Contextual Inquiry-Group:Group Ate
From CS 160 Fall 2008
Group Ate's Contextual Inquiry and Task Analysis assignment.
Group Members, contributions
- Jonathan Fong - Task analysis, target users, and actual interviews
- Joshua Kwan - Task analysis, target users, and actual interviews; additional solutions
- Kevin Lam - Reviewed document, edited Analysis of Tasks and Interface Design
- Jacek Wnuk - Revised UI mockups and description of UI design
- Nathan Yan - Problem and solution overview
Target Users (4 points)
Describe the rationale behind your choice of target users. For each of the three customers, give some details of their background, their likes/dislikes and priorities. Avoid information that may reveal their identity.
We sought interviewees who seemed like typical American young adults, who were not necessarily ignorant about foreign foods, but on average represented a range of experience that I feel is dominant in our society right now. We also tried to avoid people who are very comfortable with computers, as we want to appeal to the lowest denominator of "gamers".
Names changed to protect the innocent.
Betty
Betty is a female, 2nd year, PACS major/Political Science minor at Cal. She is half Korean and half American and grew up on a military base in South Korea. She is very outdoorsy and sporty if and when she's not studying, she enjoys backpacking and soccer. (In fact, she had just returned from her soccer game for the interview.) She doesn't have any exposure to European food culture, but has traveled extensively throughout Asia. She considers herself to be very bad with computers.
Carolina
Carolina is a female, 3rd year, Sociology major/Education and possibly Spanish minor at Cal. She is a Mexican-American from Watsonville and wants to pursue an occupation as a children's librarian (for which she needs a Masters; she plans to get it at SJSU.) She admits not having much experience with foreign foods and went to a Spanish restaurant for the first time only recently, to have tapas. She does not consider herself internet savvy per se and often seeks the help of others to fix her computer.
Lucas
Lucas is a male, 3rd year, Math major/Education minor at Cal. He is concurrently pursuing a degree in American Sign Language at Berkeley City College and as a result he is taking 22 units total this semester - a very busy person. He was involved in campus choir groups, CalSO and student government. He has an Italian (specifically Sicilian) background, and his favorite food is Italian food. He does not consider himself Internet savvy, but has played games like Age of Empires in the past.
Problem and Solution Overview (1 pt)
This overview should be a concise statement of the problem you are tackling and a brief synopsis of your proposed solution.
Growing up, many people's exposure to food is confined to what they experience eating at home or within their local community. As a result, many people are unfamiliar with foreign food culture and etiquette. In addition, today's fast-paced world that emphasizes a "casual" dining atmosphere (fast food, take-out, no sit-down dinners at home) has led to overall unfamiliarity with general food etiquette. Both issues can lead to significant consternation as diners realize they have no idea how to "eat properly" at foreign and/or sit-down restaurants to avoid social embarrassment!
Our solution to the problem is to create a "dining simulator" game that walks the player through a full-course meal, and presents the user with various typical dining tasks that they must manage, such as choosing the right eating utensil for a dish, eating at a certain pace, passing along condiments, keeping proper posture, etc. The game will focus on dining etiquette at a typical mid- to upper-class European restaurant, but the scope may expand to incorporate dining experiences from other cultures if there is enough time.
Contextual Inquiry - Interview Descriptions (15 pts)
Describe the process you followed when conducting the interviews, and environment where you observed their work. Identify tasks and themes that the customers shared in common in their work practices. Then, note anything unique about each interview and comment on the rationale behind these events.
Contextual Inquiry Questions
Establishing target user background
- Have you been out of the country? If so, list a number of countries you have been to in your life.
- Describe a funny or embarassing experience you had eating in a foreign place (not necessarily a different country.)
- What is your favorite foreign food?
- Have you ever been served a multi-course meal at a restaurant?
- Have you ever studied eating etiquette formally? What do you remember if so? If not, did your parents teach you anything about it? Was it enjoyable? Why or why not?
- Do you know how to cook? Would you say you are proficient at cooking?
- Do you play games on your computer?
- Do you play games on your cell phone?
- Cite an example of an educational game you have played that you like, and one you disliked.
Task analysis questions
- Describe your ideal study conditions, or your favorite category of things to study.
- Suppose you did not know how to tie a tie. How would you try and acquire that knowledge? (Internet? Ask a friend? Ask parents?)
- Describe a skill that you have acquired by following someone's movements. Do you think that was easier to understand than by reading something about it?
- Do you like using the keyboard to manipulate a game, or do you prefer the mouse?
