Hands-On Exploration with the ReacTable

On my trip to Chicago over the holidays, I was able to visit the Museum of Science and Industry where they had an exhibit called "Fast Forward". The exhibit provided a glimpse of emerging technologies, and among them was the ReacTable mentioned in previous posts. Fortunately, I was able to gather some good insights during my time there, observing visitors as they interacted with the device and each other. Here are some of my findings:





Positive Observations

• No one asked to join in on the fun, they simply jumped right in and started playing around
• A good sense of dialogue seemed to flow among the people playing with the table
• People kept going back for more
• The individuals involved were of mixed generations (Gen X, Gen Y, Millenials)
  
  • That said, Gen Y individuals seemed to be more accepting of the technology
  • Gen Y also seemed to take the time to try and learn how the device is meant to be used
• Some good collaboration between individuals, including people helping one another out in terms of learning how to use the device

Observed Issues and Limitations

• The Fixed height of the table was restricting, and was not overly accessible to smaller children
• The overall system was not very intuitive in terms of operation -- This warranted several reactions from the users:
  
  • "I Don't Get This!"
  • "It's too confusing!"
  • "Which one is playing that weird noise?!"
• The iconography on the RFID cubes was quite unintuitive
• It was not clear as to how each cube interacted with the other cubes on the surface
• The surface also tracked finger movements, but did nothing other than highlight the trace in red
• It was unclear as to what sound/function eminated from the corresponding icon on the RFID cubes
• Through Trial and Error, it was found that:
  
  • The top-facing icon was the instrument/function being implemented by the surface
  • A Ring would appear on the surface that encircled the RFID Cubes. These rings would allow users to set/change properties associated with the sound eminating from the RFID Cube
  • Other users were unaware of this fact until I began to change the settings (I already knew about the settings from watching videos of the device from the ReacTable website)
  • That said, it was difficult to discern what properties were being changed/set

The following is some video I was able to grab on my Blackberry of the ReacTable being used by various individuals including myself: