Showing posts with label concept development. Show all posts
Showing posts with label concept development. Show all posts

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Related project - geotwitter

There are three ways to identify where the twitter is.

<1>Goe-located by smart phone:
Twinkle (free), TwitterFon (free), Tweetie ($2.99), and Twittelator Pro ($4.99). The main purpose of these applications is for twittering on phone and using gps to geo-tag the twitter post. Therefore, users can see the twitters nearby. It is very precise but the information is not so location-related.

<2>Hashtag:
Localtweeps is attempting to organize the local Twitterverse using a hashtag. The idea is that users add themselves on the Localtweeps site by registering their zip code, then any time they tweet about something relevant to their local audience, they append the #lt hashtag. Localtweeps them parses those tweets on their web site and publishes them in a city-restricted stream.

<3>Twitter search engine api
Nearby Tweets


These applications are devoted to find the twitters nearby. It is more like using the other way to access twitters. However, when trying to find the twitters about a location, it is not easy. In the other words, there are a lots of opportunities in it.

Insights from User research

Here are the insights from user research

on-the-go information:
Every thing is news, but journalists extract the parts which related to most of people as news on newspaper and TV. Therefore, there are still some news useful to small group of people or people in specific place and time. This kind of information could be the meat super discount before store closing or rainbow in the sky. There are two features of on-the-go information, location specific and expired in a short time.

Real-time micro news
The news on newspaper normally are the average of an area. For example, the weather is the average of a city during a day. However, people may want to know what is the weather in the park now. Take education information as the other example. Parents may want to know the news about the school nearby instead of the national education policy.

Personality of the store
This is directly from the last post Nokia's chef(http://www.blogger.com/posts.g?blogID=5825667414375488540).


By the personal interest, I will go for the "personality of the store". However, it doesn't mean giving up the other two, because these concepts will be used when realizing the "personality of the store"

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Initial research framework & thougts of industrial project

We have great two weeks industrial project from Nokia. It is very intensive short period of time, but my team has done very good and rigorous design process from user research, persona, concept generation to video prototype. We did very well at very step. It is my first to make flash animation and I really made it. I still remember at last two day I was still learning how to make moving animation. I have to thank my classmates they are so helpful. My team also sat good expectation of the presentation, so there is nothing out of control. This project is confidential, so unfortunately I can't write detail about it.

Industrial project is great but too intensive, so I took one week to recover from that. Maybe the other reason why it takes me so long to recover is that I was confused with my thesis. I have no ideas how to continue. I have done something, user research, brainstorming and some intuitive ideas , but there is no clear user needs or problems that I can rely on to develop. What I have done is more like a tool to understand what I want to do.

I concluded what I have now into a initial research framework showed below.


Understand how information flow in the urban and how poeple communication in urban scale.
Then design an channel for efficient information transmission on mobile phone in the urban scale.

I will conduct a series of interviews relative to this topic to discover design opportunities.

Friday, May 15, 2009

Mobile Context


I want to do "Web2.0 application in mobile context". From my research, I found out we use the computer to access internet in a specific context. We will do it in a room, only focus on the using computer, individually and sit in front of the computer( see the chart in the first picture). Furthermore, use computer before or after an activity. In contrast, mobile context is more about outdoor, in an activity, with friends and on-the-go.

I made a little experiment in the afternoon open lecture to explore what we need in mobile context. There are few insights. First, before lecture we chatted and one classmate showed the iPhone app. This software is more about showing something not about finding something new. Second, I would like some software that can record this experience in simple reusable media. Third, I want to know what others opinions are in more casual way or opinion for specific section .

The second picture shows some mobile contexts to inspire me. Originally I made a attention distribution of the different mobile context scenario to understand the relationships of these context. I feel that there could be two kinds of the software used in an activity. One is the complement of the main activity. For example, in a lecture I have a device to record the experience. The other one is sub-activity that means a totally different activity parallel happens. For example, when biking, listen to music.

This week, Christena Nippert Eng from IIT(http://www.iit.edu/csl/ss/faculty/nippert_christena.shtml) is our visiting faculty. She gives me a great point of view about attention distribution. Attention should not be related to the different kinds of context. For example, if biking in the crowded traffic, user should pay lots of attention on it. Like the right side chart, it changes in different time not strongly relative to activity.

Small exercise - I want to know ......



