IMA
Augmented Reality
Using augmented reality to organizes communication
between humans.
Overview
Project "IMA" is a graduate school concept AR wearable operated by an air tap digital interface aimed to solve the problem of communication inequality and inefficiency in meetings. In this team of four, I specialized in research assistance and UI design.
The Problem
During workplace meetings, dominating personalities can repeatedly interrupt others while they are speaking. The regular interruption has been found to strain relationships, disrupt and prolong meetings, and prevent the introduction of great ideas by others.
How might we prevent habitual interrupters in the workplace from restricting the voices of other team members in meetings?
UX Methods
Step 1: Form research questions.
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What types of workplace roles and personality traits are common amongst habitual interrupters?
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What motivates working professionals to interrupt, either intentionally or unintentionally?
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What methods, products, or practices are currently in use to prevent conversational interruptions during meetings in a corporate setting?
Step 2: Conducted formative research.
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Survey: 23 responses gathered
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User interviews: 5 target user interviewed
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Competitive Analysis: Studied 18 products against 5 categories
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Fly-on-the-wall observations: Observed workplace meetings
RESEARCH
The Personas
Feature Development
Our research revealed key motivators for an interruption during workplace meetings. By addressing these motivators, we aimed to reduce the need for professionals to interrupt others.
Key insight No. 1
Give the user real-time feedback when they have interrupted the current speaker.
Resulting feature
An AR message appears 'on screen' in the lower left corner to alert the speaker upon interruption.
Key insight No. 2
Provide meeting participants with an opportunity to speak at the appropriate time.
Resulting feature
Participants have a way to alert the speaker they have something to contribute without resorting to verbal interruption.
Key insight No. 3
Meeting facilitators need help to keep the meeting participants stay on topic.
Resulting feature
A visible menu of meeting topics with a timer. Ability to check off topics that have been covered.
Key insight No. 4
The system must be intuitive to use with a minimal learning curve.
Resulting feature
IMA uses conventional primary and secondary button schemes, and controls and uses an air gesture-activated interface.
Key insight No. 5
The system cannot interfere with existing technologies that users currently use during meetings.
Resulting feature
IMA interface is projected via lightweight, unobtrusive glasses that do not obstruct the vision or auditory senses.
Exploration
I created the following concept sketches that explored how the product might meet users' needs. After this exploration phase, it was determined that an AR solution was the best form factor to meet the user requirements.
Prototyping
The first attempt to recreate an augmented reality interface began with whiteboard sketches. Later the prototype evolved into a cardboard prototype form factor that was later used for usability testing using the Wizard of Oz protocol. Final screen renderings created by myself were created to communicate the idea to stakeholders.
Use Case 1: Someone is talking
Use Case 2: Changing topics
Use Case 3: Alerting speaker they are interrupting
Use Case 4: Alerting speaker time is running out
Usability Testing
Creating a usability test for our solution was a big challenge. The Wizard of Oz method was used to effectively simulate the AR design.
Task 1
Your first task is to set up the agenda for this 30-minute meeting. The agenda items are as follows:
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Introductions
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Discuss favorite past vacations
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Discuss dream vacations
Key finding
About half of the issues were with the meeting setup, for which we simulated voice recognition software to input the agenda.
Task 2
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Moderator speaks for extended periods of time prompting the participant to eventually interrupt the moderator.
Key finding
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While valued, the messaging to signal the speaker to not interrupt was too forceful and caught participants off guard.
Task 3
Your task: The meeting has started and time has run out on the meeting timer. How would you advance the meeting at this point?
Key finding
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Users found the time running out feature to be very useful without being too jarring or distracting.
Task 4
Your task: You are presenting a meeting topic and another member on the team is frequently interrupting you. What would you do?
Key finding
The user intuitively understood to send a message back to the interrupter using gesture control.
Summary
The testing revealed several unforeseen issues with our product.
About half of those issues were with the meeting setup, for which we simulated voice recognition software to input the agenda.
The remainder of the issues related to the product being more direct, forceful, and distracting than our users preferred.
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To remedy this, we incorporated more functionality in the setup sequence, and adjusted the tone of some of the notifications and alerts to be more subtle, realigning with two of our design principles: keeping it simple, and unobtrusive to the meeting environment.
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Challenges
It was necessary to script the tasks to test our use cases, but it was a lot of work for our test participants. They had to closely follow prompts that were delivered by the moderator, interact with the other meeting participants, and at the same time try to understand our prototype as a representation of augmented reality, even after showing a video of the concept in the real world, was difficult for some of our participants.
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