TBD-Script
From CS 160 Fall 2008
Hi, thank you very much for participating in our interview; my name is __________. This is a project for CS 160, User Interfaces, in which we are trying to design a serious game that will encourage people to drive in a manner that consumes less gas by linking their driving behavior to the well-being of a character whose image you can see on your cell phone whenever you enter the game.
We’d like you to begin by first signing this consent form, which in summary states that you agreed to do this of your own free will and that you weren’t associated with us in any way, so that we can attest that our interviewees were not biased.
Now, the way this interview will be set up is that you will be asked to utilize our user interface as if we aren’t here. You may communicate with me any concerns you have during the course of the interview, but I will be unable to provide you with any assistance. ____ will be serving as the Computer, he will be primarily be there to move the pieces of our prototype around; the other three will be observing and taking notes. To maintain an unbiased experiment, none of them will be allowed to communicate with you.
Next, I’d like to go through a demonstration task. Your interaction will be primarily with this low-fidelity prototype; it looks crude largely because we are operating under the design principle that having the basic concepts down in a low-fidelity form will help us focus on the basics of the user interface design before committing into any arbitrary and at the moment irrelevant design decisions such as fonts and colors.
As I’ve said, the purpose of this game is to save gas. Thus, once your character has bee initiated, you go through this main menu first by using the left-hand select button, then use the arrow keys to navigate the cursor. This opens a window indicating how much you drove last week, what your goal was, and an editable text field asking you to set your goal for this week. How well you drive (whether you have rapidly changing acceleration and deceleration and whether or not you have heavy braking) affects your character’s mood, while whether or not you meet your driving goal for the week affects your characters growth and health. An image of your character's reaction the previous week serves as a reminder of how your driving behavior affected him.
Any questions?
Contents |
Task 1: Character set up
Okay, now your first task is to set up the character, which is the first screen you see when you begin the game.
Task 2: Collecting and Reviewing Data
After you set the character, each time you drive you will want to set the game into the data collection mode so that it is able to keep track of how far you are driving and your rates of acceleration. How do you think you should do this?
Task 3: Character Customization
In this game, good driving behavior is rewarded with cash points, which you can use to purchase items in the store and improve its mood and aesthetic appeal. How would you go about doing this?
Now that you have purchased an item, how would you put it on your character?
Task 4: Carpooling
Our game has a feature that facilitates carpooling - this is one means of saving gas, and consequently, carpooling also increases the reward (in cash points) for your character. If you were to carpool, how would you go about achieving the points associated with it?
