Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
3
Experiment
3.1
Eat Me, Drink Me
The “Eat me, drink me” stage is designed to induce similar experience to the one
described in the original narrative. Following is the summary from the narrative [3]:
“Alice enters a room with doors all around that differ in size. She finds a key that
unlocks one small door, but she is too big to fit through it. After she drinks and eats,
she undergoes several changes, she grows and shrinks. Eventually she has the right
size and the key from the small door.”
The participant finds herself trapped in a cube room, to continue further out of this
room, the user needs to find the right relation between her size and the room and to
have the key to “open” the door. Since the ALICE installation has six stages in total,
the participant has to go through each stage in a limited amount of time. We aimed the
interaction design to support each participant to move on to next stage in three to five
minutes.
Spatial Design.
The 5-sided Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE) is 3x3x3
meter cube made of white semi-translucent canvas, see Figure 1. The floor has
pressure sensors to measure the position of the participant in the room. On each wall
of the room, a virtual (VR) door (Fig. 2b) is projected, on the sliding side is projected
a white VR door smaller than the others and features a doorknob (Fig. 2c) as a
character from the story.
Physical Props.
On one side of the room on a table the participant finds a cookie box
labeled “Eat Me” and in the other corner is a bottle labeled “Drink Me”(Fig. 2a).
These objects contain sensors to register interaction accordingly. The box is equipped
with an IR sensor that detects movement when the participant takes a cookie. The
bottle contains a wireless connected tilt sensor which detects if the participant is
drinking from the bottle. Behind one of the tables, a physical key with a label “Take
me” is hidden.
Interaction Design.
When the participant performs an action, takes a cookie (eats) or
drinks, the projected room becomes smaller; and on the second eat/drink action the
room becomes bigger. Both actions feature an appropriate sound, which emphasizes
the impression that the participant is getting smaller or bigger. During the experiment
we observe if the participant takes the physical key, and with Wizard of Oz method
we indicate in the system, which is coupled with a virtual key that appears at the
doorknob featuring VR sparkles and a piano “fantasy” sound. Each step on a pressure
sensor results in a cracking sound played on loudspeakers. The cracking sounds are
different depending on the previously taken actions. If the participant is “big”, the
cracking sound of the floor is heavier, and vise versa, the cracking sounds are shorter
and lighter. An ambient sound is played in the background that consists of fantasy
music and dropping water. The “water drop” sound features a different echo
depending of the relative size of the VR room.