My personal view point of Web 2.0 app is fulfill one human's curiosity. Digg is a platform for people to know what others are reading now and Twitter is a platform for people to know what others are doing now. Because every classmates are very busy for their own thesis, I do a small exercise for myself instead of brainstorming. This exercise is to write down everything I want to know about for inspiring.

In this phase, it is not easy to point out a direction only from this exercise. I do this for two reasons. I kept thinking something like this, so best strategy is to write it down and release some mental loading. This may not directly useful, but it aims to create a rich background with lots of similar activity. Once I have a great concept. It is easy to connect every thing to make a great design.

Friday, May 8, 2009

Brianstorming - what others are " "ing now?

My thesis focuses on "Web 2.0 Apps in Mobile Context"

What is Web 2.0 App? I have a very personal and not well defined view point that it is a platform satisfying human's curiosity. For instance, digg is a platform that you can know what others are reading now. Twitter is a platform that you can know what others are doing now. Facebook is a platform that you can know how and what your friends are doing now.

The Web 2.o Apps now are developed for the unique context for instance we use it at home or office individually and only focus on doing it. There are increasingly people using mobile phone to access internet. The context we use internet is dramatically different for instance accessing internet is more on-the-go, within a event or with others together. There should be some essential difference between accessing internet on mobile phone and pc.

Web 2.0 Apps in Mobile Context means a platform you can know something others are doing now in mobile context which is different from context using pc. Therefore, I want to do a brainstorming what do you want to know others are doing now and in what context? This could be very simple, for instance I want to know which store nearby sells great and cheap vegetable, which restaurant has good "today special" or which art piece is popular in the museum.

Brainstorming questions:
Please write down your favorite web services / applications with one sentence that it makes you know what. ex Twitter is a platform that you can know what others are doing now.

In the mobile context which means on-the-go, in the activity or with friends, what who how and why do you want to know about? ex I am curious about the pictures every one took in my wedding. It is the important moment in my life and I want to know every detail.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

What I want to do with mobile phone

This week, there is a open lecture by James Haliburton, TAT (http://tat.se/) . They did great job about improving mobile phone UI through gesture, sound, tactile and try to go beyond wimp user interface. These are definitely fascinating to explore. However, these projects make me sure that I am more interested in how people interact or communicate with others and information than new mobile phone input methodology.

Service design course opens my eyes and it shows me how innovation could be by users. In my past design, I always tried hard to get insights from my own experience. It is weird that designer can do any design before really understanding the users or context. The mobile phone applications now seem almost all come from technology such as gps plus map goads lots of social network around location. I think we need to zoom out to view how "mobile phone always online" weaves into our life pattern deeply.

After digesting all thoughts across my mind, I want to focus on "Web 2.0 application in Mobile context". This means I want to do something that improves people's relationship, generates some valuable information such as twitter or creating a new behavior / verb named as application name sush as google this.

In this phase, Simona, head of CIID, encourages us to have a big vision, even it is not clear or we don't know how to achieve it. She took The Duomo of Florence as example. At the begining, italians just want to make a huge church that is astonished and makes everyone remember it and they took two hundred years to make it happened. It is really helpful@@

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Initial Thesis Statement/Mission

I want my thesis to …
  • I want to build my own philosophy of design and my own way of design process which is fit to my personal character.
  • I would like this thesis could represent what I am thinking, my personality and my ability.
  • I want to get a design consultant job that could challenge design paradigm through this thesis.
  • I need to write a conference paper.
  • I would like to submit the thesis to red dot design competition.

I’m interested in/inspired by…
  • I am also very interested in what happened if mobile phone can always online, know where we are by GPS and know our status by accelerormeter. How does this reshape our urban, architecture and our lives?
  • I am interested in design process. Can “design thinking” be improved?

During my thesis I would like to challenge myself in…
  • The clear design thinking and smart design strategy is my goal. Do the design with just enough prototype not to be fascinated in making working prototype. Make the best of communication of my design with proper media. Do things step by step not to be too ambitious at beginning.
  • Do good user research. Inspired and co-design with user.
  • Make good document of the process.

Who would you like your adviser to be?

