Digitale opslag van verhalen over passie by Mark Uriot

EARTHLINQS Projectplan

Project Nieuwe Dingen Doen Hogeschool Utrecht, Faculteit Communicatie & Journalistiek Communciation & Multimedia Design

17-06-2013

Anna Martin

Petteri Packalen

Anna Schillings

Mark Uriot

Introduction

Index Introduction Page 3 Debriefing

Page 4

For this project we are connected to our client Earthlinqs, an organisation that thrives for the online storage of personal storytelling. They have given us the briefing to come up with a concept which people can use, to share their stories in and after life.

Research Page 5

People have always had the urge of telling stories, these days the methods of sharing are drastically changed, conscious or unconscious. In this age a new way of storytelling is born, throughout the world wide web and in posession of a smartphone people are sharing everywhere and at almost every time.

Target group Page 9

The goal of Earthliqns is to create a way of saving these stories so that the upcoming generations have an idea of what our lifestyles were. They believe that storytelling is a never ending tale.

The concept & user scenario Page 10, 11 - How does it work? Page 10 - How does it look (the interface) Page 12

Usability Test

Page 34

Annex Page 36 - Paper sketches Page 37 - Digital sketches Page 66 - Usability test Page 81

Sources

Page 84

Research

Debriefing Our assignment was to give shape to the virtual immortality idea of Earthlinqs. They want to make online time traveling possible, by looking back at our personal stories which change throughout time and asking your childrens children what they want to know about you, your parents, your friends, your past and place, and answering their questions using all available digital media and possibilities. Not just telling a story sequentially but maximally ‘marking it up’ with links to anything and everything in our time and place. This way all these stories become intertwined. A Sea of Stories, painting a picture not just of somebody, but of people connected in time and space. Earthlinqs is about what we can do now, with all our modern digital technology, to answer those questions. We’ve thought about questions like: how would you like to be remembered? What’s your passion in life? We also thought of ways people want to be rememberd and we came up with the idea that they want to be remembered by their passions in life. Finally we were also interested in how people these days are sharing. In our concept we’ve answered throughout a method where users can share their passions digitally.

For the earthlinqs project we did research in two forms: desk & fieldresearch. At first we’ve started doing deskresearch on how storytelling is done nowadays (why do people tell stories and why do they want to share theirs?). We took a look at the YouTube-film ‘’Life in a day’’, a commercial of Google Chrome, the movie of Earthlinqs themselves, an article about immortality (The News) and The Exquisite Forest. Our second phase in research was in the field part. In the center of Utrecht we have asked 9 random people what their opinions about storytelling were.

Results Deskresearch The most important findings from the desk-research are explained underneath. There were a few connecting red lines throughout the different sources. The two shortfilms and the commercial had in common that all the told stories are personal, filmed from a Point Of View of a person, and made by the people for the people. There were a few themes that we could extract in watching the shortfilms: rituals, emotions, problems, tributes, love, inventions and transport. In the Youtube-film the story of the movie itself was told from young to old (the beginning of life to the end). We saw the movie as a tribute to mankind and their stories. The commercial of Google Chrome is filmed through someone elses eyes. People therefore can feel more connected to that person and they are able to emphathize more easily. The movie of Earthlinqs was extracting the same message: ‘’personal storytelling about our world and lives’’. Finally we’ve analyzed the concept ‘’Exquisite Forest’’. This is a concept in which the users can upload random words which are being transformed into a sentence. These sentences form the inspiration of animations which they draw themselves. The users can create a new animation or edit eachothers. A narrative forest of stories is their concept. The part of sharing and editing eachothers stories was very interesting, because the other users can create new stories out of the excisting ones.

Research

Research Results fieldresearch Other platforms All of our team members have experience in using social platforms. As we got to deeper stages of the process and got a clearer idea for our own approach towards Earthlinqs, we discussed our preferences from these other platforms. We were discussing the following platforms: 1. Youtube 2. Facebook 3. Twitter 4. Instagram 5. Google We intended to adapt the best features out of the bunch and some of their existing system navigations within the platform. Our goal was to create a platform that is easy to use, so it made sense to imitate some of the features of these well-known and much used platforms. We would like Earthlinqs to cooperate with other platforms in order to make it easier for users to import content, but at the same time enable functions from them to make it easier to for example find people who are on other platforms (e.g. friends on Facebook). Technology When it comes to technology, we believe tablet-like devices are going to grow in popularity in the near future. On the other hand, the mobile camera technology has come so far that it has surpassed traditional cameras in popularity, and in uploading pictures to internet. Together these factors made us believe that the smartest option for us is to base our planning on mobile devices (tablets, smartphones), but not on excluding computers.

Summary of an article from The News: ‘‘curating a life: Immortality goes virtual’’

As methods of field research, we visited a graveyard in Utrecht and conducted interviews. We randomly chose our interviewees at the streets of Utrecht, but tried to pick different types of people, to get as much variety as possible (9 persons in total). We also conducted deeper interviews with people we know. When it comes to graveyard research, we wanted to pay a visit in order to see what people want to show to future generations about them after they pass away.

