Adventures of Drater the penguin INF4260 Human-Computer Interaction Project Final Report Project Group: Johan Malmanger, Øyvind Nyborg Hauback, P˚alBjering Torgersen, Alexandru Palade, Dirk Tassilo Hettich University of Oslo Department of Informatics December 4, 2010 1 Adventures of Drater the penguin Page 2 Contents 1 Introduction 3 2 Background 3 3 Assumptions 3 4 Conceptual Model 4 5 Research 4 5.1 Similar Projects . .4 5.2 Industry And Product Research . .5 6 Technology 6 6.1 MT4J . .6 6.2 AS3 . .7 7 Understanding Users 8 7.1 Usability Goals . .8 7.2 User Experience Goals . .9 8 Design Process Remarks 9 9 Iterative Design Process 10 9.1 General . 10 9.2 First Iteration . 11 9.2.1 Existing Games' Analysis . 11 9.2.2 Feedback Session . 12 9.2.3 Results . 12 9.2.4 Analysis . 13 9.3 Second Iteration . 14 9.3.1 Prototypes . 14 9.3.2 Feedback Session . 16 9.3.3 Results . 17 9.3.4 Analysis . 17 9.4 Third Iteration - Final Product . 17 10 Conclusions And Further Work 17 11 Appendix 20 11.1 Questionnaire . 20 11.2 Group Members . 20 11.3 References . 21 INF4260 HCI Project - Final Report Page 2 Adventures of Drater the penguin Page 3 Abstract: Designing a game suite for the MultiTouch with the purpose of entertainment and education of our user group which consists of people between 18 and 25. 1 Introduction In this project, our goal was to design edutainment games for the MultiTouch. Our target group is people between 18 and 25. The market for multitouch applications, especially mini-games, exploded since most current devices use this technology like smartphones, iPads, GalaxyTabs. Users at this age are also considered the digital generation and they therefore spend a lot of time using these products. Furthermore, the faculty of informatics at University of Oslo, i.e. IFI, is opening a new building and planning to exhibit the MultiTouch there. This is a good showcase to experience new technology and students' work. We wanted to use the MT4J framework to fully implement a working game prototype for the MultiTouch. After using the framework for some time, we discovered that it is more complex than we thought and that making a fully implemented prototype would be way too time consuming. Nevertheless, we spent some time understanding the framework and we point out the basics in the Technology part (chapter 6) more thoroughly, in order to give possible software developers a first clue of where to start. Because of the complications we had trying to make a working prototype with the MT4J framework, we decided that we would still focus on edutainment games, but use a new approach. Our new approach was to get feedback from our target group on popular online flash games similar to our desired games and get their thoughts on how they see the possibility to port aspects of these games to the MultiTouch. Our final game was made in flash with ActionScript3. The game was designed based on the feedback we got on the existing online games from our questionnaires and the focus group. 2 Background The main problem is that there is a lack of useful software that uses the full potential of the MultiTouch. There are a lot of different demos that show the ability to interact with multiple touches but few of them have a purpose other than this. A goal would be to find some areas where the MultiTouch can do a better job than other devices. A problem connected to the MultiTouch is that few have tried the device and even fewer would actually think of multi-touch as an device and not just a technology found in several smartphones and other devices. There is a need for easy to learn and fun software that can introduce the average user to the positive sides of using the MultiTouch compared to using other devices. There is already a lot of small mini-games available for regular interfaces. Many of them do not use a suitable controller, often only keyboard or mouse. We want to find out if the MultiTouch could give a better user experience in these games. In addition, implementing suitable games will show the possibilities of the MultiTouch in a fun way. 3 Assumptions Based on this background we have made the following assumptions: • People between 18-25 years of age like mini-games. • Mini games can stimulate and increase people's cognitive and intellectual capacity. INF4260 HCI Project - Final Report Page 3 Adventures of Drater the penguin Page 4 • Use of a MultiTouch might be a better way of controlling mini-games compared to con- ventional controls (keyboard and mouse). 