DuoRhythmo

Abstract

We present DuoRhythmo, a collaborative accessible digital musical interface (CADMI) that gives people living with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (PALS) the experience of remotely and collaboratively creating music in real-time. We designed DuoRhythmo specifically to be utilized for eye tracking and optimized it for head- and computer mouse interaction, as well using a user-centered design approach. Together with five PALS, we completed a mixed-methods evaluation to assess the accessibility of DuoRhythmo. Participants described the CADMI using the Microsoft Desirability Toolkit (MDT) as fun, empowering, accessible, easy to use, engaging, and stimulating and gave an average System Usability Scale (SUS) score of 79.5. We suggest further research on remote collaboration within the field of accessible digital musical instruments (ADMIs) using the term CADMI to explore the positive effects of collaborative music-making on the quality of life of PALS.

Collaborating with Microsoft Research and the International Aliance of ALS and MND associations, we were able to carry out this user centered design project. We were driven by the idea of improving, in any capacity, the quality of life of people living with ALS.

Many applications exist to aid PALS in daily life, such as voice banking apps, eye gaze centered productivity and communication apps, etc. However, we found a substantial lack of research and development in the area of bolstering the quality of life through the use of novel technology.Thus, we knew that is what we wanted to focus on.

Through an iterative process we were able to gain insight from our partners at both The International Alliance of ALS and MND associations as well as Microsoft Reseach experts in the area. We able to use this insight to design and develop the interface not just for PALS but for everyone. What fun would a multiplayer music jamming app be if you were limited in jamming buddies?

In these images you can see the evolution of design from a simple concept sketch, to a refined digital sketch and the final UI. The design is inspired from the Dato Duo toy in which two people sit either side of a physice synthesizer, one player places beats in a sequencer as the other controls the effects applied to the audio. In a similar manner, in our desing, users sit opposite eachother digitally. A central carousel that holds the user interface then revolves with sequencer controls and effect controls placed opposite eachother.

As this application was designed to be used with eye tracking, the center of the UI acts as a resting spot for the eye. The circular placement of the sequencer "nodes" allow the eye to quickly activate and deactivate the beats.

Apart from just jamming together we were able to implement some fun features, like emoji quick reactions, saving and loading beats, recording and exporting beats in .wav format and a friends system so you can always jam with your favourite jammers.

We were lucky enough to publich and present this research at the CHI conference, the flagship Human Computer Interaction conference.

Microsoft wrote a blog article about which you can read here.

And you can find the publication here.