Date: Thursday October 30, 2008
Location: Thesis studio classroom
Time: 6:00-7:00 pm
Partner: Alpay
Attendees Prototype 1:
1. Name: Catherine Lewis (2nd year DT)
Prototype 1: Video confessionals
Role review experiential prototype and provide feedback
2. Name: Tarynne Goldenberg (2nd year DT)
Prototype 1: Video confessionals
Role review experiential prototype and provide feedback
3. Name: Julia Valera
Prototype 1: Video confessionals
Role review experiential prototype and provide feedback
Prototype 1
Catherine and Tarynne
Julia
To view the video documentation please go to this link:
http://www.vimeo.com/user893152/videos
Attendees Prototype 2:
1. Name: Julia Valera
Prototype 2: Media Collage
Role review experiential prototype and provide feedback
2. Name: Subalekha Udayasankar
Prototype 2: Media Collage
Role review experiential prototype and provide feedback
Prototype 2
Prototype 2_Julia
Prototype2_Suba
Please watch the video:
http://www.vimeo.com/2127827
Experiment:
The experiment will consist of two videos. I will be showing my previous video prototype with another video as a continuation of new documentation. I feel that it is important to show both because I am creating another layer to the original one. I want to find from my users what is and is not working. Since I am working with multimedia it is time for me to incorporate the other forms of media that I am working with other than video.
I will be demonstrating this with QuickTime movies through projection. I feel that this is the best way to demonstrate my work for the time being as it will eventually take on a new form. The video will consist on my documentation and point of view of emotional eating. I will show this through video, pictures and text.
Alpay will be documenting this experience through the form of video and photo documentation. Once this experiment is conducted I will take the documentation and combine them together to make a movie. Once that is set up I will post it on my blog.
User testing feedback:
Catherine and Tarynne Feedback Prototype One:
Overall, I received a lot of useful information from my peers. The first group, Catherine and Tarynne had a lot of valuable feedback. They viewed prototype one of the video confessions without me explaining anything beforehand. I wanted them to go through the experience without leading them in any way on how to view or what to look for in the prototype. Their overall feedback was they needed to feel more of an emotional connection with the people in the videos. This was exactly what I needed to know in order to move forward with this concept.
Catherine expressed she had a disconnection with the video at first. It was unclear to her if the text displayed was the dialog of the people in the video. She appreciated the “cocktail party chatter” 1 that was going on in the background, however she wanted to hear each person when they said their comments. She wanted to know what they were saying actually came from them and was not reading false text. Catherine had a great suggestion to have the constant chatter lowered and raise the volume when the comments are shared.
Tarynne agreed with Catherine that there was some disconnection during the video. She wanted to hear the words of each person, as it would have impacted her more. They were both distracted by the choice of font and would have rather seen something less upbeat. One element that impressed Tarynne was the fact there was a mixture of men and women expressing themselves. She also expressed that this has a lot of potential for growth and could become very effective.
I asked them both if they thought people would be able to relate to this. They both said “absolutely” 1 and 2. I found it very interesting how Catherine openly came out and said that she suffers from emotional eating and was able to relate. They agreed this could eventually become a community for people to join and gain resources. They both believed that it would make sense to present this data and form of interaction live on the web or via video.
I was very happy with their feedback and gained a lot from hearing what they had to say. Moving forward I will use a lot of their suggestions because I agreed with most of what they had to say. Even though they are DT students in some cases they actually ended up being my target audience.
Julia feedback Prototype One:
Again, I was very pleased with the feedback I received from Julia and believe that I ended up picking strong users who had valuable feedback to offer me. Julia stated that it made her realize how many people have a commonality with issues relating to food. She expressed it had a big impact for her to see all of the videos playing at the same time. It was interesting for her to see all the different types of people who suffer and how some of them at first didn’t appear to have food issues.
Her feedback on the functionally of the video at first, was how hard it was to hear and focus on what the voices said. She was too caught up in the overall chatter, which made it difficult for her to make a connection with what voice went to what face. The text made it clearer and she was able to “bounce” 3 around the screen in order to understand what was happening. She mentioned she could see a community form around this and used YouTube as an example. I found it very interesting she was able to make that connection, but also she was able to realize there is no connection with YouTube that can easily support these people. Seeing it all in one place was a huge impact for her as she was able to understand the topic and have a meaningful connection with the subject material.
Julia feedback Prototype Two:
Prototype two was not as clear as Julia would have liked it to be. She was focused on the text in the middle and was trying to make a connection between the dialog and the text. She was expecting to see the words she was hearing match the text she was reading. Once she realized they didn’t connect she understood what was being communicated afterwards. Julia responded well with the different visuals being displayed and felt they were effective. She explained the videos at the top were too small and would have liked to see them scaled up in the middle. The more memorable visuals were the videos of the talk shows because she could identify with them.
I feel she had some helpful suggestions on how to make the piece stronger. One idea was to keep all of same elements, but have less playing at the same time. This would allow the viewer to focus more on understanding each area. Overall, Julia felt there was too much going on at the same time and was not able to make certain connections. This was excellent feedback for me because now I can revisit this design and make it more cohesive.
Subalekha feedback Prototype Two:
Subalekha’s user testing was very motivating for me and got me even more excited about my project. Her feedback was so interesting because in a way she started to create her own confessional of her past struggles with food. She was able to open up to it and change something in her life to overcome her problems. Subalekha came to this country fascinated by the fast food choices available to the public. She explained that McDonalds was exciting for her because it was something not offered at her hometown and the concept of giving a dollar and receiving your order within minutes was something very new to her. Like most Americans, she began to notice her food obsession began to show on her waistline. She also expressed other areas in her life that contributed to her poor eating patterns.
Aside from Subalekha’s personal story she offered to share with me she was able to present me with some feedback regarding the prototype. Her comments started off with the prototype being very clear at first with the voice describing their emotional eating problem. I know that she was able to make an emotional connection because she mentioned that she felt very bad for the person talking in the background. It was powerful for Suba to see the persons face in the end because she was able to identify with the person speaking. Once she expressed her emotions about the person telling the story she was reminded of what it was like for her to feel the same way. She made that connection and related it with her own experiences. In a way this was very rewarding for me because I was able see this first hand.
Subalekha had several comments about the video, including she felt there could have been one more element added that appeared to be missing. She wasn’t sure what it was but felt a disjoint between the overall piece. She suggested that one possible idea could be to change the order of the information to make it more interesting. I liked her idea of a surprise element to keep the viewer drawn to the piece. She expressed that she got the point and desired more variety to keep her attention.
Overall, the user testing was very beneficial for further development. A lot of my questions were answered and some new ones arose. I was impressed with the feedback I got and honestly felt my users were excited about my project. The feedback I received has motivated me to want to take this to the next level. The main questions that I have to answer next are:
