Low-Fi Prototyping of S3D Mobile User Interfaces for Location Based Services
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
Low-Fi Prototyping of S3D Mobile User
Interfaces for Location Based Services
Maaret Posti Abstract
CIE / University of Oulu During recent years, location based services (LBSs)
Erkki Koiso-Kanttilan katu have emerged due to tracking technologies, and
90014 University of Oulu, Finland map-based presentations are now common in mobile
maaret.posti@cie.fi user interfaces (UIs). In this paper, we present our
early work on concepting mobile LBS UIs for
Vaibhav Belgaonkar stereoscopic 3D devices. Our paper describes a low-
Farnaz Vahabpour fidelity prototyping workshop, where 24 participants
Jonna Häkkilä explored the design possibilities for LBS services for
University of Lapland, Faculty of Art & Design S3D mobile devices. As a result, ten low-fi
Laajakaista 3 prototypes illustrating LBS and UI concept design for
96400 Rovaniemi, Finland S3D devices were created.
design.vaibhav@gmail.com; fvahabpo@ulapland.fi;
jonna.hakkila@ulapland.fi Author Keywords
Location based services; low-fi prototyping methods;
Jarmo Rusanen stereoscopic 3D UI.
Department of Geography, Faculty of Science
P. O. Box 3000 ACM Classification Keywords
90014 University of Oulu, Finland H.5.m. Information interfaces and presentation (e.g.,
jarmo.rusanen@oulu.fi HCI): Miscellaneous.
Introduction
ARea 14 workshop on Location based services (LBS) are an emerging area,
Interaction and User Experience Design for Future Mixed Reality Spaces
May 12, 2014, Oulu, Finland and last decade has witnessed their rise in both
academia and industry. Mapbased 2D user interfaces
Authors maintain the copyright.
designed for outdoor navigation represent the
common design case especially in commercial
applications, whereas indoor navigation and
unconventional graphical UI (GUI) design solutions, use handicraft tools. This enables participants to
such as the use of 3D, have gained less attention. create and construct application prototypes by simply
When comparing different mobile UI designs in a cutting, drawing and gluing. For instance, this is
user study, Kray et al. have reported that people illustrated in [1] with a wireframe of the mobile
used the (virtual world type) 3D representation to device and different types of handicraft materials,
help in relating themselves with the physical world which are placed inside the frame. Low-fi prototyping
[4]. Puikkonen et al. have proposed design gives the possibility to explore the concept and
recommendations for indoor navigation mobile UIs, different design solutions before proceeding to the
and point out, e.g., that more attention should be more detailed interaction and UI design,
paid to vertical navigation cases [5]. implementation and possible technological
limitations.
Mobile devices employing a stereoscopic 3D (S3D)
display have gained increasing attention during past In the following, we describe the experiences from
few years. However, the UI design solutions for such our low-fi prototyping workshop, where participants
platforms have not yet reached their full potential, developed prototypes for location based service
and there are further possibilities to exploit the concepts for mobile S3D displays.
illusion of the depth dimension in a more utilitarian
manner [2]. Research on mobile S3D has proposed Low-Fi Prototyping for LBS
designs that use stereoscopy e.g. with mixed reality Set-up
[3] or phonebook applications [2], whereas, to our The motivation for the low-fi prototyping workshop
knowledge, the domain of LBS has not yet been was to gain new ideas and UI concepts for LBS and
investigated. In our previous user research on user wayfinding through a co-creation process. A co-
perceptions of mobile stereoscopic 3D (S3D) UI creation workshop was carried out with a specific set
design, participants perceived that in map-based UIs of participants resulting in fresh, creative and
an S3D effect could be utilized to present innovative ideas. For this workshop we made a
topographic information [6]. Inspired by this finding, detailed plan. The time was split in three parts: first
we set ourselves on a journey to explore how S3D a 15-minute introduction in the workshop topic,
could be applied to LBS UI design, and approached followed by 1 hour of co-creation activities, and 30-
the design challenge by conducting a low-fi minute presentation and discussion session. The
prototyping workshop on the topic. groups of 3-5 people were given different themes:
LBS indoors (university environment),
In the starting phase of the design process, low-fi LBS services in the city centre,
prototyping techniques enable effortless and creative indoor location-based services in grocery shops
ideation with allocating little resources on early LBS in an unfamiliar tourist attraction.
prototyping. Here, there is no need to do the actual
implementation to the technical device, but merelyFor the low-fi prototyping, the groups were provided of the workshop was spent on discussing and
with printed smart phone and tablet frames, reflecting the scenarios, the designs, and the
transparent sheets for layering the content on the workshop as such.
screen, ready-made UI icons, post-it notes, a variety
of stickers, tape, glue and scissors along with paper The workshop was arranged on a late afternoon in
and pencils, see Figure 1. Transparent sheets placed February 2014, Figure 1. The workshop was conducted
on top of each other were introduced for having the with 24 geography students (14 female, 10 male)
elements on different layers. This way, the prototypes attending a location-based services (LBS) course at
could indicate the actual visual depth perceived in a in University of Oulu, Finland. Before attending the
a S3D device prototype. In addition, the participants workshop, the students had been divided into groups
were encouraged to use their own materials as well as according to the LBS topics mentioned earlier. They had
use other materials that could be found on the also been shown a S3D mobile device in order to
workshop site. For instance, the group focusing on provide background understanding how to utilize the
university indoor navigation decided to use the floor S3D effect on their topic. The workshop session was
plan of the university as a basis for their design. photographed and notes were taken during the
feedback session.
