代写COMS W4172: 3D User Interfaces and Augmented Reality Assignment 2—Spring 2025调试SPSS

COMS W4172: 3D User Interfaces and Augmented Reality

Assignment 2—Spring 2025

COMS W4172: 3D User Interfaces and Augmented Reality—Spring 2025

Prof. Steven Feiner

Date out: February 27, 2025

Date due: March 11, 2025

Assignment 2: Escape Artists

For this assignment, you will be exploring and evaluating the user interfaces of two free 3D creation tools: (a) Roblox Studio (desktop version on Windows PC or macOS) and (b) your choice of only one of the following:

● Rec Room (mobile version on iOS or Android).

● Rec Room (desktop version on Windows PC or VR headset; there is no Mac version).

● Horizon Worlds (requires Meta. Quest headset).

You will use Roblox Studio and the other tool you choose to design a simple escape room experience in each tool with:

● A confined space with an entrance and exit.

● At least one puzzle that must be solved.

● At least one interactive object that responds to player input.

●   A clear success condition that allows the player to “escape.”

Your focus should be on evaluating the user interfaces of the two tools rather than the quality complexity, or difficulty of the escape room you design. Since you are being asked to compare your experience using each tool, please aim for lots of similarity between your rooms! But you are also welcome to include functionality that might be possible in only one of the tools.

Note that you will not be submitting the rooms you create, only your analysis of the tools.

You should begin by acquainting yourself with Roblox Studio and the other tool you chose, being sure to keep track of your first impressions (ideally by writing or recording), so you can include them in your analysis of the applications.

Important: For the purposes of this assignment, please ignore any paid functionality or premium features. For Roblox, do not use marketplace assets that cost Robux. For Rec Room, do not evaluate features that require Rec Room Plus or token purchases. Use only the free creation tools provided by each platform, and do not upgrade your account, even for a short-term free offer!

Heuristic Evaluation, User Interface Analysis, and Proposed Improvements

In addition to an introduction and conclusions (keep them brief), your evaluation should have three sections, each based on your experience using the applications and their documentation to create your escape room experiences.

1. Heuristic Evaluation (45 points)

In the first section, you should address the ten usability heuristics introduced in class (https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/), mentioning specific examples of how well each of the applications does or does not satisfy each heuristic. Please do this by creating ten subsections, one for each heuristic. In each subsection, you should discuss both  applications, being sure to specify the application to which you are referring and to distinguish the key differences between the two applications.

2. User Interface Analysis (45 points)

In the second section, please cover the four areas listed below, taking into account the input methods appropriate to Roblox Studio (mouse, keyboard) and your single chosen platform.

● Desktop (Rec Room Desktop): Mouse, keyboard.

● Mobile (Rec Room Mobile): Touchscreen, attitude sensor, accelerometer (if applicable).

● VR (Rec Room VR, Horizon Worlds): Head tracking, hand tracking, VR controllers.

In a separate subsection for each of the following four areas, describe and compare the techniques that allow the user to accomplish their tasks for both applications. Explain where the techniques used in each application work well, where they are lacking, and how they could be improved.

1. Camera manipulation. How the user controls camera position, orientation, field of view, projection type, and any other camera parameters when using each application.

a.  What is the range of camera configurations supported in each application?

b.   How intuitive are the camera controls, especially when switching between free movement and object-focused views? In your discussion, please be sure to be clear about whether you are referring to a change in camera position versus a change in camera field of view. Please see this video for a visual explanation of the often misused terms “zooming” versus “dollying,” which you should use properly in your description. Do not accept uncritically any description, even from the tool developer in their user interface or documentation, of what an application is doing. You might also want to check out this video for some classic examples of the unsettling ways in which dollying and zooming can be combined.

2. Object creation, selection, and deletion. How the user adds new objects to their scene, selects or deselects objects, and removes objects from the scene.

a. What constraints apply when placing objects? For example, are some objects restricted to certain surfaces? Can objects intersect each other?

b. Is multi-selection for group operations possible? For example, can multiple objects be selected to be transformed as a group?

c. What snapping behaviors are used? Are objects aligned to a grid? Does the system allow free placement?

