Proposal
Our project is a system designed to provide awareness for children living with learning disabilities. We aim to achieve this through an augmented reality system designed to simulate how it feels to be a child living with a learning disability in a classroom setting. The system will be targeted towards high school aged children to help with their social development. By the end of this semester we hope to have designed a system which can make users feel empathy towards people with learning disabilities or dyslexia.
For this project, the main domain considered is ‘learning abilities’. Specifically, we are concerned with raising awareness of learning abilities through empathy.
‘Learning disabilities’ is used in the domain and further on in this document to refer to a wide array of conditions and afflictions that impair one’s ability in an educational context. Academically, ‘learning disabilities’ are typically classified as conditions that affect a person’s core ability to learn, such as dyscalculia whereas conditions such as dyslexia aren’t considered ‘learning disabilities’ due to their lack of impact on one’s ‘intelligence’ (Denckla & Rudel, 1976). However, if a condition can be considered to cause difficulty in a student’s ability to progress in a classroom setting, it will be referenced from this point as a ‘learning disability’.
As students with learning disabilities often perform worse than their non-learning disabled peers, the disadvantaged students might experience the feelings of isolation and lack of worth that are common in underachieving students (Wolfe, Fantuzzo & Wolfe, 1986). Additionally, due to their invisible and sometimes difficult to define nature, some students may be misdiagnosed or go undiagnosed completely, further exacerbating existing issues (Kelman & Lester, 1997).
While much study has been done into how individuals with disorders such as Autism Spectrum Disorder are able to perceive the emotion of others, little has been done to assist neuro-typical individuals with understanding the unique ways in which people that aren’t neuro-typical express themselves (Tang, 2016).
In a 2014 paper by Coulton et al., concepts of empathy in the design of interactive system are explored. While they identify different kinds of empathy with varying levels of ‘depth’ (cognitive, affective, and compassionate), they also state that there exists great difficulty in facilitating experiences that deliver different kinds of empathy. A key insight into designing for empathy is that “leveraging a preexisting shared interest between the users provides basis from which empathy may be developed” (Coulton et al., 2014). They apply this in a provided example in which they designed a digital candle for a church community that allowed infrequent visitors to have a constant presence and maintain a continued connection.
By raising awareness of the unique problems and circumstances that learning disabled people face, the average person might display more empathy and understanding, leading to better social dynamics and academic performance for all involved.
The project aims to simulate dyslexia through the use of augmented reality. Users will ideally be in a group setting where are at random some users will be “given” the disorder while others aren’t. Users will then be given a time limit to read as many phrases as possible and receive scores based on how complicated the phrases are. The scores will be tallied and added to a scoreboard at the end of the time limit. This aims to not only simulate the disorder but also the other aspects that affect those with dyslexia such as frustration of those passing them in reading ability. The group simulation would also ideally promote discussion among other users as to the different experiences. The main message of the product is the struggle that people with dyslexia experience on a daily basis, to get people to empathise with those with dyslexia. This project would be aimed at high school students, as they are still experiencing emotional growth so putting them in a situation to empathise with other helps to develop this.
The current design opportunity focuses on raising awareness of disability in the classroom specifically children with dyslexia. Dyslexia affects the suffer in a way that differs to most learning disorders as it doesn’t impede the IQ (Perri, Bartolomeo, and Silveri, 1996). It has been found that an effective method of raising awareness is the use of scenarios and simulations, as they are able to engage the user and display the message clearly (Villarica and Richards, 2014). This indicates that this will be the best method to elicit an empathetic reaction from the users, hence there use in the proposed concept. Some common feature of dyslexia includes some letters are are often mistaken for another such as “s” and “z”, and words are often seen to moving slightly (Perri, Bartolomeo, and Silveri, 1996). Since dyslexia has such key characteristics it becomes easier to accurately simulate the disorder. A study conducted by Batson et al. found that when people feel empathetic towards a person in a marginalised group they experience a more positive attitude toward the group (Batson et al., 1997). This is one of the reasons eliciting empathy from the target audience is the key aim of the project.
