MASTER’S THESIS
2009:084
Universitetstryckeriet, Luleå
Fredrik Åsberg
Awareness and Presence Amplification in Virtual Socializing
MASTER OF SCIENCE IN TECHNOLOGY Working Environment
Luleå University of Technology Department of Human Work Sciences Division of Industrial Product Design
2009:084 • ISSN: 1402 - 1552 • ISRN: LTU - DUPP--09/084 - - SE
Master’sThesis
AwarenessandPresenceamplificationin
VirtualSocializing
FredrikÅsberg
LuleåUniversityofTechnology
DegreeofMasterofScienceinIndustrialDesign
DepartmentofHumanWorkSciences
DivisionofProductDesign
Master’s Thesis
Awareness and Presence amplification in Virtual Socializing
Fredrik Åsberg
Luleå University of Technology
Degree of Master of Science in Industrial Design Department of Human Work Sciences
Division of Product Design
PREFACE
First of all I would like to say that it has been a privilege to do this Master Thesis, especially concerning the working environment. The office sited at the Division of Functional Product Development has been a great place to come to everyday throughout this project. Even though I have been doing most of the work by my self, the awareness and presence of the others have provided motivation, willingness and an understanding of how a working environment should be like.
Invaluable information and insights have been provided by the supervisor Andreas Larsson, whom I would like to thank and I hope that the outcome of this project will be of use.
Luleå May 2009
Fredrik Åsberg
ABSTRACT
The opportunity to do a Master Thesis (30 points) in Virtual Socializing was given as an initiative from the department of the Division of Functional Product Development, Luleå University of Technology, Sweden.
The theory, methodology and result of a project focused on a social connectedness experience is presented in this report.
The objective was to develop a system that enhance the awareness and presence of others, implemented in a system that can establish a qualitative video‐communication allowing eye‐
contact.
The project started with a literature study acting as guidance data throughout the whole project. Defining the problem and implementation of the gained knowledge was stated in a task clarification and translated into a mission statement.
Requirements lists and evaluations of desired properties made it possible to generate
concepts using scenario‐based brainstorming. Reevaluations and improvements of the
concepts resulted in concepts that focused on the experience and is described using a
scenario. The concepts are a system that identifies a person and the availability for
communication, showed in an interface integrated in the communication device.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Introduction ... 1
1.1
P
ROJECT BACKGROUND... 1
1.2
T
ARGETS AND OBJECTIVES... 1
1.2.1 Identify target market ... 1
1.2.2 Objectives ... 1
1.3
P
ROJECT PLAN... 2
1.4
D
ELIMITATIONS... 2
2. Theory ... 3
2.1
W
HYI2I? ... 3
2.2
S
OCIALC
ONNECTEDNESS... 3
2.2.1 Presence ... 3
2.2.2 Awareness ... 4
2.2.3 The role of peripheral awareness ... 4
2.2.4 Tradeoffs with interruption ... 5
2.2.5 Tradeoffs with privacy ... 5
2.2.6 Awareness Spaces ... 5
2.3
I
DENTIFICATION... 6
2.3.1 Voice recognition ... 6
2.3.2 Magnetic stripe card ... 6
2.3.3 RFID tag ... 7
2.3.5 Bluetooth ... 7
2.3.6 Signing-Fingerprint ... 7
2.4
A
VAILABILITY... 8
2.4.1 Proxemics ... 8
2.5
A
CTIVATE COMMUNICATION... 9
2.5.1 Pressure sensitive floor ... 9
2.5.2 RFID tracker ... 10
2.5.3 Heat sensor ... 10
3. Present Situation ... 11
3.1.1
I2I‐
SOLUTION... 11
4. Future Situation ... 12
4.1
H
OW ARE THE DEVICES EVOLVING? ... 13
4.2
T
HE USE OF AWARENESS SYSTEMS... 13
5. Methodology ... 14
5.1
P
LANNING... 14
5.2
G
ATHERING OF DATA... 14
5.2.1 Study of literature/other forums ... 14
5.2.2 Benchmarking of competitive products ... 14
5.3
T
ASKC
LARIFICATION... 14
5.4
I
DENTIFY OPPORTUNITIES... 15
5.5
M
ISSION STATEMENT... 15
5.6
S
PECIFICATIONS–
R
EQUIREMENTS LIST... 15
5.7
C
ONCEPT GENERATION... 16
5.7.1 Scenario-based brainstorming ... 16
5.8
V
ISUALIZATION... 16
5.8.1 Sketches ... 16
5.8.2 Adobe Photoshop ... 16
6. Realisation ... 17
6.1
G
ATHERING OF DATA... 17
6.1.1 Study of literature/other forums ... 17
6.1.2 Benchmarking of competitive products ... 17
6.2
T
ASKC
LARIFICATION... 18
6.3
I
DENTIFYO
PPORTUNITIES... 21
6.4
M
ISSION STATEMENT... 23
6.5
R
EQUIREMENTS‐
I
DENTITY RECOGNITION... 24
6.6 Identity recognition ... 26
6.6.1 Evaluation - Identity recognition ... 27
6.6.2 Interaction with voice recognition ... 28
6.7
R
EQUIREMENTS‐
I
DENTIFYP
RESENCE... 29
6.7.1 Identify presence ... 29
6.7.2 Evaluation - Identify presence ... 30
6.7.3 Concept generation – Pressure sensitive zones ... 31
6.7.4 Evaluation - Zones ... 34
6.8
Z
ONES INTERFACE ON THE SCREEN... 34
7. Result ... 36
8. Discussion ... 39
8.1
R
ECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE WORK... 40
10. References ... 41
Appendices ... 43
1. INTRODUCTION
The report that you are reading right now is the results of the Master Thesis “Virtual Socializing” developed and finished at The Division of Functional Product Development, Luleå University of Technology, Sweden, by Fredrik Åsberg. It is the final course in the Degree of Master (one year) Industrial Design Engineering at Luleå University of Technology, Sweden.
