Usability Insight

This is an excerpt from the Wired article-

‘This Stuff Doesn’t Change the World’: Disability and Steve Jobs’ Legacy

Researcher Daniel Donahoo wrote about this admirably well in an op-ed for GeekDad in March:

"[T]he potential of the iPad is not achieved by the iPad alone, nor by simply placing it in the hands of a child with autism. The potential of the device is realized by the way professionals like speech pathologists, educators, occupational therapists and early childhood development professionals apply their skills and knowledge to use the iPad to effectively support the development of children. The potential is realized by engaged parents working with those professionals to explore how the device best meets the individual needs of their child."

Its a point that I have been thinking about a lot recently. Its why we need to not only do a research study of how the toys impact the children but also a usability survey of how it is used through interactions with others who are a part of their lives- therapists, teachers, family, freinds.

Auti: teaching children with Autism Positiv Play

"Autistic children find it difficult to play," said designer Helen Andreae, who developed Auti through an industrial design paper at Victoria University in the final year of her Honours degree last year under the supervision of lecturers Tim Miller and Edgar Rodríguez Ramírez.

Auti is a responsive, mechanised toy designed especially for autistic children six months and up has been created to teach positive play behaviours. The toy develops speaking, touching, and collaborating skills. It shuts down in response to any negative behaviour such as hitting or screaming, but quickly responds to the slightest positive interaction such as speaking gently or stroking. Each sensor can be adjusted to respond appropriately to a child's individual characteristics.

Read more: http://www.dexigner.com/news/23330#ixzz1RP3ZTek9

Toy Target Skills

Collaborative Play

The Idea of Collaborative Play has become one of the central ideas of my project. What does it mean? When does it happen? How do you create a situation where more than one person must act in order to trigger a reaction?

Below: The project Face Fight done by ITP at their 2009 fall show. Where one person feels another persons presence without actual physical contact; they must co-operate to achieve the task at hand.

Two players sit across the table from each other. They grasp handles. They stare straight at each other through a darkened tunnel, their faces perfectly aligned. The handles are physically coupled: when one player moves his handle left, the other is forced to the left. As the handles move, a line appears in the air between the players' faces, tracking its movement, creating a drawing. Each player tries to trace the face of the other. Where their faces are symmetrical, and therefore aligned, the players agree on the drawing to create and collaborate. Where their faces differ, the players are forced to negotiate a strategy for eliding the differences or to compete for physical control of the drawing point. When they have completed their drawing, the players get a single physical copy of the drawing to share between them.

Experience Prototype for 'Expression'

Experiece Prototype

Concept Sketches

Touch and Expression are two concepts that I have decided to take forward and build.

Expression is suitable for children with severe autism. It exhibits simple cause-effect behavior. Ones actions trigger sensory feedback.

Touch is suitable for children with mild autism. It requires some amount of social engagement before sensory feedback is triggered.

I had a with a few friends Feedback Brainstorm on the concepts- to see what potential each idea had? possible combinations? alternatives? which concepts are stronger?

Concept Sketches
Based on the target skills I have chosen to include.

Social Interaction- Joint attention, turn taking, coopera-

tion, coordination

Imtitation skills - fine, gross motor, peer play

Language - Identities Objects, Pictures, People

Communication - Expressing choice, needs

Experience Prototyping

Experience prototypes are simulations to investigate and 
reveal the quality of the experience. Prototypes come in all forms,
shapes and sizes and consist of whatever is appropriate at
a point in time. They can be quick and dirty to obtain feedback 
on design intention or highly crafted solutions for in depth 
usability evaluation.

Building a prototype to explore and evolve an idea, when put in
the hands of a user can uncover unanticipated issues or needs.

Detailing the interactive experience is integral to the development, 
iteration and refinement of a design concept.

..from tracy currer

Notes from an Experience Prototyping Presentation on slideshare

the five core skills of a design, according to Bill Moggridge are...

1) to synthesize a solution from all of the relevant constraints, 
understanding everything that will make a difference to the result

2) To frame, or reframe, the problem and objective

3) To create and envision alternatives

4) To select from those alternatives, knowing intuitively how to 
choose the best approach

5) To visualize and prototype the intended solution

STEPS

1 Understand the Experience

2 Communicate the Experience

Describe it, Diagram it, Model it

3 Explore the Experience

Whats it like? who uses it? What does it require of people?

What are the barriers?

"As an observer of user evaluations one knows very quickly if the 

designed experience is a good one. If it is people get so involved

in the experience that they forget about the limitations of the prototype."

"Experience Prototyping isnt about a tool kit of techniques, but rather an 

attitude and language to solving design problems."

" Get really good at low-fi prototypes, thats where the real learning happens"

- Jane Fulto Suri.

How to Sketch Interactions

A talk by Jonas Lowgren at Stockholm University in 2004 In interaction design as in any design discipline, sketching serves several purposes. It is a way to think. Ideas develop and grow in the conversation between eye and hand. Sketching is not merely a matter of documenting images that are already complete in the mind's eye. Thinking occurs, quite literally, in the manual actions involved in creating the sketch. It is a way to communicate. Design ideas are made available for others' inspection, appropriation, criticism and development. It is a way to persuade. Other stakeholders in the design process may be convinced of the value of a design idea through sketches. There are, of course, many requirements that could be posed on sketching techniques. Here, I focus on the demands that sketching techniques be expressive (to explore the envisioned use situation in some detail), sketchy (to reflect the tentative nature of the ideas), and versatile (to handle a wide range of use situations including mobile use in physically demanding environments, for instance). Kinds of Sketches Pencil and Paper Sketches Storyboarding Video Prototyping Pitch Movies Animated User Sketches Interactive Prototypes More......

MEDIATE environment

A project from Centre for Responsive Environments, School of Art, Design & Media, University of Portsmouth, UK 

 To promote creativity, exploration and enjoyment in low functioning autistic children that have no verbal communication, we propose MEDIATE, an interactive environment that generates real time visual, aural and vibrotactile stimuli. This paper focuses on the design of interaction with visuals within MEDIATE. The design is guided by the objectives of giving children a sense of agency and enhance non repetitive actions. Other guidelines of this design include natural interaction, use of non invasive technology and non representational visuals. This visual interaction (together with sound and vibrotacile) allows the children to enjoy MEDIATE and be creative within this environment.

Using toys to trigger Speech

Parents use Puppets as intermediaries to talk and play with their child.
They say initially she would respond to the puppets and prefer to speak
to them or even to the T.V.

So here is something that suggests that toys and play help bridge a gap
and trigger interaction...