Thesis ~ Feedback

Altar V2

After I figured out the direction of my altar with my cardboard prototype, I started two new avenues of prototyping: functionality, and form.

Functionality

I knew I wanted to be running multiple thermal printers at once, and printing different things to them all. I made an order for 3 more printers, and set about making a function prototype.

This prototype includes all the goodies of my previous setup (a Raspberry Pi, a screen, a keyboard) but gains two extra printers. I followed a “1 day to proof of concept” approach here, essentially kicking this together in a single day as soon as I had the necessary parts.

This was built to test basically three things:

1. How to direct attention from looking down at a screen to looking up at a series of printers
2. Where to place the printers in comparison to the console
3. Whether the printers would “cascade” or “pool” the way I’d imagined

Form

At the same time, I started designing a form for this altar in Fusion360. I then laser-cut these altars at a smaller scale to see how they would register in real life. The laser-cut versions helped tremendously, even if they were only a few inches tall.

---

User Test

Julia and I set up in the media commons for an in-person user test. Here, a lot of things felt like they were going wrong, but they ended up giving me a lot of great feedback. Much thanks to everyone who stopped by during the feedback session.

Feedback

• Scroll/printout placement is SUPER important. When it’s behind the altar and seemingly on a space you may not want to touch, people will not engage with them.
• Receipt printers definitely mean folks want to tear the scrolls. The dotted lines I created to try and delineate the different stories? They look like tear indicators!
• People have a desire to answer more than one question. Right now the have to go back through the entire experience to answer another question, which can get frustrating.
• Kneeling is definitely an accessibility issue.
• The prompts can get a little long, I need to re-work that script.
• The connection between the question you respond to and the two other printouts is not yet clear.
• There’s a chance for the chatbot/altar to have a bit more of a persona. How can it guide your experience? How can it be a reflection or mirror of me?

---

And A Presentation Too

I also have been working on a presentation! This is what I tested with my online feedback sessions with alumni.

The general feedback:

• I’m pretty well set up for my presentation. The story is clear and compelling, and my cadence is not too rushed.
• The main missing thing is a conclusion … a wrap-up, or maybe a quote to leave the audience with.
• I have a chance to do something clever with the words, if I so desire.

Overall I’m not too worried about the presentation, but I might spend some extra time figuring out some clever ways of incorporating my actual project into the presentation format.