Report Template

During the last days we have planned on how to structure our report. We have therefore now created a template which we have based on another report template from IDC (Interaction Design Collegium).

The report will be divided into three main parts, namely:

• …an introductory section

• …a report section

• …a closing section

The introductory section should contain the following:

• FrontPage
• Title
• Author
• University
• Publish date
• Report number etc.
  

• Acknowledgements

• Abstract
• Important section since it is here the reader decides whether to continue reading the report.
• Approximately a half page (max one page)
  
• The summary must be informative and include:
• The most important results
• The conclusions drawn
• Enlighten the purpose, the method and the problem definition
• It shall not contain any fact that is not included in the report
• Is to be written last, when the report is already finished.

• Table of contents
• This section shall include both references to page numbers as well as figures.
• Table of contents
• List of figures

The report section should contain the following:

1. Introduction

• Introduce the reader to the subject at hand
• Try to capture the reader’s interest

1.1 Purpose

• Problem definition
• What does the report include, in general
• What results do we hope to achieve
• The stated problem definition must be answered in the report

1.2 Delimitations

• What delimitations have we made
• How did we do them, on what basis

1.3 Targeted Readers

• Who are the intended readers?

1.4 Report Overview

• Provide reading instructions and describe how the report is structured

2. Background

• Provide facts about the different parts that are involved in our project such as ADAS, situation awareness and ecological user interface etc.

3. Theoretical Framework

• Discuss the area based on previously studies
• Very important to provide references
• Only include subjects that are relevant for our study
  
  

4. Method

• This section shall describe our procedure throughout the project to explain our course of action
• Another important factor here is to motivate our choice of methods

5. Result

• Show and describe the results we've reached in our study
• Must be objective, no personal opinions
• Round up the “Results” section with a summary of the results
  

6. Method Critique

• Discuss the methods and material used in the study
• Could it have been performed differently to improve our methodological work?
• How generalizable are your results?
  
  

7. Discussion

• Discuss our results based on...
• Our purpose and problem definition
• Our references in our theoretical framework
• If we are presenting suggestions of improvements it’s important that we have support for these ideas and suggestions based on previously made studies (from our theoretical framework)
• If we are presenting our own thoughts without references etc. it is extremely important that we emerge that in some way

8. Conclusions

• This section should be short, concise and informative
• Try to connect the conclusions with the purpose and problem definition
  

9. Future Work

• Provide examples of future work

The closing section should contain the following:

10. List of references

• Important to list all sources in a standardized manner

• Appendix

Paper Prototyping

We have now been working with our paper prototyping which is to be used during our user tests. We started out by first making rough sketches of how the basic layout of the interface could look like and what it should contain.














Next we developed our paper prototypes to test our three different proximity ideas: Slider, Bar without boundaries and Bar with boundaries based on our sketches.




























Then we made lines which are going to illustrate the lane in the display by attaching them to a transparent plastic folder so that they can be moved (in sideway).















Here is a demonstration of our final prototype which will be used in the user tests.

Brainstorming!

We have now started sketching on possible layouts for our ecological interface. The work started with first defining all the requirements we have received from Anders (our supervisor) which the interface must fulfill, namely that:

• …it shall be dynamic
• …the information shall be analog rather than digital
• …it shall be integrated
• …it shall be ecological
• …it shall provide a good overview
• …it shall include basic usability aspects; such as ease of- understanding, and remembering etc.
  

In the next step we drew one sketch individually of a possible layout for the interface so that we later on could compare our ideas and thoughts. Some similarities were discovered right away which lead on to further discussions and collaborative work in order to find one, joint interface concept.

Brainstorming became the method we used in order to find new possible and innovative ways of showing the information. So first we performed brainstorming for determining design proposals on how to illustrate the distance of adjacent traffic. As soon as we had a fair amount of different proposals we then examined how well each one of them fulfilled the stated requirements.


















This was carried out by attaching post-its tags with the name of each requirement they fulfilled so that we easily could omit the inadequate proposals. The three best proposals will later on be included in the user tests.


















We also performed a brainstorm together with the post-its afterwards for determining how to visually illustrate the last warning before the auditory warning system take over.

First joint meeting held at SAFER

Today we had our first joint meeting together with the supervisors and the other students who are also conducting their thesis at SAFER. Here we first present to the rest of the group what we’ve done so far and what we will focus on in the next step so they can provide us with feedback. This type of meeting will reoccur every other Friday at 10.

So far most of our work has consisted of reading, to get more and deeper knowledge about the different areas involved. We’ve also made a rough time estimation for our complete thesis work which we feel is quite realistic.

Our preliminary schedule:

• Week 6 - 8 : Divergence phase / document all the used methods
• Week 9 : Preparations for the Heuristics evaluations / have the expert evaluation / write down results in the method chapter
• Week 10 - 11 : (Eventually redesign after findings made in the expert evaluation week 10) / Write down in method chapter and start with the introduction / Start with GUI in Flash
• Week 12 - 13 : Continue with flash GUI, deadline by Friday week 13
• Week 14 - 15 : Preparations for simulator testing
• Week 16 : Simulation testing / Write down in method part
• Week 17 - 18 : Writing week, write down results, finish method, introduction etc.
• Week 19 - 20 : Write analysis and discussion
• Week 21 - 23 : Write, rewrite and finish the Thesis.

So the next step for us now will be to start working on our divergence phase; to start making sketches of different design proposals and therefore we have to dig deeper into the ecological design method, and practices for how it can be applied. This information is vital for us to start working on our design sketches which we are planning to begin with sometime during next week. And of course we will continue reading as well.