- Have you ever read a guide about etiquette and social graces? If so, how did you like it? [see if user likes etiquette lessons in text format]
- Is there a game that you play regularly? Do you keep progressing in it or do you start it anew each time? [see user's relationship to game data]
- Do you think that you have time in your daily life to play games? [time constraints]
- What do you do when your computer crashes? When a website doesn't load? [see what the user does when things go wrong]
Task demonstration
- Take a sip from this glass of water. Do you think you might have to do it differently in a fancy restaurant?
- Take these forks, knives, plates and glasses, and this napkin, and set the table as if it were a restaurant.
- Pretend you have just walked into the restaurant. Sit at the table. Your steak meal arrives. Cut this imaginary piece of beef on your plate and then eat it.
- Show us how you would move the fork and knife into the hands shown on the screen?
- Sit up in your chair right now. Were you slouching before?
- Using mouse and keyboard to play a flash game
Contextual Inquiry Results
Instead of just regurgitating the actual conversations we had, we are splitting this up into logical categories and describing the interviewees' perspectives in prose.
Foreign/Etiquette Experience
- Betty hasn't been to Europe but has lived in Asia all her life and has been to many places therein. She couldn't think of a particular instance where she was shocked or taken aback by something at a foreign restaurant, but did mention that she was shocked by a Chinese wet market with many weird (dead) animals for sale like scorpions and snakes. With regards to etiquette experience, she took a home economics class which she thought was kind of a waste of time, and doesn't remember a lot of it.
- Carolina hasn't really been out of the country and, as mentioned before, has limited exposure to foreign foods. But she has been to many wedding receptions; she found them funny since she is Mexican, and you expect there to be traditional fare. Instead, they get fancy catering for these events, and many people are surprised.
- Lucas hasn't been to Europe at large but has been to Italy to visit his family and also Rome. He considers himself savvy on restaurants in the area. We asked him how he would prepare for a business lunch at a fancy restaurant (in terms of brushing up on etiquette) and he mentioned many "rules of thumb" such as: "start from the outside, work your way in" for utensils, and "eat right, drink left" for setting the table.
Game Experience
- Betty and Carolina both have no interest in games at all and only play the occasional Solitaire or Minesweeper.
- Lucas used to play some games, namely Age of Empires, but liked to cheat a lot. He also plays online euchre (a card game) and when he has time, plays Solitaire and FreeCell. He also has a Blackberry phone with BlockBreaker on it (i.e. Breakout).
Learning Background
- Betty likes to learn in quiet environments. She likes the peace of the Doe basement study rooms. We asked her what in particular she likes to study and she mentioned Korean history as one of her favorites. When asked her preferred manner of learning a manual task, she prefers to ask other people and get a demonstration that she can then mimic. Failing the presence of a physical person to help out, she would look up the task on Youtube.
- Carolina is a very hands on person and likes watching people do things. She actually considers Youtube quite a high priority resource for learning how to do things, as she learned how to patch up a wall and apply makeup using Youtube videos. We asked her if she generally considers Youtube to be a credible resource and she said that it depends on the subject, but generally she trusts the how-to videos. She also enjoys taking things apart and putting them back together. She thinks a video game might be useful as a learning tool, but considers it to still be "out there" - outside of her normal scope of learning.
- Lucas is a very visual learner, so diagrams and demonstrations both work for him. He feels that once it "clicks", he can confidently do a task. We asked him to describe a manual task that he had once learned and gave "tying a tie" as an example. He picked up on this and mentioned that he learned how to tie a tie since he knows how to ride horses and someone told him that tying a tie is exactly like cinching a horse. If he had to find out something new, he would Google for how-tos.
Interest in Etiquette
- Carolina is actually interested in learning about dining etiquette and place setting - she says "there's a reason why it's all laid out properly like that." She watched an MTV program where some girls were taking an etiquette class. If she were made to learn, she'd look it up online or preferably, consult a real instructor, because she likes hands-on work.
- Lucas isn't particularly interested in learning more about etiquette because he feels like he knows enough to get by. He said he would probably not play a game that would help him learn it.
- Betty isn't particularly interested in it - as mentioned above, her only experience was taking her home economics class
Place Setting
Certainly the most interesting thing about doing the interview was seeing how each interviewee reacted to the place setting exercise. Many things were consistent across each one:
- Everyone always managed to put the dinner plate in the middle.
- Everyone always placed the water/wine glasses above the dinner plate in some form.
- Everyone knew where the bread plate was relative to the dinner plate.
But many things were different, usually in the realm of deciding whether to put something on the left or the right side of the dinner plate.
- Betty and Lucas put the knives on the left side of the table (incorrect), while Carolina put them both on the right side.
- Carolina and Lucas put the bread plate on the right side and the glasses on the left, but Betty flipped them around.
