Category: Critical practice

After merge with Xuan’s file we planed to have this user reasearch in the classroom.

The main aim of this projects is to test how peoole react to the voiceover. Because this experience is quite vision-limited so we used a lot VoiceOver and soundeffect to guide the audience.

The first aspect investigated in the interviews was that of the backstory of the main character. We find that detailed story background and voice acting is necessary in order to enhance the characterization, but that might make the experience too long especially when the character tells the story without any visuals. But 60% interviewees think the backstory story is not long. 

Feedback on the clarity of the voice guide is given both generally and regarding specific details. The general feedback is quite encouraging, with most users finding this experience is what they expected, “very close” to the blind people’s life

The research plan was in the classroom. We decide to invite 5 people to experience and help answer few questions.

The interview question is focus on how clear of this interactivity.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1f9OBGgar0FdR6JIpJdnUDcuP5TPVoDsGSew3UJCDUhw/edit

And we got many results to iterate this project.

The interesting thing is I found everyone think each tasks’ difficulties are really different. I think that’s mainly because we have really long VoiceOver in each scene. But if someone accidently trigger the task then the next vo will play. At this time some voice just came together so they will miss something.

So some people would get the task successfully but some don;t.

Base on the results ,we assigned the task to each other. I will keep working on adjust the subtitle and the menu part and keep working on the last chapter.

Specific feedback on the clarity of individual interactions varies. For instance, the task of “finding clothes” is quite easy for some players because the hint is undeniable. But there are also comments that because they missed the voiceover, it makes judgments even harder in fully dark environments. 

Another example of the use of terms, mentioned by multiple interviewees, is that multiple audios were triggered at the same time which may hinder the continuity of this experience.

The unpredictability of the trigger and the specificity of the voiceover only play once，lead to distinguish feedback from each interaction. It required us to develop the task in a more structured and logical way such as Cutting down the length of the narrative or adding more task-based navigations. Meanwhile both users and developers find that the difficulty of  tasks is necessary for the concept.

in addition to clarification of the difficulty of interaction. Half interviewee mentioned that the voiceover didn’t make it clear when the task was completed. For instance, one of the participants thought there wasn’t much clarity when they completed a task, it just moved on. Some interviewees suggested adding more visual or sound effects of completion or making the spatial sounds more clear. This was a suggestion for enriching the sound design as mentioned above.

In general, the interviewees commented that the feel of this experience in terms of clarity was positive throughout, however, the above-mentioned comments on further explanation provide important feedback for future revisions.

In this week， Rita helped to do the voiceover for the whole experience. So I am trying to add the voice guide as much as possible.

Which is just add the subtile at the scene to make the voiceover more clear.

I connect the first two scene. The backstory also the first scene

Meanwhile I found this experience can be hard to understand. For example, When first time we start the voiceover, there’s no any visual thing appears on the screen. But as the time pass bys

And for the wrist menu. I am trying to make the layout like the prescription. User can restart the current scene they are were or start the whole chapter if they miss something . And also has the button if they wanna exit the game。

It’s a bit tricky when I started to do it because if I wanna use menu button to open the wristmenu I need to made a new input system and write the every function I need to do with the menu. I spent a couple of days to figure it out.

I want to add the hint of every scene in the beginning, but it turns out it became muchcomplicatedlacted.

At the beginning I wish It could offer some clues to players to understand. But when we do it becomes a bit diffcult to make it came true . So i decide to do it as the way just share the same menu.

Since 2 weeks ago I did the window open effect and I found a easy way to trigger the volume

Bascially just make a float at volume and change it when the player trigger the window.

Meanwhile I am also making the start scene.

The plan was to let the user are in infinite black but when i test it in unity, It gives a feeling that we haven’t finish the making of this experience. Also it may caused the confusion of people who may not have aware of what this exoerience for.

So we decide to have some visual effects and add the ui to this scene.

I have found this curve UI trying to make it work and I also found some reference of VR UI in different Vr experience.

I think in many VR films, they don’t set the button to let the player know . But on the contary there’re lots of Vr UI examples.

I think it may caused by the complexity of this experience. In another way ,if controller have more function, the story have lots of gameplay for different chapters, then it’s necessary to have the UI interface.

But in our experience, we have this coginitive gap of normal people and visually impaired people, with the part of visual loss(we make it on purpose), it became harder to understand and explore. On the top of that , I think it’s necessary to have this UI system.

Like in the “book of distance”, I think that’s a really easy way to build this system. It only has three functions, exit ,main menu and continue. It help the user undestand where to quit or where are they.

In the last post. I did the shader for this psychedelic shader. So for now i am trying to end more interaction to this experience.

According to the script.

So in this term, the mechaic is just get the task and get to the window to open it . Then will hear the background sound lounder. And I did it with the triggerenter

Based on the interview and the research we made together, We designed several task to do in this experience.

And I am trying to write the script based on that.

I wrote in the first person way. We assume the player enter this story with the view of the main character “grandma”. But also for the story experience, I decide to let the voicc to became the Guide as well.

In this case , the voice will guide the user to go throught the whole experience. Because we don’t have much visual on the story so actually takes us quite long time to keep going through the whole experience.

Meanwhile I also working on the shade to the similar effects

At the first

I tried to do with one map but is not really close to what we really wanna.

And then I asked for help to Zans , he helped give anther solution.

Bacially is combined two maps together. And it worked pretty well.

In the past spring break we didn’t do anything new. So at the beginning this term we update the storyline once again.

We updated the idea of how the cross platform will work in this experience. In the new version. We use ar as an introduction of the backstory of our story. Then users will enter in the Vr experience of what do normal people think of visual impaired people would see, then they will turn into what blind people really see.

On the top of that, we’ve made research of how normal people see and also we interviewed a visual impaired people what’s the lfe be like with the help of one of the classmate, Cal.

Here’s some of the results.

And also the interview

This is the link https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hypIu10ftjWkbWUoOhoeSmOiJDd4142QnyXgP0IDp7I/edit