1.1 P ROJECT BACKGROUND
The initiator of this project is first and foremost Assistant Professor Andreas Larsson, accompanied by Assistant Professor Peter Törlind, Professor Tobias Larsson, Assistant Professor Åsa Ericsson (all at Luleå University of Technology, Sweden), Professor Hisato Kobayashi and Professor Kazuo Yana (both at Hosei University, Japan). The project started a few years ago as a side‐project and a new interest in continuing the work gave the
opportunity for a student to continue to develop and expand the project.
The project was initiated by a few primary needs induced in certain situations. These
situations are in a social context and occur in different varieties of conversations. The needs that the project was mainly focusing on was:
• Promoting interpersonal and social contact
• Achieving social connectedness across distance
• Keeping the spontaneity and the ability to have varying degrees of formality.
1.2 T ARGETS AND OBJECTIVES
1.2.1 Identify target market
The target market for promoting interpersonal and social contact as well as achieving social connectedness over distance is wide, but the target market using an eye‐to‐eye‐solution (I2I‐
solution) is a significant more narrow market segment. The number of sites having access to an I2I‐solution is difficult to count, and the reasons for this are many. The device is expensive and space requiring, it is rarely used for personal applications and it is primarily installed for large projects using video‐communication to operate. Even though it can be identified as a
“luxury” product, the main reason for companies or other installations to use the system is to save money and reduce the environmental impact, due to traveling necessary without the product.
1.2.2 Objectives
The project considered these areas:
• Development and concept generation of an awareness and presence system, implemented in a system that can establish a video‐communication allowing eye contact.
• Writing a report and performing an oral presentation when the project is finished
1.3 P ROJECT PLAN
A Gantt chart was created to break down the project into smaller tasks. The plan is a tool that should be updated during the progression of the work. The purpose of the Gantt is to be a guideline for the work performed until deadline.
Activity Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun
w.4 w.1 w.2 w.3 w.4 w.1 w.2 w.3 w.4 w.1 w.2 w.3 w.4 w.1 w.2 w.3 w.4 w.1 w.2 w.3 w.4
Problem Clarification Product Planning Gather Data Identify Customer Needs Organize Needs to Hierarchy Product Specification Concept Generation Benchmarking (thorough) Concept Selection Concept Testing Presentation Report Writing Loggbook (.5h/workingday)
Working hours: 40h 40h 40h 40h 40h 40h 40h 40h 40h 40h 40h 40h 40h 40h 40h 40h 40h 40h 40h 40h 40h 800h
Figure 1 Gantt chart used as a guideline throughout the project
1.4 D ELIMITATIONS
The limitations of the Master Thesis were very few during the initial stage, and the specific areas concerning the virtual socializing that should be considered were not defined. The project itself could be divided into several different Master Theses, and to maintain a realistic focus, all problems that were discovered could not be covered within this project.
Some of these problems will be discussed within chapter 8 (Discussion).
During the process of the project, limitations was set up and adjusted. The first limitation that was crucial for further work was that the project assumed that the communication device (I2I‐solution), including eye contact, natural size of participants on the screen, realistic sound etc, was existent. Therefore, nothing concerning the actual communication quality was taken into consideration. With an existent communication device “available,”
opportunities to enhance the experience were examined.
The software that will enable people to register a personal voice‐signature using a
software was not be created either, the focus was on creating a base for how further
development should be executed.
2. THEORY
2.1 W HY I2I?
The need of a device that creates an experience as similar to a face‐to‐face (F2F) encounter as possible has arisen with the rapid increase of globally dispersed, cross‐functional teams in industry. A cross‐functional team is a group of people with different areas of expertise that all work toward the same goals. The necessity of cross‐functional teams is a product of the constant time pressure and cost effectiveness present within the competitive industries today. (Larsson, 2008)
The globalization and collaboration between people from different places around the world makes cross‐functional teams synonym to global teams (there are of course exceptions). The different areas of expertise are spread worldwide. This means that the cheapest and less time‐consuming way for different companies to expand probably is not to grow locally.