Results
The workshop resulted in altogether 10 low-fidelity
prototypes; 3 on indoors LBS, 2 on LBS in the city
centre, 3 on LBS in grocery shop and 2 on LBS in an
unknown tourist location. These prototypes used
different prototyping approaches, with simple cards or
paper, use of emoticons and post-its regarding the
screen measurements and available components (e.g.
drop boxes, text fields, etc.). Three of the prototypes
were built on an iPhone 5 frame and seven on an iPad
frame. Examples of created prototypes are shown in
Figure 2.
Figure 1. Participants creating low-fi prototypes in the
workshop.
In the given time, the participants were expected to
create low-fi prototypes of their ideas about the given
themes for LBS. As a conclusion, participants were
asked to present their ideas to everyone. The last partIn order to create the depth effect illustrating the S3D
UI, the prototypes utilized transparent film layers based
on top of each other. The film layers where then used
for placing GUI elements in 3D. Altogether, all
prototypes employed UI elements on 3-4 different
depths so that in total 4/10 used two additional layers
and 6/10 utilized 3 layers on top of the base layer.
The information on screens was constructed so that in
each prototype, the map-based was placed on the
lowest layer. Additional information and UI elements
were then added on the top layers, to float on top of
the base layer. Additional information categories are
presented in Table 1.
Table 1. Information categories presented on the
topmost UI layer
Information type n (of 10)
information related to a location or 10
service
wayfinding instructions (arrows) 6
peer-reviews 4
extra information (time, battery level) 3
The topmost layer was regarded by 3/10 prototypes as
extra information that would be switched on and off
when needed. However, 7/10 prototypes considered the
topmost layer to be the most important layer containing
the key information and to be visible most of the time.
Figure 2. Examples of the created low-fi prototypesHere, the extra information was then placed to lower We acknowledge that our research does not include the
(deeper) layers, excluding the base layer (map or view). comparison of wayfinding and LBS with currently
available sources such as Google maps. As a future
work, we aim to conduct a deeper analysis on whether
Altogether, 9/10 versions used (imaginary) tagging for
the themes introduced by the participants and the ideas
highlighting points of interest (POIs). Tagging was
immerged are in line with LBS and are relevant for use
commented either to be done by the community of
in an S3D environment. Our plan is to next develop
application users or by the individual user for own high-fidelity prototypes for S3D mobile devices based
reminders. As a design detail, 5/10 prototypes utilized on the findings of the workshop, and test our designs
emoticons for indicating the perceived and shared with a user study.
quality of a certain location or service. In 2 cases,
emoticons were also designed to be used for messaging References
with friends from the specific location.
[1] Arhippainen, L. and Pakanen, M. Utilizing Self-
Discussion Expression Template Method in user interface design -
Three Design Cases, In Proc. Academic MindTrek
(MindTrek’13), ACM Press, 2013, pp. 80-86.
In this study, we investigated what kind of themes and
UI design proposals emerged from the participatory [2] Häkkilä, J., Posti, M., Koskenranta, O. and Ventä-
design workshop on location-based services designed Olkkonen, L. Design and Evaluation of Mobile
for S3D mobile device. The ideas presented in the ten Phonebook Application with Stereoscopic 3D User
low-fi prototypes created in the workshop mainly Interface. In Extended Abstracts of CHI 2013 (Work-in-
Progress), ACM (2013).
considered about the use of different S3D UI layers and
elements placed on them for the ease of way and [3] Kerber, F., Lessel, P., Mauderer, M., Daiber, F.,
location finding. Oulasvirta, A. and Krüger, A. Is autostereoscopy useful for
handheld AR? In Proc. MUM 2013. ACM, New York, NY
The use of different S3D layers was mainly utilized in (2013), article no. 4
distinguishing between semantically different types of UI [4] Kray, C., Elting, C., Laakso, K., and Coors, V.
elements, such as map in the bottom and UI buttons as Presenting route instructions on mobile devices. In
a separate layer on top. While this was not a surprise, it Proc. IUI’03, ACM Press (2003), 117-124.
shows how the depth dimension can be utilized in [5] Puikkonen, A., Sarjanoja, A.-H., Haveri, M.,
grouping items, as proposed also in [6]. This way it may Huhtala, J. and Häkkilä, J. Towards Designing Better
help the user to understand the application UI layout. In Maps for Indoor Navigation – Experiences from a Case
the discussion phase of the workshop, the created low-fi Study. In Proc. MUM’09, ACM Press (2009).
prototypes were mainly judged on the creative use of [6] Ventä-Olkkonen, L., Posti, M. and Häkkilä, J. How
methods of way finding, ideas for tagging and connect of to Use 3D in Stereoscopic Mobile User Interfaces –
the ideas with the real world. Ideas developed were Study of Initial User Perceptions. In Proc. Academic
contemporary with an emphasis on a larger content base MindTrek 2013, ACM Press (2013).
with social features, such as tagging and rating the
places.You can also read
