a) Group 6 – GARP
b) Rodrigo, Alice, Gene, Philip
c) Our product, the GaitKeeper, is an insole pad that can inserted into a shoe, and an associated device affixed to the user’s body, that together gather information about the user’s gait for diagnostic purposes.
di) To get informed consent, we attempted to be as open to our participants as possible in the informed consent script. We told them how long the tests would take, the purposes that they would be used for and that they could leave at any time. We made sure to tell them the tests would be confidential and after telling them about any risks (inbalance, etc), we made sure to ask them again if they wanted to try it on. The consent script we used can be found here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/15_Pr3GMbCt_wpIf99z1IczYtpQ5kbLyjgGjK6-hTLoo/edit?usp=sharing
dii) Our first participant is an avid runner and friend. He was selected because we know his passion for running. Also, we could easily schedule an observation time for the test.
Our second participant is also an avid runner, who competed on his high school running team. He also has computer science experience, and therefore can help us evaluate our user interface.
Our third participant is an avid marathon runner. She has experience with injuries from running.
diii) The testing environment for the first task, the first half of the second task, and the entire third task is Stephens Fitness Center. We selected a time of low-use, to make sure we could communicate easily without an excess of noise and distractions. We will be using a treadmill for these portions.
The testing environment for the analysis portion of the second task will be a desk in a classroom or dorm room where we will place the “computer” for connection to the GaitKeeper.
For the third task, we will bring several pairs of our own shoes of the appropriate sizes.
div) First, Rodrigo read out the informed consent script. Then, Gene read out the demo script and the tasks script. In the second task, Alice played the role of the injured athlete and in the third task, Philip played the role of the shoe customer.
Demo Script:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qdcM1-UMU7VAQ6O4MlqqTKEbhYnxkzGOEwVxUrn7HJA/edit?usp=sharing
e) One of the biggest pieces of feedback we received is that the prototype is a little obtrusive for running. Some runners already remarked that having weight on one leg, but not the other, would impede with their running and skew our results. All participants noted that having the main bulk of the device on their waist, with wires to the soles, may be less obtrusive than having the device on the ankle. One mentioned that having the wires built into tights would be nice, another mentioned that having the device rest around the hip near the tailbone would be good. Another also mentioned that having a sole in only one shoe, slightly increasing its height, may also interfere with natural running behavior. This participant suggested replacing the sole of the shoe with our device. A fake sole of the same height or an opposite GaitKeeper may solve this problem. Lastly, one participant noted that our prototype was slightly the wrong size for his feet and caused discomfort. This is a major problem for us in creating a prototype, since we would ideally like to produce one prototype which would work for multiple users. Doing this would also make the product more cost effective for doctors and running stores, since it would allow them to have one product to serve all clients rather than multiples. Two participants noticed that there were no sensors on in the arch of the foot and said that that was an extremely important place to have sensors.
Besides these issues, most participants said that they found our prototype to be very usable for tasks 2 and 3. The GUI was easy to interpret and the heat map was highly praised. We were told that it didn’t take much understanding of running or feet to be able to interpret the data given, but they would like a recommended amount of time of data collection to ensure that the data would be useful. However, some participants questioned the utility of task 1. Most noted that they would not need the information often enough to use the wristband all the time when running. One suggested that this would be useful as the running store employee because you could ask customers to run outside and with the device and thus get a more authentic running gait. When being the doctor one participant said that this was a great idea given that the best way currently to do foot analysis is with a high powered camera, which is far more expensive and less practical. All three participants were very excited by our product especially for their individual use.
f) These results are relatively expected. These results show us that people would be legitimately excited about our product.
g) With these results, we feel we have gained enough feedback to make a high-fidelity prototype. We think that these experiments have given us the necessary feedback to further simplify our product – we want to focus on tasks 2 and 3 and not task 1. That alone has made it a worthwhile use of time. It was also very useful to learn that we want to focus on make it unobtrusive and useable for different shoe sizes.
Pictures can be viewed here:
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B4_S-8qAp4jyQTVCN3pUUUhpR2M&usp=sharing