Friday, April 3, 2009
EXPERIMENT GUIDELINES + PLAN ASSIGNMENT
Comment on this post if you have a suggestion for something to be added or amended, so I and others can respond. This may need at least one update.
A. GENERAL EXPERIMENT GUIDELINES
1. Approximately one (1) hour in duration
2. Designed to involve the whole class, playing specific roles
3. May optionally involve SL members (individually invited or open via posting on the SL Schedule of Events
4. Participatory, with a variety of roles
5. Graduate students must incorporate a link(s) to SurveyMonkey.com in the event (Jade Liang's blog will have how-to information on this - Thanks, Jade)
6. DOCUMENTATION IS KEY - assign enough people to roles for documenting the experiment event (snapshots, video, written) to give yourself a lot of good evidence for your research.
B. EXPERIMENT PLAN ASSIGMENT - DRAFT DUE TUESDAY 4/7 FOR CONSULTATION WITH JANE
EXPERIMENT PLAN
(What is this? This document will be provided to experiment participants prior to the scheduled start time and should minimally include the following information. Your experiment may need additional speks.)
What is included? (see detailed notes, below, on each of these items)
EXPERIMENT PLAN NOTES
1. EXPERIMENT TITLE - CONCISE
This can use the same title as your design concept or derive more specifically from what activities or scenario the experiment involves.
2. EXPERIMENT SCENARIO - STATE THIS IN ONE SENTENCE
Description of the basic focus of the experiment. You will design, organize, and conduct an experiment aimed to inform you about some essential or basic dimension of your concept design for a virtual world or virtual world application. The experiment SCENARIO should focus the participants' experience on that essential or basic dimension of your virtual world concept that you want to be informed about, the "what if?" at the heart of it. This may be the participants' perceptual experience of the immediate environment or the participants' experience of their transactions with objects and/or other participants.
3. The EXPERIMENT MECHANICS - STATE THIS IN 3-6 SENTENCES
Describe the basic activities/interactions by which the participants will engage the focus, i.e. what the participants do. These actions/interactions should be as simple and straightforward as possible. Don't be too subtle - make the goals, problems, and activities CLEAR and DIRECT. Don't make your participants' actions involve too many sequential steps before they get feedback or accomplish something - it will be too easy for them to go wrong or lose patience.
4. SL LOCATION
Name of the location AND the exact SLURL where participants should meet. If there any landmarks we need to know about, identify those. If there is a certain time-of-day we should set our client software to, tell us that.
5. ROLES - ONE SENTENCE EACH
Describe each roles that participants are to play. This experiment will be an event designed to involve the whole class. Designing key roles for participants forms the basic structural foundation for their experience.
Make the roles specific and focused. Participants will automatically expand and customize them as they improvise in the real time event; don't try to plan or control everything. That would be boring. Some examples: member, player, reporter, documenter (snapshots or video), hero, villain, fall-guy, zen monk, driver, tester, griefer, godzilla, tourist, etc.)
6. ROLE ASSIGNMENTS - LIST OF NAMES AND ROLES
YOU decide who is going to do what using the list of student/avatar names, below. It's simpler if you just assign us to roles. Don't agonize too much over who gets what role. Make sure you have enough people doing DOCUMENTATION, e.g. snapshots and/or video.
7. ASSETS PROVIDED - CONCISE LIST
List what assets will be involved and how we get them. Which ones do you provide/how and when do we get them.
8. PARTICIPANT PREPARATION - CONCISE LIST
Any preparation the participants need to make for your experiment, e.g. avatar appearance, clothes color, hat to wear, skills to acquire (provide how-to info or link to it). Keep these simple.