Global teams have many obstacles to overcome due to the dispersed locations. Some of these include differences in time zones, culture, language, etc. In order to collaborate in a team it is important to have a dynamic network that erases the obstacles so that the teams can concentrate on their work. To manage and deal with some of these obstacles the establishment of global virtual teams has become an efficient tool. Virtual teams make it possible for geographically dispersed organizations to collaborate without needing to travel, something that would be necessary if there was not a place to meet virtually. (Phillip &
Johanna, 2008)
The implementation of virtual teams creates a scenario where people work with more people than ever before, making it important to create a relationship amongst the team members. The next chapter gives this important aspect of socialization within global virtual teams.
2.2 S OCIAL C ONNECTEDNESS
The importance of social contact and its positive effects for humans have been known for a long time. It is the social behavior that distinguishes humans from other animals and it is one of the reasons that the human is so successful. Socializing in teams is important to gain trust and to get to know who is good at what. Areas of social connectedness that are important when investigating virtual teams are; presence, awareness, and availability, all of which are discussed separately in the following chapters.
2.2.1 Presence
The feeling that someone is present or not is of essence to create a good team environment.
On a worksite where the team members are in the proximity, presence of team members
can be easy to identify by different irregularities and signs. For example glimpses of people
running by, sounds of people opening/closing doors, sound from tapping the keyboard. Even
irregularities from people’s actions such as an open door, or hanging the jacket on the
hanger etc. All these different hints and signs are things that the interpreter does not spend
much time interpreting, and these signs are often recognized unconsciously. Presence can transmit the feeling that a person is present, although you might not actually see them face‐
to‐face. (Pedersen, 1998)
2.2.2 Awareness
The importance of social awareness and interactions between team members are one of the keys for social connectedness. Social awareness can be seen as an ongoing communication, where people have enough information about others that creates an advantageous
relationship. (Moody, 2000) Awareness of others is also a tool to learn about what others are doing and act activity or draw conclusions using that knowledge. Awareness addresses the importance of knowing who is around and what is happening as well as knowing what kind of information that can be perceived. Too much awareness can have a negative effect on people due to privacy issues as well as interruption during ongoing tasks. (Schmidt, 2002)
In order to understand how awareness affects people, it is fundamental to know what kind of situations make users change their course of action. In this case, there are difficulties in knowing what kind of message that is sent and how the interpretations are done. There are a few things that should be taken into consideration when managing an awareness situation, here are some examples: (ibid.)
• Experienced users may interpret an awareness message very different compared to a beginner that uses the system for the first time.
• Which indicators or typifications do actors primarily rely on?
• What do they monitor for and what do they ignore?
• Which events make a difference and which does not?
• How does the actor determine what is relevant to his or her own effort?
• How does the actor sort out and pick up what is relevant?
• How does the actor determine what is relevant for others?
• How does an actor know when and how to attune the obtrusiveness (noticeable) of his or her monitoring or displaying?
All these questions have multiple answers and differ from situation to situation. Creating a system that have the knowledge of what kind of information that can be sent is important to appeal to as many people as possible. Another problem is that workers have difficulties in setting up meetings and coordinate them. The awareness plays a big role in this and it is the availability of others that is important for a good teamwork.
2.2.3 The role of peripheral awareness
Although peripheral awareness is invisible, it might be the most important aspect in terms of awareness of other people’s whereabouts and activities. The peripheral awareness will let the participants be aware of each other and get hints of what they are doing and where they are. The peripheral awareness allows focus on the persons tasks while still make it possible to shift the attention for communication. (Sawhney, 2000)
The importance of periphery attention when using different technologies is also discussed in
the area of designing calm technology. A technology that is calming is one letting the user
much information available in the periphery without information overload. The use of peripheral awareness will make it possible to gain information about what is happening around us, what is going to happen and also what has just happened. The dangling string from the “inventors” of calm technology is a simple way of describing the activity on the computers network traffic, using a simple motor and string that will spin differently depending of the activity on the network. (Weiser & Brown, 1995)
2.2.4 Tradeoffs with interruption
To keep team members updated and informed about others status, the activities must be continuously updated. Due to different kind of irrelevant conversations, uncontrolled or not intended acts such as sneezing or coughing, unnecessary interruptions would be caused. It is one of the main problems with an open way of communication, and makes it a tradeoff between awareness and activity control. (Scott & Smith, 1996)
2.2.5 Tradeoffs with privacy
The more information that is sent by a person, the more awareness appears. A problem with sending too much information is that it interferes with the person’s privacy. Four known issues related to privacy are: (Sawhney, 2000)
• Having control over who can see or hear a participant at any time.
• To have prior knowledge when in fact they are observed.
• Knowing the intention of the connection.
• Avoid intrusions that disturb their work.
There is a tradeoff between awareness and privacy concerns that are unavoidable, when having a system that interprets what others do and want to do.