There are currently multiple other dyslexia simulators out there such as WebAIM: Dyslexia Simulation, but they focus on only simulating the reading difficulties of the sufferer. While the project aims to simulate the reading difficulties, as well as other aspects that come with the disorder such as frustration. These simulators also tend to have a default passage for the user to read. Whereas our project will translate everyday passages that the user passes their phone over into those that simulate dyslexia. The current simulators that are out there often have some information about dyslexia before the actual simulation starts. This is currently something that isn’t incorporated into the product, but could be a valuable feature to add after the simulation is over. Displaying the information after the simulation is complete could make the simulation more impactful as the user is unaware as to how the disorder will effect them.
The main social mobile theory that will be applied to the concept is emotional design. In particular the reflective emotional design, as the concept aim to evoke empathy and reflection from the users. The message of the concept would ideally stick with user well after their initial use of the product. Empathic design is also a theory that will be explored with the concept as it aims to elicit an emotional response from the user.
First phase of gathering requirements and user data ranges from weeks 7-8, we will begin to gather data relating to our domain space to give us insight. Work done will include user interviews and domain research. This will mainly be used to inform the design of the product, as well as gain more information about the target audience. Interviews are going to be used as they provide us with the valuable information as to how the target audience may engage with the product. It will also provide valuable information as to what is going to be to most effective technology to target them and get the message across.
The second phase that will be undertaken is the initial design of the user interface and back-end technology. This will mainly involve coming up with digital mock-ups of the proposed interface design, as well as selecting a back-end system what will be the most effective. At the end of this stage either some paper or digital prototyping will conducted with our user group to gage how effective the current proposed implementation is. The testers will be interviewed after they complete the scenarios in prototyping, as an interview will allow us to extend on the questions and receive the most useful feedback.
The next phase that will be entered is design phase two, this will involve incorporating the feedback received in the paper prototyping back into the design of the interface and the functionalities of the back-end. This section will run into the beginning of the first development phase to ensure as technical prototype is able to be tested with the target audience. This phase mainly focuses on improving the design based on feedback, so that a more complete product can be tested with the user group in the future.
The first development phase in entered while the second design phase is in progress, this is mainly to ensure a proof-of-concept can be presented at the end of semester. This phase will run for longer then the rest as it will take to most continual work to get to a stage for which the target audience is able to test. At the end of this phase it will tested with the target audience for a second time. The target audience will again be interviewed after the completion of the prototyping tasks, to gain feedback as to how to improve the product further.
The final phase that is entered is a second development phase, this involves incorporating the feedback received by previous testing session into the prototype. This phase is a combination of design and development, with iterations being made to both aspects to refine the product before the final showcase.
Having a team where each member is completing a similar degree means that we all have a similar skill set. Individually each member of the team has a variety of strengths, weaknesses and goals which may influence the work that each member contributes to. The main focus of task allocation will be based on learning goals that each member has set for themselves. However each member will not be restricted to one role and will be able to contribute to multiple aspects of the project.
Most of my programming experience is in Java, HTML and CSS. Where I feel most confident is in design aspects, such as aesthetic design and layout. I’m also a confident public speaker which means I’m happy to contribute in our presentations. In terms of the programming aspects I have very little experience in C++ or VR programming but I am willing to learn. I also struggle with complex coding but have been improving as the semester has progressed thanks to other courses I’m currently active in.
In terms of this project, I feel that my greatest skills lie in user testing, design, organisation, and front-end development. User testing, and user experience design is what I feel the most comfortable doing, and I also really enjoy this type of work, I feel this is the area in which my skills will be best utilised. I do have a general understanding of programming, but I feel this is probably my greatest weakness, as I think it would limit the amount I can contribute to the back-end coding side of the project. I would like to contribute to the front-end development of the project as I think I could really improve my front-end development skills by spending more time using them in practical situation.
I have experience using C#, I also have a more limited experience with Java and Python. I am also comfortable with web development, in particular HTML and CSS. Due to my degree I have experience with UX design and HCI, and am comfortable using Adobe Illustrator. I have some experience using Unity3D, but have little to no experience in augmented reality and VR programming.
Although my preference is for user experience design and the skills that relate to that area - such as user testing, the construction of personas and scenarios, and prototyping - I think that my greatest strength is my ability to adapt and fill gaps in our team’s skillset. I have some previous experience using web-based languages (such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript), as well as other in programming languages (Java and Python) and would like to gain more experience using these throughout the course of the project.