Please state a first option and a second option.
First Simona
Second Vinay


Comfort zone:
  • software programming: processing, flash action script 3, python, pys60, reactivision
  • hardware: arduino, button hack
  • design skill: architecture, product design, urban design, photoshop, video prototype

Risk zone: (H: highly risk M: middle level risk L: Low level risk)
  • software programming: H android sdk(mobile phone), H google app engine(web site), Flex
  • design: L illustrator, L flash as2 (rapid prototype GUI), CSS, FLEX
  • hardware: M zebee networked programming

Saturday, May 2, 2009

Entry point of thesis


The hardest part of doing a thesis for me is to give myself a brief. What should I do with the last chance that I can do what ever I want? Basically, I want to make mobile phone applications which may success on apple store or nokia ovi store. However, what is the issue inside it? It could be design methods of making mobile phone application, focusing on one application, or from a big theme such as next social communication app on the mobile phone context. I can do well in each way, but I hesitate to chose one because how high a design can reach depends on the initial vision.

The diagram is visualization of what I have thought so far. There are there catagories: How, Who, Why and I list what acrossed my mind. This three cagetories are questions that every design should answer: why this design is important, who it is for and how it works. These could also be there entry points to my thesis.

As you can see, technology category is longest and this is also the reflection of industrial actuality. Most of the innovative design comes from new technology and then marketing people try to focus potential users. At this moment, unless I can build something from fundamental hardware, there is no new technology. Too many people has done many interesting innovative projects in lab.

About the user group, I am more interested in organizational relationship. For example, the elementary school is composed of teachers, students and parents and there are some subtle interactions between these stakeholders. For web 2.0 spirits, these kind of relationship is easy to spread out a app.

Personally, I am very interested in the movement of next generation communication app. From digg, facebook to twitter, they hit or invent some essential human needs. Maybe, it is good to start from a theme, what is the next communication app on the mobile context.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

case study for inspiration

Here is the quick survey of mobile phone applications that interest me.
It is not a research framework yet just for inspiration.

  • phone accesory
    • Mobiscope
      • ~ iphoneapplicationlist.com > 2009 > 03 > 11 > Mobiscope
      • Their Words
        • Mobiscope is the most comprehensive IP video surveillance software for iPhone and iPod Touch. Monitor your home, office, or warehouse activities anywhere in the world.

          • -View live, full motion video from your IP network camera.
          • -Watch any public webcam streaming places of interest worldwide.
          • -Get motion detection alerts via email.
          • -View up to 4 cameras simultaneously.
      • My Notes
        • extend the phone ability to the outside world
        • phone + Arduino Ethernet Shield
    • Citizen Science
      • ~ Citizenscience
      • Their Words
        • In this research we highlight an important new shift in mobile phone usage – from communication tool to "networked mobile personal measurement instrument". We explore how these new “personal measurement instruments” enable an entirely novel and empowering genre of mobile computing usage called citizen science. Through the use of sensors paired with personal mobile phones, everyday people are invited to participate in collecting and sharing measurements of their everyday environment that matter to them.

          What are you sensing?

          • The sensors are commercially available gas sensors for sensing carbon monoxide (CO), NOx, and Ozone (O3). We also have sensors for temperature and humidity. We have integrated them into a custom board we designed and fabricated.

          How do you transmit the data?

          • The data is sampled evey 60 seconds and sent from the board via bluetooth to the phone. From there we send the data via SMS along with the GPS data from the phone to a central server where it can be rendered into the visualization.

      • My Notes
        • accumulate segment data to understand urban
        • customize electronic accessory
    • iPhone RFID: object-based media
      • Their Words
        • This is a prototype of an iPhone media player that uses physical objects to control media playback. It is based on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) that triggers various iPhone interactions when in the range of a wireless tag embedded inside a physical object.

      • My Notes
        • novel user interface
        • phone talks to external world
  • spacific domain
    • Video DJ
      • ~ prototype on youtube
      • Their Words
        • The idea here was that a company, let's say the New York Times, would hire brand-name DJs to mix video clips of the news into 2-minute videos, and at the end, the user could tap on any of the video clips to full a longer version of that news video

          ~ Redesigning Journalism At Stanford's Design School

      • My Notes
        • solve the problem of browsing news
        • the way we receive media under cell phone constrain
    • Epocrates
      • ~ epocrates
      • Their Words
        • Epocrates, Inc. develops clinical information and decision support tools that enable healthcare professionals to find answers more quickly and confidently at the point of care.