2.2.6 Awareness Spaces
The awareness spaces can be described as a system that allows people to manually set their availability, to write messages, to be aware of the status of other participants. This system is often called Instant Messaging. The primary goal for an awareness space is to make the activities apparent to the users. The different kind of activities could for an example be;
physical inference from audio/visual activity, computer‐directed activity (tapping keyboard, moving mouse etc.), file access, website access, and so on. To accomplish a working
awareness space there are some characteristics that should be involved: (ibid.)
• An easy way to show the information about the present situation and what kind of activities that are happening.
• Meaningful representation of the awareness, which does not impose great effort from the user to interpret.
• Trust and control over what kind of activities that are available for the users.
• Recognize patterns of activity, so that the users can easily see what kind of activities that has been going on and see deviations from normal behavior.
• By providing more personal information to a shared portal, the system will generate
a more relevant set of information as well as give the users more awareness.
• The users should be able to provide the system with annotations and posts, which will engage the users more and make them more eager to use the system.
2.3 I DENTIFICATION
The digital world that we live in today requires different kind of applications to ensure the security of our identity. The different areas of use is many in numbers, one way is to simply get access to different areas, another is to act as a protection against cyber criminals. There is also different ways to identify oneself, either by using something that the user have or knows, or by using the differences in the human body, i.e. complex identification tools such as; fingerprint, voice, eye, and facial recognition or recognition of hand geometry.
Identification is commonly seen as a task that is “annoying” to complete and that is why it is important that the identification have a low threshold to interact with. The more difficult it is for a person to identify oneself, the more seldom the system will be used. In order to lower the threshold and make the action effortless, different systems have been developed and continue to improve.
2.3.1 Voice recognition
Different voice recognition devices are used for different devices. The difference between a voice identification system and speech recognition system is that the voice identification system is not able to understand what is said but only identifies who the person is. Using microphones and software, the system is able to identify the differences in different voices.
Each individual talks differently and amongst people it is not so hard to recognize different individuals voices. The different sound from different voices is primarily determined by the size and shape of the tongue, the length, height and width of the speech organs and the shape of the lips and teeth. All these characteristics make a voice recognition system able to identify different users. (Kriegstein et al., 2006)
For a system to be able to convert speech to a command on the computer, there are many different complex steps. It is the vibrations in the air (analog waves) that an analog‐to‐digital converter (ADC) translates into digital data. The ADC does this by taking precise
measurements of the wave at frequent intervals, and then removes unwanted noise as well as adjusts it to constant volume. Further, the signal can be separated into different bands of frequency. After the separation, the signal is divided into consonant sounds by recognizing the difference in airflow from pronouncing a consonant from a vocal. The complex and most difficult task for the computer to accomplish is to examine the phonemes (a representation of the sounds that makes a meaningful expression) and compare it to words in the built‐in dictionary. (Engineered station, 2001)
2.3.2 Magnetic stripe card
Magnetic stripe cards are commonly used in identity cards, credit cards and also for
transportation tickets. The magnetic stripe is made up of tiny iron‐based magnetic particles, and each particle can be magnetized in either a north or south pole direction. Identity cards, also called security passcards are used to gain access into buildings or any area with
restricted access. The security cards stripe is often divided into different “tracks” which can
An example of the data that can be stored in a security passcard:
• Name
• Social security number or other unique number
• Where the user is allowed to go
In order to get information out of the magnetic stripe, a card reader is used. The card reader can detect the changes in the magnetic field caused by the flux reversals in the magnetic stripe.
2.3.3 RFID tag
RFID stands for Radio‐Frequency Identification, and is used for identification and tracking using radio waves. Common used RFID tags consist of at least two parts. One part is for storing and processing information, and the other is an antenna for receiving and
transmitting signal. (Xiao et al, 2007) The RFID tags are used in the same way as magnetic stripe cards, with the difference that you do not have to swipe the card, just place it in the range of the RFID‐reader. The ranges varies from one reader to another, but the most common RFID‐readers range are approximately 20 centimeters
2.3.5 Bluetooth
Bluetooth is a wireless technology intended to replace cables used for different field of applications. Bluetooth devices consist of a Radio Frequency‐ transceiver, a baseband and a protocol stack. These different parts enable different connections of devices and have a wide application field. One field of application that is of interest concerning this project is that the Bluetooth technology can be used to determine the distance between the reader and the Bluetooth “device.” The range of Bluetooth, are up to 10 meters.
2.3.6 Signing‐Fingerprint
This device requires a pressure sensitive tablet or a fingerprint reader. Using a personal
signature to identify your self is the signing part of the device, and using all the information a
fingerprint have is the other way to let the system know who it is.
2.4 A VAILABILITY
2.4.1 Proxemics
The distance and location between peoples are critical to send the right message between them. The cultural differences play a role in this, in some cultures the comfort zone is greater than in others. The distances can be divided zones as Figure 2 shows.
Figure 2 The distance between two persons sends different messages, here is an illustration of the different
zones (s.n., n.d.).
