Assignment10BairdCunninghamSmith

Assignment10BairdCunninghamSmith

To Do

Be prepared to give a 5-10 minute presentation about your project in class so the other students and the instructors understand your ideas and can see the progress you have made

Please post in the Wiki the following things about your project:

• title
• abstract
• team members and their responsibilities (e.g: how have you split up your work?)
• why is the project of interest to you?
• description of what you have done so far
• plan what you will do in the remaining time till the final projects reports are due
• relationship of your work to the major themes presented and discussed in the class
• references identified

Group response

1. Members of the Group

Will Baird, Dara Cunningham, Matt Smith

2. Question 1

Title: Exploring User Centered Design Techniques in Architectural Models using 3D Simulations

Abstract:

In this study, we would like to use simulated building models to provide a way to predict the actual use of the environment. We hope to find correlations between the way users evaluate building simulations and the way they evaulate buildings. The significance of this research could be a change in the way we approach the design of the environments we live in, allowing designers to apply user-centered design techniques to the built environment before the environment is built.

Team Members and Their Responsibilities:

The team members are Will Baird, Dara Cunningham, and Matt Smith. The work so far has been more of a joint effort. Once we determine the building simulation model and the technical specifications of this project, the work will be split based on the team members' strengths

Team Members' Interests':

Will's Interest:

Will is interested in exploring ways that technologies can be utilized to improve society; including groups that do not consider themselves tech savy (specific technologies include: SketchUp, Second Life, and wikis).

Dara's Interest:

Dara's PhD work is concentrated on applying information design methodologies to the design of buildings and other environments, focusing on usability and user-centered design.

Matt's Interest:

Matt's interest involves the incorporation of the social network created by interactions formed when collaborating on projects such as rating systems and information organization.

3. Question 2

What We Have Done So Far

We have decided what we will be researching. We will be looking at how user-centered design techniques can be used in architecture models by using 3D simulations. Our idea is to create a way that user input can be added to models of buildings through metadata comments expressing what they like and don't like and what they find useful or not.

We began by exploring Second Life, OpenSim environments, and SketchUp / Google 3D Warehouse. All three of these platforms have pros and cons for us to explore further in making a decision regarding testing a building simulation. Our basic idea is to recreate (or find a suitable recreation) of a building that has already been built, then have people rate the model based off selected criteria, like aesthetics, accessibility, efficiency of use, etc., and give feedback about what they would like to see added or taken away.

In addition to online platforms, we are exploring building a model in a game engine, a traditional architectural package, or a human simulation modeling program. The open source game engines that have been recommended to us are Ogre and Torque. The two professional architectural packages we are exploring are AutCcad and AutoCad Revit. The human modeling simulation package we have reviewed is Jack.The potential issues with using game engines, architectural packages, or human modeling simulation software are that they may not be convertable to the online environment and they may not be importable into popular online user environments.

So far, we have interviewed Dr. Ray McCall, Dr. Mark Dubin, John Bacus, Matt Simpson, Chad Corbin, and Michael Brandemuehl. Dr. McCall suggested we concentrate on Second Life, Game Engines, or architectural packages for the building model, rather than SketchUp / Google 3D Warehouse. Dr. Dubin suggested we concentrate on Second Life for the building model and gave us a good overview of Second Life. John Bacus and Matt Simpson informed us that SketchUp models are not importable into Second Life (and vice versa). Chad Corbin and Michael Brandemuehl told us that there are no 3D building models of the CU Solar Decathlon buildings that they're aware of, other than a SketchUp model of the 2007 model which is in pieces (one of our initial thoughts was to try to use the award-winning Solar Decathlon buildings for this study).

