Do Good Project Week 8 : Core Experience Testing & Prototyping (Serial communication between p5.js and Arduino)

User Prototype - Core Experience Testing 

Test 2

This week, I start to test out the core experience of the prototyping to the main target audiences. I have listed two scenarios. 
Scenario 1- Expressing negativity and positivity using intonations without the guide of Melda
Scenario 2- Expressing negativity and positivity with the guide of Melda

Based on the user testing, it is found that users did not know what to do in scenario 1 if the users are given their own time to do whatever they want in the room. The interaction experience does not hit the main concept as users are just shouting and playing around with the intonations in the room. They request to have a guide for them to express themselves and visualize the feedback given by the jellyfish.

  • 100% of the users are willing to express their negative thoughts and talk with the jellyfish as they are given a personal space to talk with the jellyfish. 
  • 100% of the users wish to interact with the jellyfish and have a guide to express themselves.
  • 100% of the users want to experience watching the changes of the jellyfish while talking. 
  • 100% of the users mention that the duration of interaction would be great around 5-10 minutes.
  • 50% of the users hope to see environmental changes when they talk about different topics.

The users do not care about the intonations but the content they want to share with Melda. Thus, the technical on the intonations does not impact a lot on the users but the outcome of the light transition. Different intonations could be applied to Melda when the user speaks in different intonations on a specific topic. For instance, when the user speaks in lower intonations, the light transition will be slower.

Critical Thinking

There are two possible ways for the execution and it depends on the goal and direction that I would like to achieve. This project could be executed either in an abstract form from an artist's perspective or user-driven. Based on the feedback that I've gathered, they would like to talk with the jellyfish specifically on the negative and positive topics. Thus, I have changed the execution part again by giving a prescript scripting on the jellyfish and setting a timer for it to proceed to another conversation. Right now, the project has eventually become a user-driven project. 



However, this execution is opposed to the meaning of an experienced project. Interactive installations are normally experienced-based and are meant for users to understand the meaning behind the installation by themselves. Thus, I have a dilemma whether to listen to the user completely or create an installation that is more emphasizes the experience.

The reason that I'm struggling with the final execution is that if I'm focusing on the user's need, the outcome of every user is the same as everything is prescripted and it looks fake to the users since every user will get the same outcome as cool colors are scoped under negative topic and warm colors are scoped under the positive topic. Every user will have the same experience and outcome.

From my last proposal, the transition of the LED lights is based on the intonations of the user. Nevertheless, the main motive of users is just talking to the jellyfish and sharing their "secrets" that have been kept in their inner hearts.

I'm trying to think of a way to combine both solutions. Am I able to allow users to talk freely to the jellyfish and visualize the transition of the lights? Should I have a better introduction of narration that could lead the users to speak something negative and something positive and let them figure out the meaning behind it? Thus, there is much more aspect to consider for a physical interactive installation. I have to find a way to let users express themselves with quality expression and not just shout and play through the guidance of the curator and the narration from the jellyfish in the beginning. 

Technical Tryout

In the meantime, I've started to work on the technical part. This project will need to communicate between Arduino (C++) and p5.js (java). I quite struggle in the technical part as I'm freshly new to Arduino, java, and teachable machine. I have to explore the serial communication between the Arduino and p5.js. 

To connect the p5web editor and Arduino, we will have to import the p5 Serial port to the HTML file. This will be the code. Besides, I also have to download the p5 serial port in order to make the communication work.

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/p5.serialserver@0.0.28/lib/p5.serialport.js"></script>


During the technical exploration, I have struggled a lot to communicate with both devices as I have no clue about both languages. I have tried out roughly around two weeks and do further research on this. Besides, I also seek help from the lecturer in order to have a better understanding of the languages. On this part, I have successfully connected the communication between p5 and Arduino by sending the serial data. I only use keypad to trigger the LED lights to light up. 

Since I have different light effects coded out in the Arduino, I try to have a random light effect when it's receiving the data input. There are many obstacles when exploring the coding part, however, I have managed to do some minor tryouts for now.


Sources

Yuan, I.Y. (2018) Tutorial: Serial Communication with Arduino and p5.js. Medium. Nov 6. Available at: https://medium.com/@yyyyyyyuan/tutorial-serial-communication-with-arduino-and-p5-js-cd39b3ac10ce 

Van, S. (n.d) p5.serialport . GitHub. Available at: https://github.com/p5-serial/p5.serialport 

NPM. (2020) p5.serialserver. Available at: https://www.npmjs.com/package/p5.serialserver#examples

js6450. (2019) p5.serialport.  GitHub. Aug 8. Available at: https://github.com/p5-serial/p5.serialport/blob/master/lib/p5.serialport.js

ITP Physical Computing. (n.d) Lab: Serial Input to P5.js. Available at: https://itp.nyu.edu/physcomp/labs/labs-serial-communication/lab-serial-input-to-the-p5-js-ide/

ITP Physical Computing (n.d) Lab: Two-Way (Duplex) Serial Communication Using An Arduino and P5.js. Available at: https://itp.nyu.edu/physcomp/labs/labs-serial-communication/two-way-duplex-serial-communication-using-p5js/


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