The intimate space can be described as for embracing, touching or whispering. Personal space is for interactions among good friends. Social space is for interactions among acquaintances. Taking these distances into consideration different set‐ups will generate different feelings for the participants using a video‐communication system. Another
interpretation of proxemics has been examined during the development of the Hello.Wall as Figure 3 shows:
Figure 3 A different way of interpreting the Proxemics meaning of distance which describes the use of the
As can be seen below, space (a) (peripheral awareness) is a zone where the user is not interacting with the device but knows about it and can at any time change the attention and interact with the system. The focal awareness threshold will be broken if a user shift the attention for the system and start using it. When the user is willing to use the system as a communication device, the participation threshold is broken and the user enters the direct interaction space. (Brignull & Rogers, 2003)
Figure 4 A visualization of how distance and awareness are related (Brignull & Rogers, 2003).
2.5 A CTIVATE COMMUNICATION
To link the social connectedness, identification and availability together, an activation step is necessary. The activation of the conversation is an important issue, due to the difficulties in setting up a conversation today using an I2I‐solution. The activity chain for setting up a call using existent devices today includes many steps, making it difficult to launch a
conversation.
2.5.1 Pressure sensitive floor
One way to control people’s location in a room is by having a pressure sensitive floor. When the floor is impacted with a load, the system recognizes this as a person and the I2I‐screen lets the users know where the load is.
2.5.2 RFID tracker
RFID technology consists of a reader and a transponder with different properties concerning range and accuracy. To track distance with RFID, different readers with different ranges can be used. This is the technology used for the Hello.Wall, with two different readers, one long‐
range reader and one short‐range reader integrated in the viewport.
2.5.3 Heat sensor
Heat sensors, also called IR‐sensors measures infrared (IR) light radiating from objects in the view of the sensor. IR‐sensors detect motion from a human body by a change in
temperature from the source that the sensor usually is measuring from.
3. PRESENT SITUATION
3.1.1 I2I‐ SOLUTION
All appliances that are used for communication across distance create different kind of experiences for different kind of purposes. The quality of the communication is dependent of what is necessary and crucial to perform the task it is used for. During the project different appliances used for communication was compared in order to understand the appliance that this project was focusing on.
The system that is used as the communication‐device in this project is a so‐called I2I‐
solution. Devices that made it possible to establish eye contact was introduces in the mid 1990’s and the difference between this way of communicating and videoconferencing is described by a definition of telepresence (a system that is very similar to an I2I‐solution):
(Davis & Kelly, 2008)
”Telepresence solutions use video and audio conferencing components as well as other ”arts and sciences” to create a two‐way immersive communications experience that simulates an in‐person, interactive encounter.”
This means that an I2I‐solution system is an experience rather than a technology. I2I‐
solutions are supposed to evoke the feelings of being in the same room amongst the
participants. To create the desired environment, the sites are often constructed to be similar to each other. (ibid., 2008)
Figure 5 A meeting using Cisco Telepresence 3000 that is created to generate the feeling that the participants
are sitting in the same room even though they are on two different locations (Bannister, 2008).
The biggest difference between an I2I‐solution and other communication devices is that the participants are able to get eye contact. Eye contact is thought to have a large influence on social behavior and is a crucial element in order to make the experience more like a F2F interaction. Other attributes except the eye contact that is important to make an I2I‐solution as real as possible is tone of voice, inflection, volume eye movement, facial expressions, hand gestures and other body language. (Michael Gough, 2006)
Figure 6 One‐on‐one conversation using the Cisco Telepresence 500, which enables the participants to have eye contact and a F2F‐like conversation (Pigliucci, 2008).
Today, the I2I‐solutions are used as a “calling‐machine,” where one of the users makes a call to establish a connection. You are not able to see if there is anyone using the system, or nearby to answer. The placement of the device is also often in a separate room from where the users spend their time. Therefore spontaneous interactions are difficult to evoke, and the device is used as a meeting device, rather than a tool to promote relationships.
4. FUTURE SITUATION
The real benefit of videoconferencing devices is to decrease travel costs. This is not only a cost issue but also a way of making it much less costly for the environment, instead of traveling often at great distances the device will reduce the carbon emissions in many ways.
However the technology so far have not been that successful due to the quality of the video and the feelings of the communication. Today, however, the technologies have been
revolutionary in the sense that the quality and realism have become better at facilitating the feeling that the participants are actually physically collocated when using the products.
Although the products today are very expensive, the expenses of the traveling costs makes it worth it. The device will also help building relations, accelerate decision‐making and
enhance collaboration.
4.1 H OW ARE THE DEVICES EVOLVING ?
Weinman, 2007 states that the development of different kind of devices will evolve as follows:
Pointtopoint
There is now numerous ways how to connect people too each other, and there is not only two locations that can communicate, the multi‐point service gives the opportunity to connect several users, which will increase the flexibility of the usage scenarios.
Intranet – Extranet – Internet
To be able to communicate among different users with different equipments, the platform on where to broadcast have to be the same. If I have understand this the right way, the difficulties today is that you cant broadcast via Internet because it is an to open network?
Screen – or no screen?