- Carolina and Lucas put the bread knife on the table, instead of on the bread plate.
- Carolina spaced out all the utensils also did not offset the wine/water glasses to the right side, but instead aligned them symmetrically around the dinner plate.
Here are all of their results, followed by a proper template (of course, we didn't have some of the utensils that this example uses.)
 Betty's table setting |
 Carolina's table setting |
 Lucas' table setting |
 Correct version |
Summary
Overall, the results from our Contextual Inquiry was supportive of our proposal of a serious game focused on etiquette. Our platform choice (computer game) is a medium that users were all comfortable with. Each user responded that their is some value in knowing the correct/proper manner to dine in a formal setting. Past experiences with learning this subject, however, were mixed.
Because the users all expressed interest in either the format of our game, or the subject, though, we conclude that many users will be compelled to play. Some might be initially curious in the game for entertainment, so if it can be "fun" with the ettiquite training as a hidden/subtle side effect, even the reluctant users can be won over.
Task Analysis Questions (5 pts)
Who is going to use system?
Our users will consist of English-literate young-adults, of either gender, with basic computer literacy.
What tasks do they now perform?
The users currently use computers in a task-oriented manner: word processing, research, communication (email and instant messaging), and entertainment (videos and games). They play simple computer games, like the built-in solitaire in Windows.
The biggest aspect of their lives is to go to class to learn in a formal educational setting or go to work at professional or technical jobs. Outside of this, they have a vibrant social life, which consists of casual outings and interactions.
Occasionally, the users are placed in informal dining situations. For example, Carolina has had formal dinners in a banquet situation with catered fancy food. Lucas' family occasionally dines at fancy restaurants in his hometown of El Segundo.
What tasks are desired?
Those that would like to learn about etiquette want a simple, but polished and credible demonstration or simulation. The information should be accessible in a medium the user is familiar and comfortable with: primarily an acquaintance (or an electronic simulation of one), or online website.
How are the tasks learned?
The tasks are learned through clear diagrams and visual instruction. Many use video walkthroughs that can adjust to the user’s learning speed allow the user to follow along. Others have experienced (or strongly prefer) personal instruction from a credible authority (a parent, grandparent, or trained expert).
Hanna, for example, recently learned how to tune a guitar; she cited that learning in-person was easier to understand and provided instant feedback. Carolina uses YouTube.com to find instructions for household and personal tasks. Preferably, however, she would want to learn from an "expert" in the subject at hand. Lucas has some informal training in etiquette from his father.
Where are the tasks performed?
Typically, the user learns in formal classroom environments. Some prefer to study in quite and solitary settings. The use of the computer is common in these situations, and so a computer game is not an uncommon/foreign medium for learning. However, the context might be having a few minutes of “time to waste” in between tasks instead of a more formal learning environment.
What’s the relationship between user & data?
With our project designed for short game play, there is not much relationship between the user and data as described in lecture. The accessibility of the game itself should allow for spontaneous sessions, however, so there should be no restriction on the times the user can play, nor excessive/complex boot-up and/or log-in.
What other tools does the user have?
The user has access to online videos and the Internet (including “Google,” a search engine that can very accurately find relevant webpages for the user). Also, every user owns and is comfortable with a cell phone.
How do users communicate with each other?
Users communicate with each other in-person, over the phone, and electronically (through instant-messaging, text messaging and email).
How often are the tasks performed?
The tasks are performed a few times a week.
What are the time constraints on the tasks?
The time window for the tasks is very small. Mostly, the gameplay will only in sporadic/spontaneous allotments of a few minutes. For example, Lucas said he would play "while waiting in line for something."
What happens when things go wrong?
The users make use of technology, but are not experienced or comfortable with troubleshooting. Thus, they rely on others for tech support, or need error messages with clear directions on what action to take. Carolina's response to computer error messages, for example, was to seek out a friend that is a computer expert; she was strongly adverse to fixing the issue herself.
Analysis of Tasks (10 pts)
Nathan, Jacek and Kevin
Choose 6 tasks (2 easy, 2 moderate, 2 difficult tasks) and describe them. These should be real world tasks that have details.
Easy
- Choosing a game mode: The game will offer different "modes." Options would include: various difficulty levels and tutorials that concentrate on specific tasks (i.e. keeping posture straight and choosing right utensil). If we want a progressive game element, we can require the user to complete a stage or tutorial in order to "unlock" the next one. To select a mode, the user will click on his choice from a list of options.
- Pausing the game: The user needs a quick, easy way to pause the game in case he needs to interrupt play for any reason. This will be accomplished by pressing the Escape key on the keyboard.
