A Virtual Environment for Designing User Interface Prototypes with

Accessibility Requirements

Cynthia CalongneSteven Endorf

Dawn FrankovichJohnny Sandaire

Colorado Technical University

CCSC Rocky Mountain Regional Conference

October 17, 2008

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Usability and Interaction • Interface design in a virtual world

– Presence– Environment– Tools– Collaboration– Interaction– Project creation– Usability testing– Assessment

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The authors learn to build and texture their class projects

Early Skill Development

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A self-guided tutorial for building a 20-minute project

Modeling in Second Life

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Using Second Life for UI Design• Self image

• Social networks

• Mentor, feedback

• Class projects

• Roleplay

• Tool integration

• Immersive design

• Build simulations

• Empirical testing

• Sense of presence

• Attend classes, collaborate

• Office hours, facilitation

• Applied learning activities

• Immersive learning

• MSN Live Meeting, phones

• Inside the organism

• Create prototypes

• Observe user behavior

80% of the world’s Internet users will be in a virtual world by 2011 (Gartner, 2007)

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CS 820 Win 08 Class Projects

Newsstand, Electronic Voting Machine, Refrigerator

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Design for Accessibility

• For vision and mobility impaired users

• Asynchronous and synchronous design activities

• 3D graphics, sounds, gestures and interaction

• Models, textures, sounds, animations, scripts

• Focus on user characteristics and task performance

• Collaboration in class and among students

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Students new to a virtual world create low fidelity interface designs

and conduct usability tests in a virtual world

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Interaction and Empirical Testing• Observed behavior

– Test plan– Test procedure– Roles– Volunteers– Observation– Measurements– Analysis– Results

Interface with rezzable objects

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Conducting usability tests of the accessibility projects

Evaluating Interface Prototypes

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Tasks and Skills Required

• Appearance– 1st self or ideal self?

• Move and look – Arrow keys or Navigation

menu

– Camera controls

• Communication– Voice, text, gestures

• Group Notices, IMs

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Project Prototypes

Newsstand for the lowvision users; selecting

option 4 to hear

Refrigerator for wheelchair users;

shelves move out and down

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Behavior and Task Performance

Studying interfaces from a wheelchair Testing the Electronic

Voting Machine interface

14Student projects on display at the TCC Online Worldwide Conference

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Experimental Design Space

Fanciful classrooms created by a powerful simulation tool

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Virtual Office Hours

Rather than view the tank in the office, get inside. The water’s fine!

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SL Research Links 1• Second Life

– http://secondlife.com/ http://secondlifegrid.net/

• Cynthia Calongne’s Classes in Second Life– http://ctusoftware.blogspot.com

• Research in Second Life presentation– http://www.slideshare.net/lyrlobo/research-in-second-life

• Artificial Intelligence in SL– http://web.bvu.edu/faculty/schweller/

• TCC Preconference Wiki -- SL from a Flash drive tips– http://tccpre-conference.pbwiki.com/

• Edumuve– http://edumuve.com/tour/ and http://edumuve.com/blended/

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SL Research Links 2• National Public Radio’s Science Friday in SL

– http://www.sciencefriday.com/

• NMC Campus Observer– http://sl.nmc.org/

• NOAA’s Traffic Analysis– http://mayarealities.com/

• Best Practices in SL– http://www.slcn.tv/bpe-lyr-lobo

• Annotated Bibliograophy of SL Educational Resources – http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~mpepper/slbib

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SL Research Links 3• Second Life as a Virtual Learning Environment

– http://www.dokimos.org/secondlife/education/index.html

• An Educational Tour of Second Life– http://www.slideshare.net/lyrlobo/an-educational-tour-of-second-life

• A View from Second Life’s Trenches: Are you a Pioneer or a Settler?– http://sl.nmc.org/2007/06/09/pioneer-or-settler/

• Leveraging the Affordances, Minimizing the Barriers of Virtual Worlds– http://sl.nmc.org/2007/06/09/edu-panel/

• LearnScope in Second Life– http://www.slideshare.net/lyrlobo/learnscope-in-second-life

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SL Research Links 4• Using Second Life

– www.educause.edu/ir/library/powerpoint/SAC07025A.pps

• Beyond Course Management Tools: Second Life – www.educause.edu/ir/library/powerpoint/SAC07014.pps

• Virtual worlds in Online Education: Are You Ready to Teach in Second Life?– http://www.telecoop.org/conference/materials/CalogneTeachinginSecondLife.ppt

• What Can We Learn from World of Warcraft & Second Life?– http://archive.nmc.org/events/2006fallregional/materials/calongne.ppt

• SL Podcast by Bayne, Walker and Calongne– http://connect.educause.edu/blog/gbayne/podcastusingsecondli/44967?time=1188754831

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SL Research Links 5• Who’s on Second? Educational Podcasts

– http://www.rabble.ca/rpn/podcast.php?id=wos

• Second Life Development -- VITAL Lab– http://vital.cs.ohiou.edu/vitalwiki/index.php/Second_Life_Development

• Suffern Middle School in Second Life– http://rampoislands.blogspot.com/2007_02_01_archive.html

• Second Life Library 2.0– http://www.infoisland.org/drupal/ and http://www.myspace.com/73899784

• Second Life Education Wiki– http://www.simteach.com/wiki/index.php?title=Second_Life_Education_Wiki

• LSL Wiki -- programming tools– http://www.lslwiki.net/lslwiki/wakka.php?wakka=HomePage

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SL Research Links 6• Secondary Worlds

– http://secondaryworlds.com/

• Reuters -- Doors to open on Google Virtual world(s)?– http://blogs.reuters.com/mediafile/2007/10/24/doors-to-open-on-google-virtual-

worlds/

• SL and Google Earth are Transforming the Idea of Architectural Collaboration– http://archrecord.construction.com/features/digital/archives/0701dignews-2.asp

• Timeline - History of Second Life Wiki – http://secondlife.wikia.com/index.php/Second_Life_Through_The_Ages

• UberNoggin: Big Brains - Big Ideas– http://www.ubernoggin.com/

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SL Research Links 7 - News• Reuters in Second life

– http://secondlife.reuters.com/

• The SL Newspaper– http://www.sl-newspaper.com/

• Second Life Herald– http://www.secondlifeherald.com/

• Metaverse Messenger– http://metaversemessenger.com/index.html

• SLNN– http://www.slnn.com/index.php

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SL Research Links 8• New Worlds Notes

– http://nwn.blogs.com/

• SL A Virtual Universe for Real Engineering– http://www.designnews.com/index.asp?

layout=article&articleid=CA6490691

• Just Virtual– http://www.justvirtual.com/index.php/category/second-life/

• Seifert Surface - Math in Second Life– http://www.segerman.org/2ndlife.html

• Eric McLuhan in Second Life - Playing Media Ecology– http://slcn.tv/media-ecology-eric-mcluhan

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A Virtual Environment for Designing User Interface Prototypes with Accessibility Requirements

Cynthia CalongneLyr Lobo in Second Life

calongne@pcisys.nethttp://ctusoftware.blogspot.com

www.slideshare.net/lyrlobo

For more information

(left to right)Johnny Sandaire,Steve Endorf , Dawn Frankovich and Lyr Lobo

Lyr Lobo