Raoul, Thanks for the feedback.
The Subtle Stones (the tangible devices) were developed by Madeline Balaam as part of her PhD research, and were originally designed to be used by secondary school students in language learning classes. She went through a careful process of learner-centred design before arriving at the final prototype: more details can be found in her thesis: http://prism.talis.com/sussex-ac/items/1021682 When designing the desktop application, we incorporated features that arose from the empirical work carried out with the Subtle Stones (e.g. ability to record more than one emotion simultaneously, report on degrees of emotion, etc.) into the design. However, I would be the first to admit that the application would have benefited from more development time and a more thorough round of user testing. We are now using a variation of the Subtle Stones in a study with families who have children with Autism Spectrum Conditions, given the multiple difficulties the children often experience with respect to emotion (e.g. recognising emotions in themselves and others, acting on emotions in appropriate ways, etc.). Although the devices worked well in the classroom, they are presenting some problems "in the wild", e.g. batteries run out quickly, are a pain for family members to change and, as one child said, "They look like they should bounce, but they don't." ;-) Although I feel that the idea behind the devices is well worth exploring, the actual format of the devices is still completely open, so thank you for your thoughts on improving them! Judith On 20 Feb 2013, at 00:18, Raoul Duke wrote: >> Self-Reporting emotional experiences in computing lab sessions: an emotional >> regulation perspective >> Judith Good, Jon Rimmer, Eric Harris and Madeline Balaam > > i'm curious how the 2 devices for recording emotional state were > thought up - i had immediate reactions, thoughts about what i > off-the-cuff (subjective, unresearched) see as negative issues with > them and ideas about what would be better. of course it often depends > on what resources are available, both for the physical in-hand device > and the software one. > > overall the hair-brained vision i have in my head is a set of cubes, > with a rudimentary motion sensor inside. emoticons on the faces. > multiple cubes to allow for multiple dimensions. > > sincerely. > > -- > The Open University is incorporated by Royal Charter (RC 000391), an exempt > charity in England & Wales and a charity registered in Scotland (SC 038302).
