15/10/11 - Project background

Possible research project: In my mind the final year project should be an opportunity to build on; the knowledge and experienced I have gained over the past two years, my knowledge in areas of specific interest and to also allow me to learn new things.

The first year of the course required me to choose a research subject and write a literature review on it. The subject chosen was the emerging new technologies used in gestural interfaces. These ranged from touch screen phones pressure sensitive gloves. Whilst researching about this subject a project entitled Project Natal, by Microsoft was causing a great deal of interest. This was rumoured to be a brand new input device for the Xbox 360 and would completely eliminate the need for controllers - the users’ body would be the primary input device.

This increased my interest in the subject of Human-Computer Interaction / Interfaces (HCI) - specifically through the use of gestures, or through what Microsoft referred to as Natural User Interfaces (NUIs).

Studying the subject of HCI, its history, current state and future direction during the second year on the course increased my interest in the subject further and provided a good solid understanding of the theory behind good user interface design. This subject also required me to become familiar with some of the most prominent names in user interface design today: Bill Buxton, Donald Norman, Jeff Han and Ben Schneiderman amongst others. Towards the end of the second year on the course Microsoft’s Project Natal was officially released under the name of Xbox Kinect.

Programmers, developers and early adopters quickly began developing apps, games and various experiments with the Kinect to try and explore this new technology. Microsoft  has subsequently released an official software development kit to encourage experimentation with the device.

One area to which the Xbox Kinect seems particularly suited is in education. Within a year of the release of Kinect several websites and blogs now feature sections on Kinect in education - as a complimentary input device to an interactive whiteboard to gesture and speech based spelling games.

I am an owner of the Xbox Kinect and have decided to use this as part of my main project. This will allow me to build on my knowledge and experience in HCI and interface design but also enable me to explore a relatively young area of Natural User Interfaces. I am keen to develop my skills as a programmer and this will provide the opportunity to learn a new programming language.

I have already installed and tested the Xbox Kinect on my PC and have identified no issues. The next stage is to begin research in to the type of educational application I would like to make, and from there formulate a research question that brings together the three elements of: HCI, Education and NUIs.