It might be a very futuristic way of seeing the problem, but the progress in artificial vision have been able to create visual images without a screen with only a pair of glasses. The screen development industry have many different solutions for the screen we use today, and it is hard to ignore the possibilities.
Ways of calling the other side
Speech‐to‐text engines is a way of telling the device to call another verbally. Instead of dialing a number, this could be done by making the system aware of the presence of the person by recognition devices.
Wireless
Wireless connectivity will probably in the future be able to broadcast better and more complex videos.
Interactive displays
Touch‐screens and other devices that makes the user able to interact physically or emotionally with a device would enable many possibilities on how to interact with each other.
4.2 T HE USE OF AWARENESS SYSTEMS
In the future, awareness of others will play a bigger part in our lives to promote relations.
The development of Twitter is one way of many to always let people know what others are
doing and have shown to be very popular. If Twitter is so popular one can only imagine what
a device that allowed total awareness of others would and the option to actually meet them
at all time in a F2F‐like situation.
5. METHODOLOGY
This part of the report shows what tools and methods were used during the development of the concepts. The outcome of the methods will be described in chapter 6.
5.1 P LANNING
The time plan was created in order to get a general view of the different steps of the project, and the time required to perform the different tasks. It was created in a way that allowed changes to make the plan as flexible as possible. Experience from previous project made me aware of that projects are difficult to predict in the beginning, but it was also crucial to have a guide so that you get motivated into move on to the next step or maybe iterate the previous step in order to move on.
Peston G. Smith means that using a too detailed plan inhibit the actual use of it. Instead of using the word plan, anticipation is a good way of describing what is done to arrive at the destination of the finished project. Anticipation is a way to try to figure out what might happen and getting information about what changes that is most likely to be made. (Smith, 2007)
5.2 G ATHERING OF DATA
To get relevant information that is trustworthy, different methods were used to gather data.
Gathering data for this project meant a thorough investigation of literature and other forums of information.
5.2.1 Study of literature/other forums
Information gathering using different databases such as Scopus.com is a fast and accurate way of finding quantitative and qualitative information. Books that have been used in prior projects were also used as guidance. The information gathering was carried out throughout the whole project, and used as a tool or foundation for decision‐making.
5.2.2 Benchmarking of competitive products
To get an understanding of existing competitive products, a benchmarking was done.
Benchmarking can be performed in different ways, such as literature study, testing of the products, or for an example by visiting competitors. Benchmarking was also used to obtain ideas and to find weaknesses of existent products.
5.3 T ASK C LARIFICATION
A task clarification is used to clarify and acquire more details about the given task. The task
clarification should not be too detailed because it is made early in the process. If it is too
specific and detailed it will make the further development restricted and thoughts that might
is of importance will get lost. Nevertheless, it should have many parameters which will
broaden the view of the project and make sure that as many aspects as possible is taken into
consideration. (Pahl et al., 2007)
5.4 I DENTIFY OPPORTUNITIES
The purpose of identifying opportunities is to gather information from different point of views. Throughout the project different opportunities may appear and this initial
identification was hence updated.
5.5 M ISSION STATEMENT
The mission statement should include: (Ulrich & Eppinger, 2008)
• Product Description – Short explanation of the basic function of the product, without involving too much detail so that it is not formulated as a concept.
• Benefit proposition –What benefits of the product, compared to similar ones, will motivate the customer to buy the product.
• Key Business Goals – Time and cost goals.
• Primary Market – Which primary market should be taken into consideration during the development of the product?
• Secondary Market ‐ Which secondary markets should be taken into consideration during the development of the product?
• Assumptions and Constraints – Here it is important that the assumptions and constraints does not restrict too much for further work. All the assumptions and constraints that is necessary to manage the project and focus on certain areas should be written down.
• Stakeholders – Who are affected by the products outcome?
5.6 S PECIFICATIONS – R EQUIREMENTS LIST
Creating a requirements list included different steps such as: (Pahl et al. 2007)
• Define basic market demands.
• Define attractiveness demands of the market segment.
• Document customer‐specific technical performance requirements.
• Refine and extend the requirements using checklist and scenario planning.
• Determine demands and wishes.
The outcome when completing these steps is a requirements list used as a guide when designing the product. The requirements that have been first chosen and then evaluated during these different steps have to be identified either as a demand or a wish. A demand is a requirement that have to be met. A solution that does not fulfill the demands is
unacceptable. The wishes in the requirements list are requirements that should be taken into consideration and are the requirements that form the product. When using the
requirement list during the design stage, demands and wishes that were not thought of can
be formulated and previous requirements updated. (ibid.)
5.7 C ONCEPT GENERATION
The aim for idea generation was to innovate new concepts that are framed by the gained knowledge during the project. The specifications were a good help to check for important properties as well as making sure that the different solutions are fulfilling all demands. The idea generation have been focusing on finding as many ideas as possible, and then using the gained knowledge to decide what ideas that are realistic.
