Prototype

The BreakBits interface was tested using a mock-up application, designed to resemble an industrial process monitoring system. LED displays, together with analogue gauges, monitored a fictive manufacturing process.

We composed suitable music, where the harmonies, rhythms and events corresponded to the events and parameters in the manufacturing process. A raise of the temperature in the system caused the music to get slightly out of tune, a spinning wheel whose speed got below its ideal speed, caused a slow drum rhythm to appear, etc.

12 persons with various musical experience tested the application. They were supposed to monitor different parameters in the system, while at the same time answering multiple-choice demographical questions in a window, overlapping the "system interface", once without music, and once with music in combination with slightly harder questions.

Most of the users thought that the first test, without music, was very stressful and that it was very hard to know which part of the screen to concentrate on. Almost all users thought that the music in the second test helped them very well to distinguish between the different stages of the process.

Many also pointed out that the music made them feel more relaxed, since they did not have to concentrate on the gauges and displays continuously. Several users commented that “time passed faster” using the musical interface. However, some of them thought that it probably would be annoying to hear the same type of music over and over again, which is coherent with the ambientROOM findings [5].

Test Breakbits yourself by downloading a scaled-down version of our prototype. Can you hear the transistions between the stages in the process? Will you be aware of critical deviations in the process? Download the Prototype to find out. To see the prototype you need the Shockwave player, available from Macromedia. Please note that the prototype is available in Swedish only.

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