4
User Study: Field Trial
4.1 Study Goal
I conducted an in-field study to explore the roles and value of Quietto when it used in the real work- place. Through this experiment, I wanted to investigate the followings: (1) When calendar information is represented through an analog clock shaped tangible interface, how does user percept it compared to existing digital calendar? (2) how does the tangible interaction between the current time and daily schedules affect a user’s scheduling? (3) how does the visual and tactile feel of concrete touch interface affect the overall experience of Quietto?
4.2 Methodology
4.2.1 Participants
Ten people in their twenties (aged 22-26, 6 males and 4 females, P1-P10) are participated. All of participants were very familiar with the GUI-based presentation of Calendar information, who used Google Calendar to manage their schedule. They usually check daily schedule through their computer display or smartphone.
4.2.2 Method
Five identical Quiettos were built for the experiment over a period of 5 weeks. To extract the true user experience, I performed in-field user observation over 3 days rather than an in-lab study (Brown et al., 2011). The day before the beginning of the experiment, I visited the participants’ offices to install and test the Quiettos. Consequently, they were able to make full use of the Quiettos without failure during the experiment. In addition, I briefly explained its functions to induce a sufficient use for each function. The interview was conducted for 20 minutes every evening after the completion of more than 8 hours of the participants’ daily schedules. The interview questions mainly focused on overall usability, feeling and the experience of interaction, visual and tactile feeling of the concrete and the advantages and disadvantages of the new representation of a digital schedule through Quietto.
Detail Goal of Experiment Interview Question
When calendar information is represented through an analog clock shaped tangible interface, how does user percept it compared
to existing digital calendar?
• What was the most impressive situation?
• Was there any good or bad thing?
• Do you have you own usage pattern?
• What features do you use often?
• If you are designer, what would you like to fix?
• If you give Quietto to someone as a gift, would you want to give it to whom? How would you recommend it?
• What do you think about the movement of the clock hands?
• Have you ever thought that your privacy was violated?
How does the tangible interaction between the current time and daily
schedules affect a user’s scheduling?
• How did you feel about the way showing schedule?
• Have you ever been helped or disturbed from the way showing schedule?
• How did you feel about the way showing upcoming schedule?
• Do you have anything changed in your behavior or scheduling.
How does the visual and tactile feel of concrete touch interface affect the overall experience of Quietto?
• What concrete feels like?
• Did you feel any uncomfortable feeling about the concrete touch interface?
• What concrete feels like as a touch interface?
• If you use the concrete touch interface to apply to other products, which product would you apply?
Table 1. Interview Questions Corresponding to Each Goal
4.2.3 Data Collection and Analysis
The data collected were in total 586 minutes, and all of the data were transcribed. They were analyzed using the affinity-diagramming method and through an iterative process of grouping by our research team. Some issues were culled according to the reports of the lead participant. In order to investigate the pattern that the user interacts with Quietto, when the user interacts with Quietto through touch, statistical data is created and sent via Arduino Yun to our database server. Each data record is composed of a timestamp, unique identifier, touch location and duration. If the duration is too long (>20000ms) or short (<100ms), we classify the record as invalid data and reject it from the statistics.
The statistical data is collected in real time. The frequency of the participants’ touch on the concrete body for checking schedules was a total of 607 times over 3 days, and on average, participants used the Quietto 20 times per day. Participants mainly checked the whole schedule before and after lunch, that was in fact, before and after leaving the office for a long time. Also, participants usually check upcoming schedule after schedule ends. In comparison with the number of touches in the first day (an average of 39 times), users touched the Quietto 16 times in the second day. These usage logging data were utilized to supplement the interview transcription.
4.3 Findings
4.3.1 Intuitive and Effective Representation of Daily Schedule through Analog Clock Shaped Tangible Interface 4.3.1.1 Calendar of a day
As Quietto represents daily schedule from present to the next 12 hours (Figure 23), it helped to manage the participants’ daily routines for a day.
• Participant P8 said, “It was good because it felt like a calendar. Calendar of a day. We usually look at the calendar for checking overall schedules for a month. However, since Quietto shows only one day, I can easily notice when my schedules are starts and ends within a day.”
Six of the 10 participants, including P8, replied that it was cool to know how much time they spent each day at a glance. In addition, many participants used Quietto to check their break times as well as their schedule.
• P5 commented, “It was a day that I did not want to work. So, I planned my schedule spatially and I mainly used Quietto to check my break times.”
Moreover, P9 commented that he felt a positive feeling when Quietto announced the end of the day’s schedule.
• P9 mentioned “When I set today’s schedule in the morning, I made myself a promise to finish all schedule before 7pm. After that time, I checked Quietto and It didn’t show anything. It makes me very happy because it looks like give me a message that you did well today.”
