Here is an update from Alex with feedback below from David;

Hi Alex – looks great. On posture, it’s about right, just needs to look a little more natural as far as support behind him. Here’s an example: http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/02/15/article-1251327-084EB626000005DC-33_468x286.jpg​ – essentially the bed and pillow are further up the patient’s back.

Great job

David

Here is an example of correspondence between Alex (animator/designer) and myself(project manager).

Alex:

Hey mate,
hope alls well. Here things are going alright. Been messing around with Unity a bit. Found a lot of information on light mapping in Unity and yeah you can do quite a lot with it to make things look better. Also been cutting poly count on the character model so i should be ready to animate soon. From the notes there is some dialogue so I should just animate the character speaking those words with some gestures, is that right? Will there be audio, because it would be good to have that first? Also do you want an idle animation?

Cheers,

Alex

Dale:

Hi Alex,

All is good thanks.
An idle animation and a chat animation would be great. Is it possible to do a happy chat and a sad chat(nothing too complex, just something that shows the animations can vary depending on the response).
For this version I don’t think you need to worry about synching it to speech too much. I am not sure about the voice – it would be nice to put in there I suppose but there isn’t any room in the budget for a voice actor so perhaps I can try recording some samples and see how it looks for the prototype.

Feel free to give me a call if you have any questions.
Chat soon,
Dale
Here is the dialogue;
First dialogue:
Nurse: Hello Mr Smith, how are you feeling / Hi Frank, how’s things? / Hello, I’m here to check your medications
Patient: Hello, I’m doing ok thanks / Have we met? / Ok, are you a nurse?

Second dialogue:
Nurse: I’m just going to review your medications / It’s 10am so it’s medication time / Ready for your pills?
Patient: I seem to rattle with pills / Already? I only had some a couple of hours ago / I’ll need some more water please.

Third dialogue:
Nurse: Do you understand the pills you are taking? / They’re due at 10am, I just checked / No problems, I’ll grab you some water
Patient: I know I take a heart pill.. / Ok, but it seems a bit soon… / Are there any biscuits too?

The next update from Alex;

First preview images from our talented modeller/animator Alex Courtney.

We do this as often as possible to ensure we are on the right track.

Feedback from David;

Hi guys – looks brilliant. It’s actually identified a big gap I hadn’t thought of – a light above each bed. Doesn’t need to light up but it’ll be jarring for any nurse looking at it to not have it there. Sorry, should have realised that initially. Basically just a white box like this: http://www.micglobal.co.uk/images/rotaluxt8.jpg​

Great work Alex, really happy with it.

Here is a floor plan from David (pdf) that will be used for the design;

floor-plan-initial-prototype

Funding for the prototype was approved today.  Development starts immediately.

Software development will follow Agile Design principles. The Agile Manifesto is based on twelve principles:

• Customer satisfaction by rapid delivery of useful software
• Welcome changing requirements, even late in development
• Working software is delivered frequently (weeks rather than months)
• Working software is the principal measure of progress
• Sustainable development, able to maintain a constant pace
• Close, daily cooperation between business people and developers
• Face-to-face conversation is the best form of communication (co-location)
• Projects are built around motivated individuals, who should be trusted
• Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design
• Simplicity—the art of maximizing the amount of work not done—is essential
• Self-organizing teams
• Regular adaptation to changing circumstances

Today I spoke to David on the phone and he is able to get a small amount of funding to get a prototype together.

After this we have emailed back and forth until we have all the information we require to put together an accurate scope document and quote.

Here is the scope document as pdf and also copied in below.  It’s less detailed than usual because it’s only a small prototype, and we have also worked on a lot of hospital related projects before so there is no need to go into detail about many of the models/processes required.

PUBLICDHScopeDocumentandQuote-SimulatedHospitalSuiteDemonstration

Requirements and features:

As received via email from David;

1. Approximate delivery date end of May 2014
2. Keeping options open to publish to range of platforms (tablets).
3. List of everything in room:

• Beds x 4
• Static avatars x 3 (male) in three of the beds
• Main avatar (male) in one bed close to window (a squarish room with four beds, two on north wall, the other two on south wall. West wall is windows out onto grass or trees (nothing fancy), East wall has a sink for handwashing, entrance door and off to the side a closed door to what would be the bathroom/shower. http://www.cgh.com.sg/Patients_Visitors/Admission/PublishingImages/classB1_large.jpg
• Oxygen outlet as per pic – one in each bed –  http://www.fbe.com.au/AirGuard/AirGuard_files/Airg0.jpg (just the outlet on the left is fine, don’t need the three) – it sits at back of bed as per this pic – http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/12/29/1325155080700/An-empty-hospital-bed-in–007.jpg
• Suction outlet as per pic here – one in each bed –  http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/article8709167.ece/BINARY/original/Hospital_bed.jpg – it’s the tubing and container at the left of bed lower down.
• Bedside table, one for each bed on right side (as per http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/12/29/1325155080700/An-empty-hospital-bed-in–007.jpg​ ) with a chair on the left side of the bed (so suction outlet will need to be higher up so chair doesn’t block it)
• A sample script with three sets of dialogue, each with three options for nurse and patient (all are sequential so the first nurse one links to the first patient one etc):

First dialogue:

Nurse:  Hello Mr Smith, how are you feeling / Hi Frank, how’s things? / Hello, I’m here to check your medications

Patient:  Hello, I’m doing ok thanks / Have we met? / Ok, are you a nurse?

Second dialogue:

Nurse: I’m just going to review your medications / It’s 10am so it’s medication time / Ready for your pills?

Patient: I seem to rattle with pills / Already? I only had some a couple of hours ago / I’ll need some more water please.

Third dialogue:

Nurse: Do you understand the pills you are taking? / They’re due at 10am, I just checked / No problems, I’ll grab you some water

Patient: I know I take a heart pill.. / Ok, but it seems a bit soon… / Are there any biscuits too?

Online example:

An similar example of a virtual hospital room (made by Oztron for CIT) can be found here;

http://cit.oztron.com/guest/

Work Summary:

Quote:

In terms of telling a story and making decisions through game play we plan to try something similar to the following style of chat, which is used in the Bioware games and called a dialogue wheel.

Over the past few years we have been investigating the various ways simulations and serious games are being used for education and training.

David has been tracking a lot of projects and developments at Metaverse Health.

We have been working on a wide range of simulations and serious games at Oztron.

The question here is – what has worked, and what do we want to try to do in the future?

We want to create something that engages young people like modern video games – we want to take the best the entertainment industry has to offer and use it to create better learning experiences.

We want learning to be more of a natural experience, where you learn by being placed in situations where you make decisions(good or bad) and see the consequences – not simply remembering the right answers.

We want instant, tailored feedback, which ensures a deep understanding of topics before progress is recorded.

We want embedded UX design which ensures usability regardless of digital literacy.