Some Pros and Cons of the Platforms We've Explored:

Second Life

Pros: Many users, Detailed interiors with walk or fly through abilities
Cons: Need to rent land to conduct experiment, Not many real life buildings in existence, Proprietary scripting, Unclear whether metadata tags can be added to building models

OpenSim Environments

Pros: Free, Don't use proprietary scripting
Cons: Few users, Not many real life buildings already there, Unclear whether metadata tags can be added to building models

SketchUp / Google 3Dwarehouse

Pros: Easy to construct, Easy to find real building models
Cons: Not built for walk or fly through, Hard to find models with an interior design

Game Engines

Pros: Highly detailed user environment
Cons: Learning curve for programming, Will have to create a custom model, May not be online portable, Unclear whether metadata tags can be added to building models

Architectural Packages

Pros: Highly detailed user environment, Incorporate highly detailed Building Information Modeling, May be able to find an existing building model to use
Cons: Learning curve or potential need to find model builder, May not be online portable

Human Modeling Simulation Software

Pros: Utilize simulated human models that are programmed for ergonomics and testing human factors
Cons: Proprietary software, May not be portable to an online environment, Learning curve and development time, Potentially no real building models in existence

We have created a work space on Assembla for project collaboration and document repository (http://www.assembla.com/spaces/object_community_curators/tickets). We are also exploring Second Life for real building models located in Boulder, Denver, or their surrounds.

4. Question 3

What Will We Do in the Remaining Time Until the Final Project Reports are Due:

We have identified some of the upcoming tasks as:
survey by testing users with the building simulation, then a real building

create a model with open source game engine software

create a model in Second Life

research the Google 3D Warehouse for SkethUp objects with developed interior spaces

explore second inventory as a potential object warehouse http://www.secondinventory.com/

Our major goals for the remainder of the semester are to determine a workable research path and to fully plan the implementation of this path for next semester's class. We will concentrate on searching for and testing potential models and platforms. We will also be developing a literature review.

Relationship of Our Work to the Major Themes Presented and Discussed in the Class:

As a group, we are working through the creative process as described by Schneiderman: Collect, Relate, Create, and Donate. We are incorporating Schneiderman's methods for achieving user-centered designs in our research model (user needs assessment, as identified in international building evaluation criteria, usability testing, and customer feedback). We are also allowing users to participate in a collaborative creative environment.

It is our intent to create a prosumer supportive and underdesigned environment that will enhance the following user groups: architects, community planners, citizens, building occupants, and home purchasers. We plan to create basic building evaluation categories and then make it very intuitive for users to add new categories. We are investing significant upfront efforts evaluating what is currently available and in use by our user groups. This will permit us to understand their paradigms, wants, and needs.

References Identified:

We expect a successful research study to generate a substantial amount of data. Having a large information base gives us the opportunity to explore information collection and sorting methods. Janet Kolodner's work regarding case-based reasoning may be helpful to us in this task. Kolodner's work in case-based reasoning suggests design can be informed by compiling libraries of documents that highlight both good and bad design elements (according to user tests).

John Carroll's research into use-based design rationale provides us with concepts to use in developing new design rationale models. This study may give us data we can use to feed into a new design rationale model.
We will always need to manage the design of efficient and reliable devices. If we also take seriously seeing them as artifacts of human activity, as elements of designed situations, as participants in causal relations with human experiences, we will improve our chances for deliberately designing computers that are what we want them to be: stimulating and useful tools for people.
(Carroll, 1994, 35)

Donald Schon presents a synergistic model in The Reflective Practitioner (Schon, 1983, 239) that takes into account the place that "intuition" holds when dealing with unique situations. This "on-the-spot surfacing, criticizing, restructuring, and testing of intuitive understandings of experienced phenomena" is defined as reflection in action (Schon, 1983, 241). It is our hope that this study will allow us to monitor and collect information about the building simulation users' reflection in action.

References:

Carroll, J. (1994). Making Use: A Design Representation. Communications of the ACM, 37(12). 28-35.
Kolodner, J. (1991). Improving Human Decision Making through Case-Based Decision Aiding. AI Magazine, 12(2). 52-68.
Schneiderman, B. (2003). Leonardo's Laptop: Human Needs and the New Computing Technologies. The MIT Press: Cambrige, Massachusetts.
Schon, Donald. (1983). The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. Basic Books.