Physical Computing: Playtesting
Last week we had to design a product or service that we would then show to the class in an effort to see how playtesting works. For my product I designed a pair of AR glasses with help from my sister. I wanted her input because she could provide a layman's perspective while keeping me from becoming too hype-focused on unnecessary details.
She also helped streamline the three different functions the glasses could perform. Namely, second screen for notifications from the user's phone, magnification and on-board translation and finally being able to capture photos and video.
Since my product were glasses I had inadvertently figure out a loop-hole where the playtesting user would have some instinct to wear them. Thereby removing the initial barrier of trying to understand what the product does. But then I ran into a different problem all together, since the product on a surface level is similar to an existing device; glasses, the user would have to un-learn their interactions with glasses to be able to use these AR ones. How do you communicate to the user what the device can do without just flat out telling them?
This is where playtesting really helped me. In our playtest breakrooms Jane presented a great solution where once the user wears the glasses they hear a digital assistant that would tell them the functions they could perform with the glasses. The assistant could also ask the user to reach out and touch the icons they see, in this way the idea of AR could be explained to the user as well.
I also made a paper artifact that people can playtest with. I'm hoping to keep iterating on by having different people play around with this concept.