4 Conceptual Model As mentioned in the introduction we wanted to make a suite of edutainment games aimed towards young adults between 18 and 25, for the MultiTouch. Our approach was to focus on existing games which we want to make improved implementations of, for the MultiTouch table. Common to all the games should be that they have a factor of edutainment. This means that the game should provide challenges that will help the user to increase their simultaneous capacity by improving perception, information processing, decision-making, mathematical, logical and physical exercises using both hands at the same time. The startup menu will be very simple, with inviting icons representing each game floating around a box in the center. To play, the user will simply drag the game of his or her choice into the box. Because we're using vectorized graphics it's possible to re-size the area the game covers of the screen. If the screen is big enough, one could also have multiple games running at the same time. When the user is finished playing a game, he can watch the high score list for that game. He can also log on to save his results and then look at statistics of his progress in each game. Then it will be possible to compete both against yourself and other users. 5 Research The following will introduce similar projects using multitouch technology and industrial, scientific research. 5.1 Similar Projects Developing applications for our target group using the multi-touch table is not a new concept. Over the years, some organizations made use of this technology in order to bring a better expe- rience to the end-user. The 3-years old Swedish company Illusion Labs1 created different appli- cations for multitouch screens. Their applications make use of strong interaction, good physics implementation and great graphics resulting in great user experience. For example, Touchgrind2 is a game that needs two fingers in order to control a skateboard. The idea is that you are in a skate park and you need to gather as many points as you can within a time limit by doing tricks using multi touch gestures: rotating your fingers will cause the skateboard to rotate in the air, pressing on the back of the skateboard will cause the skateboard to flip, etc. Because the user is always engaged in the game and his focus is kept throughout the game, the application tends to be pretty addictive and fun for people to play. Other games from this company, include, but are not limited to, Sway3, an action game played by one character and Labyrinth4, an interactive game in which the goal is to go through an obstacle maze. In 2009, a company named MOTO presented in Las Vegas5 a multi touch table specially designed for user to be able to play blackjack without any dealers. Every player at the table can touch the cards and chips at any time, flip them without other players seeing them, raise the bets, etc. 1http://www.illusionlabs.com/ 2http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vp698WdQJD0 3http://www.swaythegame.com/web/trailer.html 4http://www.labyrinth2.com/ 5http://hothardware.com/News/MOTOs-MultiTouch-BlackJack-Table-Puts-The-Dealer-Out-Of- INF4260 HCI Project - Final Report Page 4 Adventures of Drater the penguin Page 5 (a) Labyrinth2 (b) Touchgrind (c) Sway Figure 1: Screenshots from Labyrinth2, Touchgrind, and Sway games on different architectures employing multitouch. They managed to make the design totally intuitive, also enforcing good implicit automatizations (e.g. it assumes that you do not want to show the cards to everyone at your table, so your cards are hidden by default). 5.2 Industry And Product Research The brainfitness software market is a large and growing one, in the US alone estimated at $225M in 2008, an 18% annual increase from 2007 (SharpBrains). There are many studies indicating that INF4260 HCI Project - Final Report Page 5 Adventures of Drater the penguin Page 6 brainfitness games improve cognitive skills (Gopher, Weil, Bareket), spatial skills (Subrahmanyam, Greenfield) and overall mental health as well as delay brain degeneration in relation to Alzheimer and other such illnesses. Playing games also increases eye-hand coordination and can be used, for instance, to increase a surgeons laprascopic performance (Arch Surg. 2007). Our focus is not, however, to just help people stimulate their brains, but rather to have fun whilst doing it. Edutainment, or educational entertainment, is defined as a form of entertainment where the goal is not only to amuse, but also to educate the user. It is now the most commonly used word in describing any sort of electronic education (wikipedia). Edutainment is sometimes accused of drill-and-practice learning principles, i.e. that the user learns the answer to questions by memorization after being exposed to them on multiple occasions, rather than truly understanding the underlying rules (Egenfeldt-Nielsen).