Research

Research was done to find out the main issues people have with giving presentations and how they could be best simulated. Many people will have to give one or several presentations at some point in their lives and presenting to a group of people, no matter how big or small, can be one of the most nerve-wracking things people have to do. Several people staring at them can make the presenter very self conscious and nervous, particularly if they have never given a presentation before or, if previous experiences of giving a speech have been very negative (heckling by hostile audiences, forgetting words, stage fright, etc.).

Doing some very informal user research, it was shown that the most common issues are maintaining regular eye contact and keeping a constant clear volume, and those formed the basis of how the simulation should work at the most basic level. Other issues arose such as the speed at which a presenter talks and different numbers of people in the audience, ranging from a small classroom presentation up to a large theatre full of people, and also suggestions of including different group types, such as a presentation to a group of potential employers or to a select community of people. These suggestions were taken on board and could give the project more potential if it were to be further developed.

The target user group for this project has been people who would like help improving their presentation ability. In this case, they have been students who are required to give presentations at some point during their course, some more regularly than others. The students who tested were from the 4th year of the Interactive Media Design course at Dundee Universtiy.