      • My Notes
        • specific domain need
    • Cooking Capsules
      • Their Words
        • Resources for quick dinner ideas, party 5ps, or elegant snacks at your finger5ps

          ‐ Simplicity of the app is universally appealing

          ‐ Useful combination of videos, maps & easy‐to‐use grocery lists and recipes

      • My Notes
        • specific user group
  • new interface
    • BodySpace
      • inferring body pose for natural control of a music player
      • ~ portal.acm.org > Citation ? ...
      • Their Words
        • CHI conference paper

          We describe the BodySpace system, which uses inertial sensing and pattern recognition to allow the gestural control of a music player by placing the device at different parts of the body. We demonstrate a new approach to the segmentation and recognition of gestures for this kind of application and show how simulated physical model-based techniques can shape gestural interaction.

      • My Notes
        • innovate user interface
        • input function when moving
    • Ocarina
      • ~ Quirky App Turns Your iPhone Into a Flute
      • Their Words
        • Called Ocarina, the $1 app creates sounds in real-time based on gestures, tilt, wind input and finger placement on the four "holes" displayed on the multi-touchscreen. The app also includes a globe view allowing users to hear other performances from around the world.

      • My Notes
        • see other's performance nearby realtime
        • very good to show off
  • location based service
    • JotYou
    • social light
      • ~ socialight.com
      • Their Words
        • Socialight lets you discover right here, right now information about places all around you. Simple.

          The basic building block of Socialight is the Sticky Note- similar to a yellow Post-it note that you find at the office, except that it can contain text, images, audio and even video! Sticky Notes can be stuck to any location in the world and you can choose who can see yours...

      • My Notes
        • social networking through the map
        • augment information on the real world
    • GPS:: Tron
      • ~ we-make-money-not-art.com > Archives > 2005 > 01 > The-gps-applica
      • Their Words
        • The player's movements in real space, which are tracked by GPS and transmitted to the phone's display, influence his/her position in the game. Each player is represented by a line that gets longer and longer. But the player's own line is never allowed to cross itself or the opponent's line. Which makes the game harder as time passes. The goal is to drive your opponent into a corner so that he can no longer extend his line without breaking the rules and losing. This is a game for two players who can be geographically distant from one another.

      • My Notes
        • very simple game rule
        • turn physical world to the play ground
        • connect physical and virtual
  • apply existing concept to phone
    • reality mining
      • ~ readwriteweb.com > Archives > Reality mining
      • Their Words
        • processing more than 350,000 hours of data collected from peoples' cell phones. More than just who calls who, Pentland is also studying proximity, location and activity data using information like interactions recorded between Bluetooth devices.

      • My Notes
        • apply web activity algorithm to life
        • mobile phone as a sensor device
  • merge digital and physical world
    • MyCloset
      • Their Words
        • Manage and plan your fashion items
        • ‐ Build your closet inventory in the phone
        • ‐ With easy touch opera5ons, plan your daily fashion coordinates
      • My Notes
        • personal management
        • digitalize the physical
    • Jigsaw
      • Their Words
        • Enables users to capture, process and share whiteboard data.

          ‐ With edge detec5on, geometric transforma5ons and image enhancements provides users with simple yet useful tool to capture whiteboard data

      • My Notes
        • very specific usage
    • goCart
      • Their Words
        • The perfect marriage of online shopping and window shopping.
        • ‐ Scan the barcode of any product using your phone’s camera
        • ‐ Compare prices of online merchants and nearby local stores
        • ‐ Build wish lists that can be shared with your friends on your favorite social network
      • My Notes
        • merge digital information to life
  • connecting people
    • Fingerprint
      • Their Words
        • Fingerprint is a collabora5ve pain5ng applica5on. Draw by yourself, or together with friends – anywhere in the world.

          ‐ Share your canvas and invite your friends to draw with you

          ‐ Draw on photographs, snap a picture and then change it as a group

          ‐ Play on an infinite canvas; move around, zoom, and draw freely

      • My Notes
        • realtime sharing memory
  • know yourself
    • Eco2Go
      • ~ Eco2go Android Interview
      • Their Words
        • Track & reduce your carbon footprint. Share ideas on sustainable living with friends from around the world!

          ‐ Track car trips and carbon output automa5cally; discover public transit alterna5ves that reduce your footprint

          ‐ Share your sustainable living story, as it happens, with the global eco2go community – you're not alone!

          ‐ Offset what you can't reduce intelligently; track how your offsets are used to counter carbon emissions

      • My Notes
        • sustainability
        • know yourself