Some risks that could jeopardize our project are if we are unable to get our VoceVista software before our trial period is over. A contingency plan we have in case is to utilize a different software or transfer over any tools we used and have another device activate VoceVista to use for a month in order to guarantee that we will have VoceVista over the 6 week period before we can purchase it.
No changes were made to any system design, however we did adjust some key concepts of our use-case and solution approach:
- The use case has shifted to explicitly consider a shared lab space
- The use case has narrowed down from all singers to advanced vocalists
- The use case requirement of customizability is now primarily associated with tessitura
- The solution approach has shifted to focus on opera singers
- The solution approach has shifted to inform the user of significant changes in CQ rather than warning of an “improper” CQ
Tyler did Part A, Susanna Part B, Melina Part C
Part A: … with respect to considerations of public health, safety or welfare. Note: The term ‘health’ refers to a state of well-being of people in both a physiological and psychological sense. ‘Safety’ is the absence of hazards and/or physical harm to persons. The term ‘welfare’ relates to the provision of the basic needs of people.
Our product will take into account public health and safety while singing by allowing users to become more aware of their laryngeal closed quotient by using an electroglottograph to measure out the user’s closed quotient. This can help mitigate vocal strain as it can provide information if the larynx is too closed while singing or too open. On top of that, we are making sure that all we are doing is outputting measurable data from singing instead of just providing feedback, so the singer can review and determine if the changes provided are necessary or not to their style of singing so that way they do not make any corrections that damage their ability to sing.
Part B: … with consideration of social factors. Social factors relate to extended social groups having distinctive cultural, social, political, and/or economic organizations. They have importance to how people relate to each other and organize around social interests.
Singing practices and techniques are highly varied and culturally contingent. Additionally, singers with different levels of experience will have different needs. More experienced singers might already be aware of the larynx and how it functions, and will appreciate more detailed analysis of their voice. More beginner singers might need a more basic setup as they’re experimenting with this part of their voice for the first time. Thus, different demographics will have significantly different wants and needs from a vocal training application of this nature.
Unfortunately, it’s not possible for our application to account for every style or tradition due to the sheer scale of the endeavor– plus, the world of electroglottography research is small, and the majority of data is related to the Western Classical Tradition. For our project specifically, we have the opportunity to work with trained opera singers in the School of Music, so we are going to focus primarily on this demographic. Additionally, we will be working in a pedagogical/lab setting. Unfortunately, this is a small group of potential users. Future versions of this application could prioritize working on a more inclusive use case, especially when it comes to giving feedback to newer singers.
Part C: … with consideration of economic factors. Economic factors are those relating to the system of production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.
Our product solution will take into consideration economic factors by making use of a lab space as an approach to high cost. The product will include numerous components that can be difficult for an individual vocalist to purchase, including the EGG ($850), VoceVista ($400), and a high quality microphone ($150). In total our product would be expected to cost an individual user about $1400 which is economically inaccessible to many, and therefore inadequate for traditional commercial production. To address this, our project solution will be designed with a shared lab space as part of our use case. This means our project will intend for more than one advanced vocalist/vocal coach to utilize the same app and associated hardware housed in a shared lab space. Our implementation will realize this through the use of a login mechanism such as password authentication that allows users to share expensive resources while only accessing data that belongs to the logged-in user. We will assume that the lab will have sufficient resources to store the users’ data since our app is designed to run locally as opposed to a web app on a server, and we understand that this has security implications that we will need to consider.
