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Evaluating An Interactive User-Centered Mobile Application with 3D Features

Interactive DesignUser-Centered

Mobile Application

Wenzhuo DuanDIG6840C

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Human Computer InteractionInteractive, Computer Technology, Design Discipline

User-Centered DesignHuman Error

User ExperienceFeedback, Usability Test

Introduction

Human Computer Interaction

The term of “Human Computer

Interaction” concentrates on the

computer technology that

influences human work and activities.

The term of “Computer Technology” includes most technology from

obvious computers with screens and

keyboards to mobile phones and other automatic device.

Throughout the history of HCI design, it can be

divided into three types: Technology-Centered

Design, Human-Centered Design and User-Centered Design.

Technology--Centered Design

Traditionally, engineers develop the mechanisms that are needed to perform each function and required human adapt their environment. Because of unavoidable “human error”, resultant human-machine system is normally sub-optimized and ill-suited, or a more accurate term called “design-induced error” needed for that circumstance.

The Design of Everyday Things / Don’t Make me Think

Human--Centered Design

Later on, a concept of human-centered design comes out and improves the weakness of technology-centered design. It utilizes technology to fit capability of humans, which reduced design-induced error and increased user acceptance and satisfaction (Mica R. Endsley, 2011). Therefore, HCI is developing toward a more problem-driven, activity-centered and context-bound designing trend.

User--Centered Design

In 1980s, Donald Norman used the term of “User-Centered Design” to state that the role of the designer is to facilitate the task for the user and to make sure that the user is able to make use of the product as intended and with a minimum effort to learn how to use it. He also noted that the long cumbersome, unintelligible manuals that accompany products are not user-centered. His word stressed the need to fully explore the needs and desires of the users and the intended uses of the product. User-Centered Design is exact the design that attempts to represent all from users’ perspective, and we could interpret user-centered design as a general term for a philosophy and methods that focus on designing for and involving users in the design of computerized systems.

Advantage

The advantage of the user-centered design is that not only can help designers better manage user’s expectations about products, but also bring us a deeper understanding of the psychological, organizational and social factors emerged from the involvement of the users. When users have been involved in the design of a product, this leads to a sense of ownership for them that often result in higher customer satisfaction and smoother integration of the product into the environment. From the perspective of current information age, user-centered design also provides means for better harnessing information technologies to support human work.

User Experience& Feedback

Literally, a user-centered design is a process that always gives the priority to their users. There is no doubt that feedback is a fundamental concept in this mutual cybernetic process between users and products. As for the relationship between feedback and user experience, we could interpret that feedback helps to understand the experience and the user experience that results from interacting with products and to reveal the latent need and desires for potential users (Jane Fulton Suri, 2005). In return, users would be more involved in products whether physically or emotionally.

Evaluation of Usability for User-Centered Mobile Application

a number of models and theoretical approaches have been developed to help understand how to evaluate feedback related to user experience. These include contributions from design, business, philosophy, anthropology, cognitive science, social science, and other disciplines. Measurable usability criteria address issues related to the effectiveness, efficiency, safety, utility, learnability and memorability (how long it takes to remember to perform the most common tasks) of the product/artifact and users’ subjective satisfaction with it. On February 7th, International Data Corporation (IDC) announced that vendors had shipped over 100 million smartphones globally during the previous quarter. For the first time, smartphone sales had surpassed global PC sales, which came in at 92 million. Under that circumstance, multiple mobile applications have to seek for their exact market in order to face this lasting smokeless war and thus how well they take account of their users’ corresponding needs is the determinant to this success.

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Usability TestEffectiveness, Efficiency, Safety, Utility, Learnability, Memorability

UX GoalUser-Centered Design

MethodologyQuestionnaire

My Idol

When you take your selfie, this application would render a 3D avatar that allows you change outfits, animations, hairstyles, skins and accessories to customize your look.

Animation

A current progressing enthusiastic team for later

maintenance. In order to call on everyone who would like to share ideas and suggestions for their

application, they have established a community and they

discuss with their users everyday. positive awareness to a user-centered design/existing

community

A theme related to Chinese traditional culture. Users

could use their avatar to video best wishes animation for

celebration of Chinese New Year and share with families,

friends or strangers at the public platform. This cultural

attribute brings much more meaningful significance than other normal applications.

An obvious feature comes from its 3D graphics. Nowadays, 3D content is becoming more and more popular for creating an additional dimension for

information placement. This dimension could create

special effects and thus strengthen users experience. REASONS

Reason of My Choice

Hypotheses

1.Technological function is comparatively more attractive than the design of user interface (UI).

2. Based on a certain technological function and UI design, 3D graphics is comparatively more attractive than 2D graphics.

