SMART Infrastructure Facility guest, Professor John Sören Petersson presented his work in developing and implementing the Ozlab method, as part of the SMART Seminar Series. His presentation took place on Tuesday, 28/4/2015 at SMART Infrastructure Facility, University of Wollongong, Australia.

1. KARLSTAD UNIVERSITY
Information Systems
and Centre for HumanIT
Univ. of Wollongong 2015-04-28
John Sören Pettersson
Sweden
Ozlab for the interactive
prototyping of interactivity
John Sören Pettersson
Professor in Information Systems
at the Karlstad Business School
Main focus: HCI
Started the Web and multimedia program
Mgr of Master pgm in Information Systems
Coordinator of res.pgm in IS
Together with Rodney working on finding
points of collaboration between UoW and KaU

2. KARLSTAD UNIVERSITY
Information Systems
and Centre for HumanIT
Univ. of Wollongong 2015-04-28
John Sören Pettersson
Geography
Karlstad

3. KARLSTAD UNIVERSITY
Information Systems
and Centre for HumanIT
Univ. of Wollongong 2015-04-28
John Sören Pettersson
Karlstad University
• Teacher college 1840
• Affiliated to Gothenburg
University 1967
• University college 1977
• Inaugurated as a university in
1999 with research funding
from the Government
• Karlstad Business School
founded in 2009; department
from 2013 incl. IS.

4. KARLSTAD UNIVERSITY
Information Systems
and Centre for HumanIT
Univ. of Wollongong 2015-04-28
John Sören Pettersson
Prototyping in interaction design
A goal specification does not lead directly to the optimal form of a
product.
Therefore, testing design suggestions (testing prototypes) is a
very good step in systems development.
In particular this concerns user testing, as not only design but
also new demands on functionality may appear when prospective
users start to grasp what might be available in the future.

5. KARLSTAD UNIVERSITY
Information Systems
and Centre for HumanIT
Univ. of Wollongong 2015-04-28
John Sören Pettersson
UI Prototyping Caveats
• Bill Verplank: “they had a working prototype even
before they decided what the product was going to
be.”
• Christine Faulkner on ‘rapid prototyping’ and
programming environments supporting it: “often
causes the systems to be a mishmash of hacked
together code” (1998, p.104)

6. KARLSTAD UNIVERSITY
Information Systems
and Centre for HumanIT
Univ. of Wollongong 2015-04-28
John Sören Pettersson
Conclusion
• Using programmed prototypes does not always lead to good
systems
• Question: how can interactive prototypes be developed?

7. KARLSTAD UNIVERSITY
Information Systems
and Centre for HumanIT
Univ. of Wollongong 2015-04-28
John Sören Pettersson
User interface articulation
• Prototypes are good to discuss around
• …but does not yield an open design space
• Expensive to re-program
• Paper prototypes are often cost-effective
• However, interactivity is hard to simulate
• Wizard of Oz – illusory system tests

8. KARLSTAD UNIVERSITY
Information Systems
and Centre for HumanIT
Univ. of Wollongong 2015-04-28
John Sören Pettersson
Wizard of Oz
- functionality without implementation

9. KARLSTAD UNIVERSITY
Information Systems
and Centre for HumanIT
Univ. of Wollongong 2015-04-28
John Sören Pettersson
The Ozlab System
• For “graphic” interaction (spatial)
• Best for interaction rather than
navigation (neither action games)
• Admits full functionality without
implementation
• I.e., admits explorative tests
• Even possible to involve new
groups as developers (designers)

10. KARLSTAD UNIVERSITY
Information Systems
and Centre for HumanIT
Univ. of Wollongong 2015-04-28
John Sören Pettersson
Ozlab in laboratory setting
Mini-
Ozlab
Ozlab in field set-up

11. KARLSTAD UNIVERSITY
Information Systems
and Centre for HumanIT
Univ. of Wollongong 2015-04-28
John Sören Pettersson
Ozlab and
orthopedists
PinTrace surgical robot

12. KARLSTAD UNIVERSITY
Information Systems
and Centre for HumanIT
Univ. of Wollongong 2015-04-28
John Sören Pettersson
A testing and interaction tool
• Professional developers using test subjects
• Developers and content experts together test/discuss
• Developers and users together test/discuss
Users can test their own ideas:
• End-users testing on peers
• (End-)users testing on clients
• Users testing on developer