Moderate
- Eating Food: The primary in-game task for the user is to complete the meal, so a clicking interface for consuming food will be provided. Foods will likely have to be eaten in different ways (fries can just be picked up by hand; a steak needs to be cut by a knife, then picked up with a fork; soup needs to be scooped, etc.). The pace at which the in-game character eats will be controlled by how fast the user clicks his mouse.
- Passing Salt/Pepper: Many typical dining tasks can get in the way of consuming food. One example would be the need to pass the condiments from a diner at one end of the table to the other. This is one of the tasks that would interrupt the user's eating and require their attention, lest they lose points.
- When another diner at the table requests salt or pepper, an arrow with a timer will appear on the right side of the screen
- The user will need to click on the arrow before the timer runs out
- After the arrow is clicked, an animation will run
Difficult
- Keeping posture up as you eat: One of the subconscious things that diners tend to do is slouch, or not uphold a straight back posture. A user would need to keep his posture in mind and make sure he is sitting up straight every so often.
- An indicator is provided to show whether users are "slouching" or not. Additionally, the in-game character will provide visual cues to show his posture
- To correct the character's posture, users will need to drag an arrow on the indicator
- Much like the passing of salt and pepper, an animation will play to depict the character correcting his posture
- Keeping pacing of eating correct: Eating too fast leaves your plate empty while everyone is eating, and eating too slowly makes everyone else at the table wait, so it is important to keep pace with other diners at the table when eating. A user needs to be able to gauge the speed of others at the table and attempt to finish their plate at the same time as everyone else (ideally the range is somewhere between the person who finishes first and the person who finishes last). A progress bar will be shown at the bottom of the playing screen tell the user how much of the current dish he has already consumed. To vary the pace at which the in-game character eats, the user can click at a slower rate or stop clicking altogether.
Interface Design (20 pts)
Jacek
Our game will focus on eating in a French restaurant, with a particular focus on etiquette. This will include such challenges as keeping up one's posture (the interface will simply be a mouse-cursor to pick up the constantly falling posture) and passing salt and pepper (again, a click interface - however, this create a delay in which the passing takes place, when for example one's posture might begin to slip). The beginning stages will start with fewer simultaneous challenges, while later levels will introduce more challenges onto the player's plate. The timers in the dialogues below are the amount of time the player has to do that action before his tablemates begin to think poorly of him.
Game Menu
Shown below is a proposed game menu, where users can choose to begin a game or change the game settings (i.e. volume control and hot keys). The layout is fairly simple, with only four buttons at the moment. When the user hovers his mouse over a selection, the selected text turns white and a knife icon is displayed to the left of the button. These visual aids are an additive measure to prevent users from making an undesired selection. For users who dislike using mouses, keyboard arrows can also be used to navigate the page.
When a user chooses to start or resume a game, a second menu (not shown here) is presented that displays the stages the user has available to him. If we were to add "levels" in the game, new stages would appear as they are unlocked. Additionally, the user's ratings on completed stages can be displayed with an overall/average rating.
An example stage (storyboard)
Utensil Arrangement
Before the game begins, the player will have to select the correct utensils for the job, based on what he or she ordered. This will be done with a simple click interface. If the player chooses incorrectly, this will reflect negatively on them during the ratings section (see later).
The below image illustrates, in game, how the posture fixing will work. The arrow, representing your posture, should be in the green. If you go too high, you could also fall out of your chair. The timer in the dialog box up top continually counts down and begins to take away from your score if it gets to 0. The face icon in the upper-right corner represents how happy everyone at the table is with your etiquette, while the bar on the bottom measures how much of the food you have completed, while the nearby timer measures how much time still remains to finish the meal, in realtime minutes and seconds.
Posture Fixing
As previously mentioned, the player will be presented with other challenges as well, such as the passing of salt and pepper. Here is a screen of how this would look. The player would simply need to drag the arrow to complete the action, though the animation will take up valuable time, and if the character is slouching, for instance, he will not be able to fix that while the passing of salt and pepper is occurring, putting him at risk and requiring the player to micromanage their time. Also note that due to the fact that the player is no longer slouching, the table is happier with him (as in the smiley icon in the upper-right). Also note, however, that the player has not had a chance to eat any more of the food while this was happening.
Passing Salt and Pepper
Actual eating is simply handled by clicking on the food rapidly. However, if you eat too quickly, a warning pops up and the player will hear the sound of sloppy eating. If the player does not slow down in time, your player will throw up, causing much larger etiquette point loss. If you eat too slowly on the other hand, you may not finish your meal in time. This adequately reflects what the player would expect to happen upon eating too quickly.