3. For designable elements, rendering is comparatively more attractive than DIY.

Results57 respondents5-point Likert Scale The average age of My Idol respondents was 22.96 years old. 43.86% respondents were male and 56.14% were female. When it concerned to the most important reason for choosing a mobile application, 40.25% respondents chose “the attraction of visualization” and 50.88% relied on “the attraction of functionality”. As for evaluating these two elements of My Idol, 64.91% respondents showed their positive evaluation to the visual elements and 78.95% to the functionality. 59.65% of respondents agreed that the biggest characteristic of My Idol was the function to render 3D body after selfie. 31.58% showed their strong agreements. Also, 52.63% respondents admitted that they liked this function and 17.54% stressed that the function was indispensable.

There are three comparative questions for participants. Evaluating the difference between My Idol and applications that making 3D avatars through DIY (eyes, nose, mouth), applications that making 2D avatars through selfie rendering, and applications that making 2D avatars through DIY (eyes, nose, mouth).

Wire Framing

Results

There are three comparative questions for participants. Evaluating the difference between My Idol and applications that making 3D avatars through DIY (eyes, nose, mouth), applications that making 2D avatars through selfie rendering, and applications that making 2D avatars through DIY (eyes, nose, mouth).

(-2: strongly disagree, -1:disagree, 0:neutral, +1:agree, +2:strongly agree)

1. Technological function is comparatively more attractive than the design of user interface (UI), even though three respondents stressed that the crucial part is the accordance of user interface and function and thus they could not evaluate them separately. Some mentioned that the color of My Idol was too much, and the excessive technology may incur their sense of unnecessary consumption of electricity, which is harmful for their user experience. So how to balance the relationship between the visualization and functionality is the key to a user-centered design. 2. Based on a certain technological function and UI design, 3D graphics is indeed comparatively more attractive than 2D graphics. It is natural that the limitation of the technologies may affect some user experience, but the data showed that users could be understandable for that situation.

3. For designable elements, rendering is comparatively more attractive than DIY. Respondents said that rendering brought them a sense of customization and novelty. They would never know what would happen after their selfie, and thus it offered them a sense of expectation, interestedness and immersion.

Analysis-Users

Analysis-TeamAs this paper mentioned before, one of the reason for the choice of

My Idol is because its current maintaining process of collecting multiple users’ suggestions. Through communication with the team of My Idol, they mentioned that they were willing to contact directly with their users, and it was their responsibility to hear their users’ voice by their own. A paper (Preece, et. Al, 1994; Preece, et. al, 2002) introduced a concept called Participatory Design approach and My Idol adopted the Community-centered one in it. A sharing community is indeed beneficial for collecting users’ information to fulfill a user-centered design. When users have been involved in the design of a product, they feel that their ideas and suggestions have been taken into account during the process. This leads to a sense of ownership for the final product that often results in higher customer satisfaction and smoother integration of the product into the environment.

DiscussionAdvertising, computer games, virtual reality, teleconferencing,

surgical facial planning and criminal discrimination and so on. Similarly, the application of 3D UIs is an interesting are for the deep research in the future. The next generation of 3D UIs can greatly benefit from user interface techniques that are adapted to how humans perceive and interact with the real world.Additionally, a fast self-portrait made with a smartphone’s camera and immediately rendered our customized 3D avatar also satisfied the age of selfie. Users are easily being attracted by an instant visual communication through technologies by sharing. Any function and design grasps this psychological trick could take advantage of it to build more emotional bridge between products and users. Emotion is at the heart of any human experience and an essential component of user-product interactions and user experience. It is crucial for us to know that how product interactions unfold and how emotion and experience is evoked. From a design standpoint, emotion serves as a resource for understanding and communicating about what we experience.

an approach that begins with the cylindrical projection of a generic model and its seamless global texture map using multi resolution technique, and then automatically fit the unwrapped cylindrical projected mesh to the texture map with an improved algorithm that based on 2D morphing to specify corresponding feature points (or lines).

Back to User-Centered Design

Admittedly, normal user-centered design can be quite costly. Good design comes from the successful synthesis of a solution that recognizes all the relevant constraints, and the nature of the constraints defines the difference between design disciplines, so members of the team have to learn to communicate effectively and to respect each other’s contributions and expertise. (Dix, et. al,1997; Preece, et. al, 1994; Preece, et. al, 2002). The ways in which users participate also can vary. However, involving users in design one way or another has been shown to lead to developing more usable satisfying designs. Learning how to interpret the relationship between users and products is magic. Establishing a more comprehensive understanding of user experience and user-centered design is also valuable. Whether from technological or emotional sides, we should keep in mind that only a user-centered design would continuously maintain its vitality.

END

I am interested in the field of user experience so I made this attempt. In practice, I realized that My Idol was not as popular as I thought and there are a few limitations of the statistic from my questionnaire. However, I hope this research project offers reader an access to the definition of user-centered design and user experience. I believe some principles also could be applied in other area as well.

Thank YOU !