Strengths
Strengths within the team -
-
Versatile Experience - Not only do all of our team members have experience in at least one computer language but there is also a great deal of diversity amongst our teams. Because different team members have taken on different courses during different semesters, our teams have a great mix in all manor of languages, interfaces, systems, applications and general development experiences. This allows our programming options to have a great deal of versatility.
-
Focused Experience - Our project is focused on using augmented reality technology and having two members of our team who have experience in this field is a valuable asset.
-
Excellent Brainstorming - So far our team hasn’t had any issues idea blocks or reaching dead ends in terms of brainstorming ideas. This is due in part to our teams dichotomy but also is in part due to our team’s enthusiasm in our team’s concept. We all believe that idea for our prototype has a great deal of potential which makes designing and brainstorming around our key idea incredibly easy.
Strengths of our project -
-
Simplistic - The idea behind our concept is reasonably simple, a VR program which lets the user experience what it feels like to be disabled in a classroom setting. The simplicity of this idea makes it very easy to communicate the idea to those involved in the process. The idea can be explained in one sentence and doesn’t have utilise any concepts that only those who are tech-savvy could understand. This will assist our endeavours especially in the testing phase of our project.
-
Engaging - Our group believes that using VR technology will greatly improve our ability to reach out to High school children. VR technology when done correctly is very interactive which can help gain the attention of young minds. VR is also a highly trending piece of technology which for similar reasons garner the initial interest younger users. Making the system something that people be interested in playing is very important to our group.
Challenges
Challenges of our team -
-
Communication - Ensuring that multiple people in the group aren’t working on the same aspects of the system will require a great deal of communication throughout are team members. As two members of the team do not have experience in immersive technology time will need to be spent communicating how the program can/will function to the lesser experienced members.
-
Organisation - Organising a project of this scale comes with many difficulties. Delegation of duties will be very important in this project. Ensuring that all team members are aware of what their responsibilities at any given point are is also very important for a project of this scale.
Challenges of our project -
-
Ambitious - Our project while easy in concept may be very difficult in implementation. Being able to replicate the experiences of a specific type lifestyle from a first person perspective will be very challenging from a design standpoint. Our group will need to really consider what being a disabled child means and how to best replicate this from an immersive angle.
-
Handling a Sensitive Topic - It’s also important to communicate the challenges of disability without offending people who are actually disabled. This can be a fine line to tread meaning our team should approach it with care. It’s not our team’s goal to make disabled people look incapable or incompetent and carefully handling this subject will be vital to communicating this idea to the users.
Options
-
Testing Opportunity - One of our team members has contacted their high school teacher asking to test our prototype on their classroom, if this works we will have access to the perfect testing space considering our target demographic is teenagers. On the other hand, this opportunity could result is somewhat biased or ingenuine feedback. Children in a classroom setting don't always provide genuine feedback out of fear of being “wrong” or incorrect. This could result in our feedback data being somewhat unreliable.
-
Room for expansion - Our idea is simple enough that it could easily be expanded upon in future iterations. For example, we could design the system so that it is designed to re-create a larger number of disabilities. On the other hand, this ability to expand could affect the quality of the system. By expanding beyond our original idea we could lose sight of our original objective or end up making a system that's fun and interesting but doesn’t get the message across.
Responses These are some of the feelings we believe to be possible in our system initially. We hope users will experience:
- Intrigued - The participant feels engaged by the system
- Informed - The participants gains insight from the system and learns a message
- Uninterested - The participant isn’t hooked by the system
- Pleased - The participant found the experience interesting enough that it was enjoyable
Some possible emotions that users could experience that we hope to avoid include:
- Uncaring - The participant did not gain anything from the system
- Attacked - The participant feels that the system is targeting or accusing either themselves or disabled people
- Bored - The participant has no strong feelings about the system due to a lack of interest
Effectiveness
In order for our system to be effective we will need to ensure that our system is engaging enough that our target audience will be intrigued in the system. We also will need to ensure that the system effectively conveys our intended message. Ensuring that the system conveys the message will need to be given priority over the system being enjoyable as its our primary goal to raise awareness. For our testing opportunity in a classroom setting, we will need to ensure that the data provided is unbiased and genuine. This should apply to any other testing we plan to do in the future.
With regards to our team, it should be a priority to maintain communication and organisation amongst the respective team members. Communicating the plans and ideas which members have to the team will be an effective way of keeping everyone up to date. Following our structured plan should help maintain organisation.