13. KARLSTAD UNIVERSITY
Information Systems
and Centre for HumanIT
Univ. of Wollongong 2015-04-28
John Sören Pettersson
On-going work: webification of the Ozlab concept
• The original Ozlab relied on software no longer maintained by the
vendors (Macromedia’s Director)
• In the same time, it was not always easy for new wizards to find the
Ozlab functions in the complex multimedia tool
• Since 2012 we are elaborating on a web-based solution
• The Shell Builder and Test Runner are both designed by us
• Technically: websockets make it possible to send information to the
test persons computer
• We use a web browser with only a window pane, no chrome
• Usabilitily: web browser have their limitations, but they work on
smartphones (even if iPhones are a bit prohibitive)
www.kau.se/en/ozlab

14. KARLSTAD UNIVERSITY
Information Systems
and Centre for HumanIT
Univ. of Wollongong 2015-04-28
John Sören Pettersson
Shell Builder

15. KARLSTAD UNIVERSITY
Information Systems
and Centre for HumanIT
Univ. of Wollongong 2015-04-28
John Sören Pettersson
TP and TL view in Test Runner
/TP

16. KARLSTAD UNIVERSITY
Information Systems
and Centre for HumanIT
Univ. of Wollongong 2015-04-28
John Sören Pettersson
TP phone and TL computer view in Test Runner

17. KARLSTAD UNIVERSITY
Information Systems
and Centre for HumanIT
Univ. of Wollongong 2015-04-28
John Sören Pettersson
A literature survey on generic Wizard-of-Oz systems (1)
• Generic systems start to appear from
around the turn of the millennium
• The idea seems to have been
compelling to several groups, often
within NLP but also other interaction
design researchers:
”Why should we have to program a
wizard setup when we try to avoid
programming by using the Wizard-of-Oz
method?”
Generic WOz tools in our survey
ActiveStory,
ConWIZ,
Mobile Wizard,
DART,
DiaWOz-II,
d.tools,
Jaspis,LIVE,
MDWOZ,
Mobile,
Momento,
MultiCom,
MuMoWOz,
NEIMO,
OpenWizard,
Ozlab,
SketchWizard,
SUEDE,
Topiary,
UISKEI++,
WebWOZ,
"Wizard of Oz tool for Android",
WOEB,
WozARd,
WOZ Pro.

18. KARLSTAD UNIVERSITY
Information Systems
and Centre for HumanIT
Univ. of Wollongong 2015-04-28
John Sören Pettersson
A literature survey on generic Wizard-of-Oz systems (2)
• Still new generic systems are developed. Why?
• Well, most fall into disuse after 2-3 years, that is after the initial
experiment which motivated their creation, so there is a need for
new systems (!)
• Reliance of specific programming environments and application-
running environments are not circumvented just because the
intention is to circumvent programming for experimentation
• This dependence on specific software infrastructures will not be
wholly circumvented even for web solutions

19. KARLSTAD UNIVERSITY
Information Systems
and Centre for HumanIT
Univ. of Wollongong 2015-04-28
John Sören Pettersson
Why did Ozlab survive?
• It was not planned to ease a specific experiment, but designed by
keeping the articulatory requirements of a GUI in mind
• Continued use in HCI education
– This is not to say that not other groups have repeatedly used WOz in
education, but then in connection to continued experimentation and new
Woz setups
– Learners as one of the prime users of a system will help to keep focus
of accessibility of the WOz system
– That said, the Director-based Ozlab was limping in the end
• WUI, the wizard’s user interface, is in Ozlab constructed by building
the prototype (“shell”)
– This lower the threshold when learning Ozlab for the first time
– It allows for much flexibility

20. KARLSTAD UNIVERSITY
Information Systems
and Centre for HumanIT
Univ. of Wollongong 2015-04-28
John Sören Pettersson
Prominent Ozlab ideas
One of the most important features of the manually articulable GUI is
the possibility to hide things. This holds for text messages as well as for
graphical objects and can be used to realise a whole window.
Ozlab makes invisible objects semi-transparent. However, there is also
the possibility to put things partly or wholly outside the scene
(compare previous figures; compare also Power Point slides where it is
possible to put things outside the area visible when showing the presentation).
The drag-and-drop of the GUI is thus not only for making simple
animations in a help function or in a multimedia piece for children. More
importantly, it helps the wizard to organise the means of expressions
that he/she may utilise during an interaction session. Making a mockup
in Ozlab is simultaneous a designing of the wizard user interface.

21. KARLSTAD UNIVERSITY
Information Systems
and Centre for HumanIT
Univ. of Wollongong 2015-04-28
John Sören Pettersson
Thank you!
For anyone interested I can give more information on how we started
Ozlab by using content professionals who were totally novices in
interaction design
Non-HCI: I can also present results from a study on how early user-
testing (i.e. before programming) improves software quality
http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:745324/FULLTEXT05.pdf
www.kau.se/en/ozlab
johnpett@kau.se