This finding has a common point with a previous study (Dragicevic et al., 2002) that the analog representation of schedules was helpful to recognize the schedules. In addition, participants gave their opinions about effective time management and checking schedules through Quietto. Particularly, seven participants answered that they managed time more effectively because they could finish their obligations on time. Also, five participants mentioned that Quietto helped them to remember forgotten obligations and perform them promptly.
Figure 23. Quietto Representing Entire Schedules of a Day
4.3.1.2 Engaging Movement Inducing Repetitive Interaction
Six of ten participants responded that they frequently interacted with Quietto, not only for the purpose of checking the schedules but also for making the engaging movement of the hour and minute hands.
• P3 commented, “I did not expect that the hour and minute hands can move, but it rotates and turns back according to my touch. That was funny and unexpected”.
P10 also evaluate positively about the movement of hour and minute hand. Especially, P9 feel friendly to Quietto.
• P10 mentioned, “The movement of hour and minute hands feel me vitality, that was very good in terms of feedback on the calendar.”
• P9 said, “It reminds me pets that interacts with my touch”
Through this, it was confirmed that the participant felt fun with the movement of hour and minute hands without rejection. Along with the previous study (Norman., 1999), This finding proved that a way of interaction with familiar things create appropriate liveliness and intimacy that evoke curiosity and fun for the product.
4.3.1.3 Representing Schedule with Continuity of Time
As a result of expressing the schedule with the movement of the hands of the clock, six of ten participants give positive feedbacks that they could feel the continuity of time.
• P2 mentioned, “Google Calendar has its schedule and time aligned in the rectangular cells, and it is disconnected on a day-to-day basis. However, Quietto displays time and schedule in continuous round shape. It was impressive that gives a sense of continuity of time.”
• P1 mentioned, “Wall clock is usually analog and time was always memorized as number, but the Quietto let me know time as a time interval”.
In addition, P6 and P8 commented that they can notice immediately how much time is left from current time to upcoming schedule through the amounts of moving distance of hour hand. The physical movement of hour and minute hand highlight the continuity of time and it made participants understand time and schedule in terms of time interval. In addition, it proved that representing schedules on round clock shape is more effective in understanding the interval between times, that giving much sense of continuity, compared to arranging events in rectangular cells like an existing calendar. This finding has a common point with previous research (Dragicevic et al., 2002).
4.3.2 Private and Ambient Personal Schedule Clock
We expected there could be privacy issues when personal schedule information was displayed at a public office space, even though it was located on one’s desk. On the contrary, all the participants stated that they did not feel that their privacy had been violated during the 3 days of use. Seven participants said this was because the details of their schedule were not shown on the device.
• P9 stated, “The schedule can be seen, but I didn’t care because Quietto did not show the details.”
Along with the findings of previous studies (Schaub et al., 2013)(Echtler et al., 2016), Quietto could be a private device displaying information that only the user could recognize through the indirect representation of personal scheduling information.
4.3.3 Concrete as an Attractive and Unexpected Tangible that Promotes Repetitive Interaction
We explored how participants used the concrete touch interface of Quietto, and we were able to find common points. Seven participants stated that the experience of touching concrete was unexpected and engaging that make them repeatedly interact with Quietto. P9 said, “When I saw the concrete with my eyes, it looked rough, but when I touched it, it was very soft such that I wanted to touch it again.”
In particular, P5 stated, “It is complete opposite of what I thought. What I thought was that it would feel like rough and cool, but it wasn’t. It was soft and warm.” In particular, P3 suggested a new product that utilize the contradictory feeling of visual and tactile quality of concrete. P3 mentioned,
“I felt it when I saw Quietto, it seems to be interesting when it comes to the contradictory feeling in the product. If there is a plant with vitality in concrete flowerpot, the feelings of two are opposite and it seems to be interesting. When I touch the concrete flowerpot, it would be nice if it let me know when was the last watering and when is good time for watering.” We thus identified that the sensorial and interpretive properties of concrete material (Giaccardi et al., 2015) can provide new touch experiences through its unexpected but positive texture.
4.4 Summary of Findings
Our findings from the field trial implied that Quietto’s unique finishing and the experience it evokes gave a lifelike feeling to the clock when interacting with time and schedules, and this feeling was expanded due to the concrete’s engaging texture when touching it (Figure 24). Along with this, easy and simple identification of the time of an upcoming schedule showed the possibility of providing a closer interaction between the product and user beyond the simple time-telling function of a clock.
Figure 24. Summary of findings
5
Discussion
5.1 Discussion Points