9. PRODUCTION PLAN - DESCRIBE IN A SHORT PARAGRAPH
We want to get as much experiential information as possible while expending the least amount of effort in production. Research SL locations and assets to see if there are already existing resources you can use. Streamline the design of everything you create, delete unnecessary and potentially distracting details. This is not a game graphics or programming course - just designing and coordinating the activities well will take effort.
endit:
A. GENERAL EXPERIMENT GUIDELINES
1. Approximately one (1) hour in duration
2. Designed to involve the whole class, playing specific roles
3. May optionally involve SL members (individually invited or open via posting on the SL Schedule of Events
4. Participatory, with a variety of roles
5. Graduate students must incorporate a link(s) to SurveyMonkey.com in the event (Jade Liang's blog will have how-to information on this - Thanks, Jade)
6. DOCUMENTATION IS KEY - assign enough people to roles for documenting the experiment event (snapshots, video, written) to give yourself a lot of good evidence for your research.
B. EXPERIMENT PLAN ASSIGMENT - DRAFT DUE TUESDAY 4/7 FOR CONSULTATION WITH JANE
EXPERIMENT PLAN
(What is this? This document will be provided to experiment participants prior to the scheduled start time and should minimally include the following information. Your experiment may need additional speks.)
What is included? (see detailed notes, below, on each of these items)
- Experiment Title
- Scenario
- Mechanics
- SL Location
- Roles
- Role Assignments
- Assets Provided
- Participant Preparation
- Production Plan
EXPERIMENT PLAN NOTES
1. EXPERIMENT TITLE - CONCISE
This can use the same title as your design concept or derive more specifically from what activities or scenario the experiment involves.
2. EXPERIMENT SCENARIO - STATE THIS IN ONE SENTENCE
Description of the basic focus of the experiment. You will design, organize, and conduct an experiment aimed to inform you about some essential or basic dimension of your concept design for a virtual world or virtual world application. The experiment SCENARIO should focus the participants' experience on that essential or basic dimension of your virtual world concept that you want to be informed about, the "what if?" at the heart of it. This may be the participants' perceptual experience of the immediate environment or the participants' experience of their transactions with objects and/or other participants.
3. The EXPERIMENT MECHANICS - STATE THIS IN 3-6 SENTENCES
Describe the basic activities/interactions by which the participants will engage the focus, i.e. what the participants do. These actions/interactions should be as simple and straightforward as possible. Don't be too subtle - make the goals, problems, and activities CLEAR and DIRECT. Don't make your participants' actions involve too many sequential steps before they get feedback or accomplish something - it will be too easy for them to go wrong or lose patience.
4. SL LOCATION
Name of the location AND the exact SLURL where participants should meet. If there any landmarks we need to know about, identify those. If there is a certain time-of-day we should set our client software to, tell us that.
5. ROLES - ONE SENTENCE EACH
Describe each roles that participants are to play. This experiment will be an event designed to involve the whole class. Designing key roles for participants forms the basic structural foundation for their experience.
Make the roles specific and focused. Participants will automatically expand and customize them as they improvise in the real time event; don't try to plan or control everything. That would be boring. Some examples: member, player, reporter, documenter (snapshots or video), hero, villain, fall-guy, zen monk, driver, tester, griefer, godzilla, tourist, etc.)
6. ROLE ASSIGNMENTS - LIST OF NAMES AND ROLES
YOU decide who is going to do what using the list of student/avatar names, below. It's simpler if you just assign us to roles. Don't agonize too much over who gets what role. Make sure you have enough people doing DOCUMENTATION, e.g. snapshots and/or video.
7. ASSETS PROVIDED - CONCISE LIST
List what assets will be involved and how we get them. Which ones do you provide/how and when do we get them.
8. PARTICIPANT PREPARATION - CONCISE LIST
Any preparation the participants need to make for your experiment, e.g. avatar appearance, clothes color, hat to wear, skills to acquire (provide how-to info or link to it). Keep these simple.
9. PRODUCTION PLAN - DESCRIBE IN A SHORT PARAGRAPH
We want to get as much experiential information as possible while expending the least amount of effort in production. Research SL locations and assets to see if there are already existing resources you can use. Streamline the design of everything you create, delete unnecessary and potentially distracting details. This is not a game graphics or programming course - just designing and coordinating the activities well will take effort.
endit:
# posted by Jane Veeder @ 7:31 PM 
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