5.7.1 Scenario‐based brainstorming
Brainstorming is a method to come up with as many ideas as possible. It is important that the participants are non‐judgmental, and non‐criticizing. All ideas are welcome and built up with each other. It is a good thing to combine ideas with each other and try to find out different approaches for the problem to be solved.
The scenario is used when it is the only way to describe the functionality and the field of application is to solve a problem that is “unknown.”
5.8 V ISUALIZATION
Visualizations of concepts and different solutions are important both for evaluation and for communication with others. The visualization can be done in different ways and the ones used throughout this project are presented in the following chapters.
5.8.1 Sketches
Drawing sketches is a quick and easy way to visualize ideas and has been the most used visualization method. During brainstorming sessions, having as main purpose to generate as many ideas as possible, “quick and dirty” sketches on paper are made. In the sketches, the functionality of the solutions is preferred over aesthetics. Adding text to the sketches makes them more explanatory and easy to follow.
5.8.2 Adobe Photoshop
To get the best out of images, editing programs such as Adobe Photoshop are used. Adobe
Photoshop is a developed and published by Adobe Systems as a part of the Adobe Creative
Suite product family. The program is based on pixels and is capable of handling most of the
image formats available today. Photoshop have different fields of practice and it can be used
as a rendering program, to assign materials, texture, for lightning to create more realistic
images, something that is hard to create via freehand sketches.
6. REALISATION
6.1 G ATHERING OF DATA
The importance of gathering information for projects that are concerning important and complex issues cannot be stated to often. Especially for this project, where a big part of the project was to target important and relevant focus areas. The needs that was initially introduced in the project were important to understand the problem and understand what kind of information that was needed in order to focus on the right things.
6.1.1 Study of literature/other forums
Scopus.com was the primary source of information, where articles and different journals was found. The study of information progressed in a fuzzy front‐end process, where the
literature in a way decided what to read next, so that nothing important was overlooked.
The areas of information that was significant to understand before concentrating on the development of the concepts are:
• I2I‐solution – What is an I2I‐solution and what makes it so unique?
• Virtual teams – What is the difference between virtual teams and other teams, and what creates trust in virtual teams?
• Social behavior – What is significant in conversation situations and how does people act using devices for communication (awareness, presence, social translucence, privacy, etc.)?
6.1.2 Benchmarking of competitive products
A quantity of the literature that competitors give out are not accurate and trustworthy.
Hence, neutral opinions that have been used during the project from researchers’ articles provide a better way to find out information about the competition (Ulrich & Eppinger, 2008).
The most similar in the experience that will be generated throughout the project is the
Hello.Wall which is a display intended to send information about peoples presence by
different light patterns. This enables the users to obtain awareness of one and another if
someone is close to the device. To recognize activity the Hello.Wall have different motion
detectors which can recognize the distance between a person and the wall. The light
patterns are changing, depending on how far from the wall the user is, and the remote part
is supposed to see what the intentions of the sender is. (Prante et al, 2003)
Figure 8 The Hello.Wall, illustrated with the different zones that is hidden and depending on where the user
stands, different light patterns will show up on the remote parts screen (ibid.).
Figure 7 A picture of people standing in front of the Hello.Wall (Franhofer‐Gesellshaft, 2004).
6.2 T ASK C LARIFICATION
Brief description of the product:
Due to the width of this project and the amount of improvements that can be done to
enhance the experience with communication, the product is very complex, and all things was
not taken care of in this project. The focus was on the awareness of others and how to
encourage spontaneous interactions as well as increase the willingness to communicate.
1. What is the problem really about?
• To let people know that you are present, what your intentions are and how it can easily be displayed.
2. What are the wishes and desires of the product?
• The desire of the product will be to wow the user by the simplicity and user‐friendly interface. The wishes are that it will evoke feelings of wanting to communicate and promote social connectedness.
3. Which tasks should the product perform?
• It should inform the participants who is using the device.
• It should make it easy to interpret the information showed for the users.
• Enable the user to see information about the other users.
• Give the user a chance of feeling like the other person is standing in front of him.
• Increase the accessibility and make it easy to give the remote part an understanding in the intentions of the user.
• Make the communication more fun.
• Evoke feelings of wellbeing.
4. What paths are open for development?
• The project will from the beginning be free to explore what kind of problems that has to be dealt with. It is not constrained by any means of physical shape or design.
5. What kind of properties is necessary for the product to posses?
• It has to be easy to use and easy to understand.
• The product must be suitable for different kind of connections.
• The product must recognize the users identity.
• The product must have a time and presence measure system.
• Have to be able to fit in the environments used.
6. What kind of properties is not necessary for the product to posses?
• It does not have to solve all problems about mobility, and always have to know the users status and activities.
• The product does not need to have all kind of different communication devices accessible.
7. Are there any requirements for changeability of the performance or design aspects?
• The changeability of being able to update the system easy in order to keep track on new communication services.
