
advertisement display
•
home calendar
•
photo display
•
announcement board
•
video player
•
board to leave notes (e.g., use the windows phones)
•
stock market overview
•
...
To prepare for this assignment, you will learn how to program the Microsoft Kinect, how to
calibrate the Kinect to your display coordinates, how to recognize gestures, and how others
have designed ambient displays.
Pedagogical Objectives
•
Apply basic sketching techniques and lateral thinking to produce various designs in a
somewhat constrained but still highly open-ended project.
•
Acquire experiences creating and developing sketches in your sketchbook using various
sketching methodologies.
•
Acquire first-time experiences creating a display that reacts to proxemics and to gestures.
•
Acquire further experiences creating a persona as well as defining contexts of use.
Assignment Deliverables
1. 10 competing design sketches, 10 sketch details, and sketch refinements. In your
sketchbook, generate a minimum of 10 competing (different) designs for your proxemic
display. Include details of how the a person might interact with the proxemic-aware display.
As before, talk about your design with others. Choose one or more of these designs, and
then explore that design in detail (again, a minimum of 10 sketches) where you consider
both variants of that design and particular in-depth details of the how a sequence of
actions would unfold over it. You will be asked to briefly present your best one(s). You will
also be asked to summarize your design as a narrative storyboard. As your ideas change,
sketch them out.
2. The Proxemic Display.
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A. The system will react to people entering a scene and how they move relative to the
display.
B. The system will allow some interaction via gestures, where gestures may mean
different things at different distances.
C. It will optionally includes Phidgets or the Windows Phone as other devices that
interact with this display (e.g., for input, output or both).
D. You must pay attention to its aesthetics, its level of engagement, its interactivity,
how it fits its function and role, how it senses information from the environment
(input), and how it conveys information (output).
3. Persona description. From the typical audience you are designing this display for, draw up
a primary persona and optionally additional personas (secondary, customer, negative, etc.).
4. Context of use. Create a description of the context of use for your proxemic display.
Describe the physical setting within which your display is placed (include photos), what that
setting is for, and how people move through it.
5. Visual project summary. Within your web portfolio, create a web-based visual summary
that illustrates your system. Follow the guidelines and use the template you created
previously in Project Zero. Incorporate your persona(s) and context of use.
6. Video demonstration. You will be asked to produce a video of your system that follows
certain criteria (e.g., length, quality, engagement, how well it demonstrates your system).
7. Demonstrate your work. During class time, you will be asked to demonstrate all the above
work to other class members and the instructor.
Materials
•
Microsoft Kinect plus cables for connecting to PC
•
Phidgets or Windows Phone as needed
Additional Resources and Readings
Kinect Software for programming the Kinect in WPF/C#.
•
http://grouplab.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/cookbook/index.php/Technologies/Kinect Interactive public ambient displays: transitioning from implicit to explicit, public to
personal, interaction with multiple users. Vogel, D. and Balakrishnan, R. In Proceedings of
the 17th annual ACM symposium on User Interface Software and Technology, (2004), 137-146.
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http://www.dgp.toronto.edu/~ravin/papers/uist2004_ambient.pdf •
Video: http://www.dgp.toronto.edu/~ravin/videos/uist2004_ambient.avi Proxemic Interaction: Designing for a Proximity and Orientation-Aware Environment.
Ballendat, T., Marquardt, N. and Greenberg, S. (2010). In Proceedings of the ACM Conference
on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces - ACM ITS'2010. ACM Press, pages 121-130.
•
http://grouplab.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/Publications/2010-ProxemicInteractions.ITS Gradual Engagement between Digital Devices as a Function of Proximity: From
Awareness to Progressive Reveal to Information Transfer. Marquardt, N., Ballendat, T.,
Boring, S., Greenberg, S. and Hinckley, K. (2012). In Proceedings of Interactive Tabletops and
Surfaces - ACM ITS. ACM Press, 10 pages.
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http://grouplab.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/Publications/2012-GradualEngagement.ITS Evaluation
Your grade will be based on your sketches, your design creativity, your implementation,
documentation and packaging, and your portfolio summaries. However, great successes or
failures, or incompleteness in one exercise criteria will likely affect your total grade. Note that a
successful implementation is required: if you cannot demonstrate your system, you will
automatically receive a zero. Similarly, missing, late or incomplete work will result in a large
grade penalty.
Schedule
NOV 10
Introduction to Project 3
NOV 17
Homework: Sketch 10 initial design ideas for your proxemic display.
NOV 19
Design critique: Present sketch of your best idea(s) for small team critique.
NOV 20
Tutorial: Microsoft Kinect API
Homework: Create a provisional persona and context of use for your design.
NOV 24
Persona presentation: Present your persona(s) and context of use to the class.
Homework: Incorporate feedback and explore refinements to your design via sketching.
NOV 26
Design critique: Present refined sketch of your final design to the class.
DEC 1
Homework: Finish prototypes this week.
DEC 3
Homework: Make a video demonstration of your prototype and create portfolio entry.
DEC 4
Presentation and demonstration of display prototypes for final evaluation.
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