3. Object manipulation and control of properties. How the user manipulates objects (translation, rotation, scaling), and modifies object properties such as appearance, behavior, and interactivity.

a. What input methods exist for manipulating objects? For example, manual entry of coordinates, gizmo handles, and freehand gestures.

b.   Pay special attention to how each platform supports the creation of interactive elements necessary for escape-room mechanics (e.g., puzzles, triggers, and conditional events). To what degree do the tools have useful elements built in and easy to import and use?

c.   Although you are not required to deeply explore scripting in any tool, you should note what scripting and drag-and-drop logic capabilities are available, along with any premade assets, and use those that are necessary to provide the requested simple escape-room features listed at the beginning of the assignment. How usable do you think these capabilities are for non-programmers?

4. Testing and player experience.

a.   How can the creator test their escape room by acting as a player?

b.   How easy is it to switch between editing and testing?

c.   Does the system allow for live editing, or must the user restart each time?

d.   If the tools you are comparing are for different platforms (e.g., Roblox Studio on PC and Horizon Worlds on Quest), how does the user experience differ because  of platform. differences?

In considering these issues, please address any of the ten usability heuristics that you feel are particularly relevant. However, you are not limited to these heuristics, and should mention anything you think is important that the heuristics do not cover. (If you are familiar with any other applications that support similar functionality, you are welcome, but not required, to optionally draw comparisons to them.)

3. Proposed Improvements (10 points)

In the third section, please propose two suggestions per tool (four total) for improvements to its implementation of any of the areas covered in Section 2.

Please explain why you believe that your suggested improvements to each tool will be beneficial to the user's overall experience and how each tool currently fails to meet the needs that your suggested improvements address. Your suggestions can be taken and expanded from your analysis in the previous sections.

Guidance

Note that this is a written analysis/essay assignment, with no code or apps to submit. Please think critically and provide thoughtful, well-developed descriptions, explanations, and comparisons. There is no required minimum word count, and you are not being asked to write documentation, although you should refer to existing official (not third-party) documentation when relevant without simply repeating it. Instead, you are being asked to evaluate the usability of the systems. Therefore, you will need to make assertions about the artifacts you are evaluating and to defend the assertions you make by citing the heuristics or other criteria addressed in the books or in class and explaining how the two applications follow or violate them.

Please include relevant screenshots in your evaluation, integrate them into your document, and refer to them. If you choose Horizon Worlds, please include clear screenshots that demonstrate the creation interface.

There are no limits on the length of your assignment. However, based on our experience, a complete assignment will include around one or two paragraphs per heuristic (although some may be longer) for Section 1, longer discussions for each area in Section 2, and up to two pages for Section 3, usually totaling no less than ten pages overall. Our grading will be based on how well you explain and justify your comparisons and arguments. Be concise and clear. We will not reward you for writing a lot, for repeating yourself, or for including overly large pictures. You will not get points “just for writing something.” Please talk to us if you have any questions about this.

Your choice of platform. should be clearly stated at the beginning of your report.

Hints

Imagine that you were about to interview for one of the teams whose applications you are analyzing, or perhaps another company interested in creating a competing application. As you do this assignment, try to display your understanding of the two user interfaces and the tradeoffs between them in a way that would inspire confidence in a savvy technical interviewer (i.e., not the person from human resources).

Please note that these applications require installation and may be resource-intensive. Please make sure that you do not leave the assignment for the last minute—we will not be offering additional late days/hours to compensate for installation difficulties or other technical issues.

This is an individual assignment, so please treat it that way, including your initial exploration of each application. In alignment with our CS Department Academic Honesty Policy, using large language models, such as ChatGPT, or any other chatbots or resources that provide solutions, such as Chegg, is not allowed. Any form. of academic dishonesty will be registered with the Academic Committee and reported to the appropriate dean(s).

What to Submit

You should submit your written evaluation as a PDF file. Note again that screen captures should be integrated into your document, and not included as separate images. Please be sure that your name and uni appear at the beginning of the submission.

How to Submit

Your assignment should consist of a single PDF file submitted through CourseWorks in response to Assignment 2.

Immediately after uploading your submission, please check it by downloading it to make sure that it was the correct file. We will not accept excuses that you accidentally uploaded the wrong file.

Please try to submit well before the deadline, since CourseWorks can sometimes become busy and slow. You may use any number of your remaining late days on this assignment, though remember that there is one more assignment left on which you can use late days. Please start early!

Grading

Section 1—Heuristic Evaluation                   45 points

Section 2—User Interface Analysis              45 points

Section 3—Proposed Improvements            10 points

Total                                                          100 points