8. Technology trends?
• The properties of telepresence device is continuously improved such as; lightning, acoustics, video quality, making the picture of the persons as natural in size as possible, better environments, hidden technology, increasing bandwidth and resolution, easy of use, numbers of participants, and being able to share data
(documents, papers, videos, etc.) So hence, the part of the communication using the awareness system will have to be integrated in the system. Technology trends with the awareness system is that it should be easy interaction and there are many different ways of accomplishing that vie for an example, multi‐touch screens,
wireless controls, High definition displays, intelligent systems that recognize different human activity etcetera.
9. Where is the product used?
• Either at offices, for education, or for private use. Hence nowadays, similar devices are often placed in rather closed places.
10. Who are the users of the product?
• Sites that have access to an I2I‐solution, often on firms in need of global communication.
11. How will the product be more relevant for people outside the target market?
• By making the product usable for not only I2I‐solutions it could be used for different kind of systems which would enlarge the target market a lot.
12. Are there any experiences and problems with previous solutions?
• Looking at the Hello.Wall the problems lies in the information outflow, it is to little information about who is present and what the intentions of the user are.
13. Are there any other future technological solutions?
• Not at this moment.
14. What are the different skills that are needed for the different properties of the product to be developed?
• The technical performance of the product is concerning different skills in electronics.
• The design of the product includes skills of: Analyzing problem, Clarify problem, Needfinding, Sketching, Prototyping, CAD, Evaluation methods, Concept testing.
15. Which skills are used from whom?
• The technical performance of the product will the student not spend too much time
on. The student will handle the other parts.
6.3 I DENTIFY O PPORTUNITIES
When information was gathered and the task clarification was written, a search for what opportunities the product has was investigated.
Document frustrations and complaints that current customers experience with existing products (Ulrich & Eppinger, 2008):
The frustrations from the compared device as the existing products comes from a scenario created using the Hello.Wall.
Scenario:
Kim at the University of Hosei has just arrived to work. Working in a project together with a team from LTU, Kim is in a need of knowing if there is someone at LTU that can help him to evaluate a concept for the project. In the project both LTU and the University of Hosei have a Hello.Wall running.
Figure 8 Kim holding the concept that he wants to evaluate.
In order to see if there is someone at LTU that could be helpful for the evaluating, Kim decides to go to the Hello.Wall. Approaching the Hello.Wall he notices by the light patterns that there is actually someone at LTU. Happy about it, he goes to the I2Isolution to talk to someone. When he approaches the screen he notices that it is no one he would like to talk to. Kim becomes frustrated and tries to go back to the Hello.Wall and figure out what went wrong.
Figure 9 Kim’s frustration when he founds out that the wrong person is at the remote site.
The answer of what went wrong in this case is that using the Hello.Wall only allows you to see that there is some kind of activity on the “other side” and not who it is, or what he is doing. This is one of the main issues for this project, recognize the identity of the user and also be able to inform how available the user is.
Other frustration with using the Hello.Wall is that there could be very hard for the user to actually know where to stand to get different response from the wall, the zones, that each represent a different action are hidden, which makes it hard to translate for the user.
Interview lead users, with attention devoted to innovations by these users and modifications these users may have made to existing products (ibid.).
This would really be helpful, but due to the lack of products to test lead users are hard to find and will not be taken into consideration in this project.
Trends of lifestyle, demographics, and technology for existing product categories and for opportunities for new product categories (ibid.).
The trends of lifestyle today is that the development of these kind of products is aiming on an easy to use interface with different technologies for different purposes. Therefore was hard to investigate the technologies that are constantly evolving and getting higher standards.
Track the status of emerging technologies to facilitate transfer of the appropriate technologies from basic research and technology
development into product development (ibid.).
The different kind of technologies that are used to fulfill the properties needed for the product was examined and studied throughout the project.
6.4 M ISSION STATEMENT
Table 1 Mission statement for this project (ibid.).
Mission statement
Product Description A product that will be able to show the users presence and awareness which will make it easier for spontaneous communication.
Benefit proposition Enhance willingness to communicate
Enhance the awareness of others, which will act as a base for community access and building
Connected to an I2I‐solution, will make it easier for spontaneous communication and exchanging of ideas Make the experience of video‐communication close to a F2F‐interaction
Create a space that will evoke feelings of wellbeing Key Business Goals Finished concept in the end of May
Cost: Materials for prototyping
Primary Market Sites that have access to an I2I‐solution, often on firms in need of remote communication
Secondary Market Sites that have access to other communication devices Assumptions and
Constraints The system is connected to a computer and the software for the device is not considered in this project other than the interface design
The I2I‐solution is making a communication easily established and works well
The product is placed in the vicinity of the I2I‐solution and is therefore not mobile
A complete awareness of others is not possible, due to privacy issues and complexity of establishing it in an advantageous way
Stakeholders The Division of Functional product development
The Department of Human Work Science
6.5 R EQUIREMENTS ‐ I DENTITY RECOGNITION
The first requirements list is for the need of identifying a person. It is an important need that makes the system and everybody using it aware of whom is available.
Table 2 A requirements list over the wishes and demands of identity recognition.