Contextual Wizard of Oz

Abstract

Exploring user interaction in specific contexts is often based on simulated environments and semi-functional prototypes of interactive systems. In this paper, we address a combination of context simulation with the Wizard of Oz (WOz) technique, where a hidden human ”wizard” simulates missing functionalities and system intelligence. The goal of our work is to provide a software framework for fast prototyping and concurrent evaluation through user studies during iterative interaction design processes. Contextual interaction research is particularly challenging in high-dynamic interaction contexts like ambient environments and includes the simulation of various context parameters to elaborate interaction designs in the target context. For this purpose, we have developed a prototyping framework that allows the setup and handling of different contextual situations during user studies. The framework and the proposed WOz protocol, which is used for integrating the WOz technique, are highly flexible, modular and adjustable at runtime. This allows their application in a big variety of study contexts in in-situ and in-vitro settings. A detailed description of the framework’s requirements and architecture as well as a user study, where we successfully applied our framework, are presented. First results have been collected through interviews with evaluators and developers who used the framework to develop the particular study setups. The identified improvements and potentials experienced during the usage of the framework have been analyzed and provide valuable findings for further iterations.