Testing

We conducted several tests yesterday. The following structure of testers was used:

4 people out of which:
1) 2 "blinded", 2 seeing
2) 3 walking by stairs, 1 by elevator
3) 2 external, 2 ourselves

The testing process:

The system is designed for blind people to let them navigate inside a building where GPRS doesn't work and we propose a solution that uses a cane, a phone, and RFID technology.


The task:
You are coming to a reunion with your colleagues after 15 years. You haven't returned to the University ever since and you need guidance to get to the reunion hall. For this, you rely on the University's GuideMeTLU interactive system.
Your task is to go the Aula, room 342 on the 3rd floor of Mare building.

Staring point: outside the Mare building, in front of the entrance
Completion criteria: reach the Aula (room 342) on the 3rd floor
1) by elevator or
2) by stairs

You switch on the cane.
You can answer yes-no questions pressing buttons or by voice command. You can answer other questions by voice.
Keep in mind that we are not testing yourself but the device.


The findings:

• turning points should be more clearly marked with tags
• how many steps has the stairs to climb - this is not relevant as the personna knows how to climb stairs
• information about doors on the way: automatic vs manual opening,  threshold to know they passed by the door if this was already opened
• to put the tags outside room doors, not inside, and to place them perpendicular (90 degrees) on the floor to the wall
• to put more info along the way
• the fact that the elevator is difficult to use as it  needs info about buttons to press, etc
•  

LoFi & MeFi Prototypes

Here we present the low fidelity and medium fidelity prototypes for the product we design and develop.

The design of the product is presented in the pictures below. Here is a smart cane for visually impaired people, which consists of an RFID reader placed 5 cm from the bottom of the cane (so that it does not get broken when walking, but is still in contact with the RFID tags' coverage area), and a specially designed handle that has an ON-OFF button,  two buttons that answer the yes-no questions (the YES button is rectangular, while the NO button is round), a bluetooth communicator, batteries' state indicator, batteries, a USB port for charging and data communication (e.g. firmware installation), microcontroller.



The 3rd floor plan is presented in the next picture, together with the RFID tags' places highlighted on it:

The storyboard for the scenario we presented in an earlier post is in the next two pictures:

Finally, here is an overview of the system architecture and the sequence of actions performed :

User stories

USER STORIES

1. Tom wants to know which means of climbing to the 3rd floor is available (elevator or stairs) so that he takes the fastest and safest means to get there.

2.
2.1. Tom wants to know which button to press on the elevator button panel in order to get to the 3rd floor so that he doesn 't get to a wrong floor nor remain stuck.
2.2. Tom wants to know how many stairs to climb to get to the 3rd floor so that he doesn't miss the right floor.

3. Tom wants to find the path on the 3rd floor so that he takes the shortest path to the Aula.

Scenario

SCENARIO


BACKGROUND 

One Saturday evening, on the 23rd of June,  Tom receives a call from his friend Mary from the university telling him that in two weeks' time, on Saturday July 7th 2012, there will be a reunion at the University celebrating their 15 years from graduation.

Mary informs him of the place and hour , at Aula (3rd floor, room 324) at 19.00, and offers to join him and help him navigate to the ceremony hall inside the university. Mary knows that Tom suffered the accident that caused him the loss of sight.
Tom refuses politely and says that he prefers testing the university's navigation system for visually impaired people.

 ACTIONS

Tom arrives by taxi (cab) at the University.
Tom finds the main entrance doors, opens them and enters the building.

He wonders whether there is an elevator. In case there is an elevator, he wants to know where the elevator is located in order to take it. Once he finds it, Tom calls the elevator to the ground floor. Once the elevator is arrived, he enters it and he starts searching for the button panel in order to figure out which button is adequate for the 3rd floor.
If there is no elevator in the building, then Tom wants to know where is the staircase located. Once he finds it, he starts climbing. At each floor, he wants to know whether he has arrived on the right floor or if he has to continue climbing the stairs.

Once he is arrived on the 3rd floor, Tom wants to know where is room 324 (the Aula). He walks on the hall and finally gets to the Aula.
There, he meets with his colleagues that were gathered in front of the Aula and start talking.

Primary Persona

PERSONA Name:  Tom Smith

Description:

He is a 40 years old man, who lost his sight 10 years ago by an accident. Ever since he uses a stick to move around in town. He is an architect who uses his own experience as a premise for designing environments adapted for visually impaired people.
He is married and has 3 children. He graduated from Tallinn University in 1995 as an architect.

Features:

• Tom is visually impaired and cannot see anything,
• He is an active person and has a positive attitude towards life,
• Tom does not like to be pitied and prefers to act as independently as possible, moving alone,
• He can hear very well,
• He can move on his feet, without the need of a wheelchair,
• He is very friendly and sociable, likes the friends gatherings,
• He enjoys new technologies and likes being early-adopter.

 Goals:

• Tom wants a tool that helps him navigate and find his way in space, in a manner that doesn't put him in a position to depend on others'  help,
• He wants the guiding tool to be as discreet as possible, not to attract attention on him,  
• He would like to use a secure, user-friendly,reliable  technology, 
• He's very conscious about the design of the building in order to make it as blind-friendly as possible.

Introduction

This is our project for the New Media  Interaction Design course in the 2012 Tallinn Summer University.
We are: Kalliopi (Greece), Camelia (Romania) and Luis (Spain).
Our project is an interactive guide for the impaired people that need assistance in finding their ways inside a building.
It can be applied to people who have various problems that include but are not limited to: visual or other perception problems.

The technologies we think of using in our project include: RFID (phidgets kit), programming language (such as Java or Python), database , photoshop, 3d studiomax, illustrator or corel draw,  text to speech tool / web service.
We also need a stick for blind people.