Needfinding

Online Survey

A Google forms survey was sent to the members of an on-campus dance club (RICE Crew).

Members were asked how they currently feel about going through corrections, their favorite methods, and whether they would be open to using an application for helping with corrections.

Findings/Analysis

We received a total of 13 responses. Our audience ranged from ages 18 - 21 with 9 females and 4 males. Over 80% of our population stated that they had 1-3 years of dance experience and 60% stated that they do corrections on their own. When we asked whether they would consider using an application that would help correct their dancing in terms of angles, stance, etc., 70% responded that they definitely would.

One of the most notable finds was people's preferred methods of corrections. 9 out of 13 people chose move-by-move as one of their top three. No other method had over 50% of surveyors' votes. Due to these findings, we decided to focus on move-by-move corrections in the Marin Machine.

We also asked the dancers what difficulties they had when they were doing corrections by themselves. While there were some issues that Marin Machine would be unable to combat such as muscle memory, we found that the Marin Machine would be able to handle most of the dancer's typical difficulties such as not knowing the move, getting the correct angles and sharpness, and relearning the move if they originally learned it incorrectly.

Expert Interviews

We interviewed four members of Rice Crew that were experienced in teaching and giving corrections. These members have been through the process of both giving corrections as well as taking corrections numerous times. We chose to interview them in order to gain insight on the perspective of teachers as they will understand the most on what to look for during corrections.

Below we have linked the answers of one our interviewees. The others were not 100% comfortable with making their answers public.

Expert Interview Example

Findings/Analysis

Similar to the survey participants, the teachers we interviewed preferred move-by-move corrections. Three said that large groups of people can make corrections difficult and they all mentioned that corrections take a decent amount of time to do.

In addition, they all mentioned that doing self corrections is something that everyone should do, but they did note that there are occasionally some problems, specifically when dancers learn the move incorrectly.

Observation

Throughout the months of October and November, at least one member of Just Rice sat in on Rice Crew's weekly practice and observed their methods of corrections and peoples' responses towards them. The three main types of corrections that were observed were timing, angles, and the feel/style of the dance.

Timing refers to the accuracy of the dancer to hit each move at the correct time or beat. Angles refer to the specific stance or direction that each body part is facing during a specific move. Finally, style and feel refers to each individual's own sense of body and how that is portrayed when they dance.

Observation Analysis (Angles)

The main method of correcting angles was stopping the dancers at the specific move and readjusting the dancer's pose. This could be done by physically moving them or by showing the move directly next to them so that they could spot the differences themselves.

Some complications that teachers ran into include the following:

People would sometimes revert back to the original way they did the move
Due to different body types, not everyone was physically able to match every angle/pose perfectly

Observation Analysis (Timing)

Timing corrections were fairly obvious to spot. The methods that were used for correcting timing include the following:

Make the dancers listen to the part of the music that they were trying to fix to listen for specific beats
Slow down the music and practice the move at a slower speed or with counts

When corrected properly, this would greatly improve the quality of the dance.

Observation Analysis (Style/Feel)

Correcting the style or feel of the song seemed to be the most difficult for both the teachers as well as the students. It was difficult for teachers to explain the style or feel of a song as it is more ambiguous than angles or timing. In general, their suggestions were fairly vague and included comments like "don't just walk, have attitude", "interact with the person next to you more", etc. It was also difficult for dancers to absorb the materials as a result and because the style and feel can be subjective.

This is also a very difficult aspect to tackle in regards to the Marin Machine. At the moment, the Marin Machine does not focus on helping dancers with the feel or style of a choreography. This may be something we want to consider in future updates of the application.

NeedFinding Results

From our need-finding results, we decided to implement and focus on specific features for the Marin Machine. First and foremost, we decided to emphasize move-by-move corrections as the main method of correction. This choice came about from the results of surveying and expert interviews.

This would also put an emphasis on angles as opposed to timing or style/feel. We believed that this would be the simplest way of correcting while generating the most effective output.

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