Wizard of Oz Prototype
纸上原型指导

• Software simulation with a human in the loop to help
  用人性的关怀模拟软件（行为）
• “wizard of Oz”＝“man behind the curtain”
  “wizard of Oz”＝“人隐藏在幕后”
  －wizard is usuallly but not always hidden
  　向导是通用的，但不总是隐藏着
• Often used to simulate future technology
  经常使用模仿未来的技术
  －Speech recognition  语音识别
  －Learning  学习
• Issues 问题
  －Two UIs to worry about: user’s and wizard’s
  　两个UI设计师担心的：用户的和指导的
  －wizard has to be mechanical  指导被机械化

Part of the power of paper prototypes is the depths you can achieve by having a human simulate the backend. A Wizard of Oz prototype also uses a human in the backend, but the front end is an actual computer system instead of a paper mockup. The term Wizard of Oz comes from the movie of the same name, in which the wizard was a man hiding behind a curtain, controlling a massive and impressive display.
部分纸上原型作用的发挥，你可以通过人类模拟反馈的一定深度来达到。纸上原型指导在后端也是使用人类（模拟）。但在前端，是真实的计算机系统代替纸上模型。指导团队来自与它同名的电影，在电影中，指导就是隐藏在幕布后的人，控制着给人留下深刻印象的表演。

（翻译到这里，我怎么觉得这个指导就像躲在幕后的皮影戏演员，纸上原型测试过程就像在唱一台皮影戏，莫非纸上原型方法是从我们老祖宗那得来的灵感，不得不惊叹，历史有时惊人的相似，不得不感叹中华文化的博大精深，再过几十年，这些祖宗留下的文化遗产和精神财富还会有吗？）

In a Wizard of Oz prototype, the “wizard” is usually but not always hidden from the user. Wizard of Oz prototypes are often used to simulate future technology that isn’t available yet, particularly artificial intelligence. A famous example was the listening typewriter (Gould, Conti, & Hovanyecz, “Composing letters with a simulated listening typewriter,” CACM v26 n4, April 1983). This study sought to compare the effectiveness and acceptability of isolated-word speech recognition, which was the state of the art in the early 80’s, with continuous speech recognition, which wasn’t possible yet. The interface was a speech-operated text editor. Users looked at a screen and dictated into a microphone, which was connected to a typist (the wizard) in another room. Using a keyboard, the wizard operated the editor showing on the user’s screen.
在原型指导中，指导是常态的，但并不总是隐藏在用户后面。原型指导经常用来模拟未来科技，尽管它们（未来技术）当前并不可用，独特的人工智能。一个著名的例子是语音识别打字机。(Gould, Conti, & Hovanyecz, “Composing letters with a simulated listening typewriter,” CACM v26 n4, April 1983).这项研究试图比较单词语音识别的作用和可行性，这是在80年代早期的技术发展水平上，做到连续的语音识别还是不可能的事情。那个界面就是一个拼写操作的文字编辑器。用户看着一个屏幕，然后对着麦克风发出指令，麦克风连着另一个房间的打字员。利用键盘，指导操作编辑的过程展示在用户的屏幕上。

The wizard’s skill was critical in this experiment. She could type 80 wpm, she practiced with the simulation for several weeks (with some iterative design on the simulator to improve her interface), and she was careful to type exactly what the user said, even exclamations and parenthetical comments or asides. The computer helped make her responses a more accurate simulation of computer speech recognition. It looked up every word she typed in a fixed dictionary, and any words that were not present were replaced with X’s, to simulate misrecognition. Furthermore, in order to simulate the computer’s ignorance of context, homophones were replaced with the most common spelling, so “done” replaced “dun”, and “in” replaced “inn”. The result was an extremely effective illusion. Most users were surprised when told (midway through the experiment) that a human was listening to them and doing the typing.
在这个试验中，指导的技能处于临界状态。她必须能每分钟打80字，她要花数周的时间模拟练习，（在模拟中迭代设计来改进她的界面）她很仔细的打出正是用户所说的，甚至是感叹，附加注释或者其它。“计算机模拟人”的帮助使她的反应更加精确的模拟计算机的语音识别。她从敲入的备好的字典中找到每一个单词。任何单词只要没有出现过的都将用X’s取代，来模拟识别。并且，为了模拟计算机不知道上下文的效果，同音字被共同的拼写代替，因此“done”代替“dun”，“in”代替“inn”。结果是一个非常深刻的梦幻般的效果。大部分用户感到很惊讶，当他们述说时（在试验过程中），实际是真人在听他们然后做的输入。

Thinking and acting mechanically is harder for a wizard than it is for a paper prototype simulator, because the tasks for which Wizard of Oz testing is used tend to be more “intelligent”. It helps if the wizard is personally familiar with the capabilities of similar interfaces, so that a realistic simulation can be provided. (See Maulsby, 1993) It also helps if the wizard’s interface can intentionally dumb down the responses, as was done in the Gould study.
相比指导和纸上原型的模拟者，思维和行动的机械化程度更高；因为，测试指导中使用的任务倾向更加“智能化”。如果亲自指导熟悉类似的界面性能很有帮助。因此，就能提供真实的模拟(See Maulsby, 1993)。（好难懂啊～～～）如果指导界面在提供反馈时故意沉默，也会有帮助，象在做古尔德研究。

A key challenge in designing a Wizard of Oz prototype is that you actually have two interfaces to worry about: the user’s interface, which is presumably the one you’re testing, and the wizard’s.
设计原型向导一个关键的挑战是你实际有两个界面要考虑：用户的界面，（大概是你正在测试的那个）和向导界面。

本文链接：http://www.blueidea.com/design/doc/2007/4716.asp　

出处：大智交互设计
责任编辑：moby

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