Stand beside the engineer at a lobby rehearsal and the interaction looks obvious. A visitor lifts a hand, a green dot moves on the engineer’s laptop, a flock of birds lifts off on the wall. Now put yourself where the visitor is standing. From there, the laptop is out of sight. The birds were already moving. How would you know which part you did?
At the next sign-off, try asking one question immediately after someone uses the display. “What did you see change?” Give them time to look again. If they point to a different part of the wall than the one the designer expected, you have something specific to work on.
Borrow the visitor’s view
At Boston Children’s Hospital, NEXT/NOW created four interactive scenes for a 16-foot-tall LED display at the main entrance. During development, the team revised prototypes to recognize movement from people of different heights and with different ranges of motion. A workplace team can borrow that approach by inviting the people who use the building to choose where they stand or sit and how they take part. See the Boston Children’s Hospital lobby.
Give the designer and the participant separate places to write. The designer records the first movement the system picked up and what the animation did in response. The participant marks where they were looking and the first change they noticed. A rough sketch of the wall is enough. Compare the marks after both people have finished.
Suppose the sensor recognized a small wave perfectly. The participant was watching the corner nearest their hand, while the birds took flight at the far end of the wall. Try starting the movement close to the hand and letting it travel across the scene. Run that version with someone seeing it for the first time. Can they point to the place where their wave first made a difference?
Leave room for a second person
For the last run, let a colleague walk through on the way to reception. Shared lobbies rarely give one person the whole room. If the passerby sets the birds off, ask the participant whose movement they think the display followed. Their answer can help the team choose where the active area should end, or where two people should be able to play together.
Close the review by writing down the one change you intend to make, who will make it and who will try it next. When the team comes back, start from the spot the visitor marked on the sketch.