Eating
End of a Stage
At the end of each stage the player is then presented with a rating based on their slip-ups. They ideally want to get as few slip-ups as possible in order to achieve the highest ratings. At this screen the player can also choose to retry the stage to attempt a better rating, continue on in the game, or to quit.
Other details
Difficulty of Stages
Again, the difficulty of each stage would be regulated by just how many things the player must keep track of. Below is an example of what could be a later stage than the one above - this one also includes passing bread in addition to salt and pepper, and wine that one must sip whenever someone gives a toast. This level clearly has a lot of challenges arising simultaneously, making keeping track of actually eating properly a difficult task.
Pausing the Game
As such difficulty might cause the player stress, it is understandable that a player may wish to pause the game. Pause features are relatively ubiquitous among modern games, and with good reason. Thus the Escape key, a key commonly used for this purpose, will be mapped to pausing the game, giving roughly the same interface presented at the end of each level. Thus we keep to an interface the player is already familiar with to make the user interface as transparent as possible. If necessary, we can add a "pause" button on the screen for people who are less familiar with the conventional Escape = pause/exit concept.
(Any images not my own are from stock images or art that can be used for commercial purposes)
Analysis of Approach (5 pts)
Nathan, Jacek and Kevin
Explain how your application takes advantage of the affordances of serious games. Discuss other potential solutions (e.g. non-game applications), and list the pros and cons of your approach.
In the past, families trained their children by sending them to etiquette courses. Of course, this is time consuming and costs money. There are also many books, guides, and television programmes that teach the same thing. While these can be informative, they don't provide the hands-on interactive experience that can be helpful for learning through muscle memory.
Our solution to the problem is to create a "dining simulator" game that walks the player through a full-course meal, and presents the user with various typical dining tasks that they must manage, such as choosing the right eating utensil for a dish, eating at a certain pace, passing along condiments, keeping proper posture, etc. The game will focus on dining etiquette at a typical mid- to upper-class European restaurant, but the scope may expand to incorporate dining experiences from other cultures if there is enough time.
There are numerous advantages to using a "serious game" to educate users on dining etiquette:
Pro/Cons
Advantages
- Scalability of scope: While our current design is focused on creating a dining simulator for one type of dining environment (European-style restaurant), by using a game we can easily adapt the game to take on other environments- for example a busy Chinese banquet-style restaurant, or a Japanese tea house. This can be done fairly easily by programming things a bit differently - swapping out the graphics, changing parameters for things like eating speed, and adding a few culture-specific mini-games or tasks (instead of passing the salt by hand, rotate a spinning jenny to pass on a teapot). With a traditional text material, video programming, or hands-on course, a developer would have to write an entirely new book, or prepare an entirely new course with another teacher.
- Feedback: While text materials and video provide only one-way interaction, using a game allows the user to receive feedback on how well they do, thus allowing the user to "train" and see if they are really learning/getting better.
- Cost and accesibility: Commercial text materials and video often cost money, and so does taking a class. Even learning through experience has costs associated with eating out on a regular basis, instead of just eating at home. In addition, there are only so many meals a day that a user can practice with until they're full. A game, however, can be picked up and played as many times as a user wants, whenever and where ever she wants.
Disadvantages
- Lack of true immersion: While we aim to provide a realistic experience, and the interaction of the user makes the game potentially more useful than a one-way text or video, a mouse and keyboard interface is still a far cry from the realistic experience of actually sitting down at a restaurant.
- Limitation in tasks: Because of a finite amount of time and resources, and also the unpredictability of real-life, a game can only plan for and script a finite number of tasks that a user might experience and handle. However, there is no way to program for and demonstrate every real-life situation that may arise.
- Generalization: While the game will focus on a specific type of dining culture (e.g. "French Restaurant"), this will generalize the dining experience into a single generic archetype of the restaurant type. In real life, all restaurants (even those within a certain culture) are variable in their atmospheres and thus the etiquette expectations of the diners.
Additional Solutions
Here we compare and contrast competing methods of learning dining etiquette.
Etiquette course: The classic way of learning proper dining etiquette is by taking a formal course in the subject.
Pros:
- Hands on experience with an expert who can show you everything.
- You get to practice with other people learning at the same time.
Cons:
- Costs money
- Significant time commitment
- You must go somewhere to do it
Articles and Websites on Etiquette
Pros:
- You needn't leave the house to learn
- Free, if you are searching the Web
- Explanatory diagrams that may say more than if you were just watching someone do it
Cons:
- Dubious quality and accuracy
- Unless you are really dedicated, you won't actually try out the things you learn - no hands-on tasks.