Research Graveyard We found out that only a small percentage (+/- 3%) of the stones are actually personalized. Personalizing them is very expensive, the space is limited and many of the stones are not picked by the people lying underneath them. The stones which were personalized clearly revealed something about the past person, whether it was love towards a hobby, profession or devotion to a community or a family. There was also a group of stones that emphasized habits and meaningful possessions. However, the full stories behind these symbols were missing, and were only meaningful to those that knew the person. Others are left wondering.

Target group Our target group consists out of every person who feels the need to tell and share their stories about passions with the world, and is also interested in stories of others. The agespan weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve chosen isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t limited to a few years. If the users know the usage of sharing through Social Media, they would be approximately from 9 to -/+ 70 years old (starting & finishing of the usage of the internet). Aslong as they want to share their passion(s) our platform affects them. They also have to agree with the fact that all the members of Earthlinqs can view their stories. This is beacuse the media-items are are made public. But on the other hand, when agreed to that, they contribute to a wonderful way of teltling their stories to other users all over the world. In third place it will come in handy if our users have some skills of other Social Platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

We categorized the symbols as following: 1. Pets 2. Hobbies & Habits 3. Career 4. Family 5. Faith

Finally the users of Earthlinqs are in the possesion of a Tablet, since this is our main-interface which we designed the platform for.

Interviews We also interviewed people to find out if they are eager to reveal stories about themselves (for most of them to total strangers). It turned out that they are very eager to tell their stories (about passion), their views and even shortcomings. They want to be known and remembered for their passion or career, it may even work as a representation of themselves. If they got the chance to go back in time, most of them would go to a time where they are able to meet the kind of people that have a significant interest in them, such as role models. Most of them want to be remembered in a happy and positive way, but some only by their closest family, friend, etc. For most of the people privacy is very important.

Concept Our concept is based on saving and sharing your stories about passion(s). We’ve came up with a new method where this is made possible. You can share these personal stories with the world, because these types of stories shouldn’t be lost at all times.

How does it work?

Our concept is based on a submarine, which travels through familiar public locations, a so called ‘’submarine of stories’’. The public locations are locations on which you can easily select your time, space and persons. We’ve determined that travelling below sealevel is a great way to visualize told stories. The further the user dives, the darker the sea and the older the stories get. If you dive deeper into the see of stories, the visibility of the stories is being reduced. The tagline of Eartlinqs inspired us: ‘’sea of stories’’, which literally could represent a sea filled with told stories. When travelling to a location a field of bubbles is mad visible (in that year). These bubbles represent the persons who’ve been on that selected public location. It is possible that there are many people who have been there, therefore the bubbles randomly change constantly. When clicked on a bubble a chain and it’s anchor appear. Here you see a preview of the five most passionate stories of that person, on that location. When you want to see the whole story of the selected person you can go to his profile. This chain represents this person. Within the chain grows seaweed, and in these plants the stories are hidden, visualized as bubbles. Every bubble holds it’s own story.

User Scenario Somewhere in the near future, in a village in Germany there lives a guy named Thomas. He works at a garage as a mechanic, where he works on cars, his passion. One day he comes home from a long day of work, grabs a Warsteiner and sits down on the couch. He switches on his tv. He searches through some channels and he sees there is a footbal game going on. After a while of watching the game he starts to wonder about the times where he and his closest friend used to play football on the streets of Cologne. Because he lost contact with him, he thinks about how his friend is doing now. Therefore he picks up his iPad and starts up Earthlinqs while wondering about his friend. The ocean appears and he hits the search button. He types in the name of his friend, but realizes that there are more people called Hans Schmidt. He remembers the park where they used to play football. So he types in Beethovenpark. He found his friend and taps on the bubble. The bubble floats up, a chain and an anchor pop out. He sees a picture of him and Hans in Beethovenpark. He enlarges the picture and looks at the photo. He decides to tag himself in the picture, and he gets a notification wich says succesfully added to your chain (profile). He wants to take a look at Hans’ chain (profile) so he clicks on the profile bubble. Here he gets an overview of Hans’ chain, the particles are years. He sees five pictures of cooking as a preview and he thinks this is Hans’ passion now. He takes a look at the last few years to see what he’s lately been up to. Thomas is glad he didn’t follow Hans’ path, since he has become ‘’a family person’’ who drives an new stationwagon. While Thomas is enjoying working on classic cars and driving them. Thomas is kind of dissapointed. He clicks on the world map and sees the places Hans has traveled to. He notices that Hans has traveled to Vietnam, and Thomas decides to check it out. He taps on a city and an overview of locations appear. He finally checks Hans’ activities and sees a movie where he is playing footbal with Vietnamese children.

We have also given the user the option to import media form other Social platform. This is because then the threshold of uploading pictures and looking them up from your harddrive is pretty much gone. With only a few clicks the user can import media from Facebook, Flickr and YouTube. In third place, connecting stories are possible, for example if someone shares media of a story it can be told from different angels and different persons. When tagging yourself or other users their stories are being connected. Finally we’ve chosen for the use of an iPad, because this device is easy in use, because it’s light, when for example getting home after a long day of work (almost zero start up time, fast apps). On the other hand the interactions are varied and we think that there is a big future lying ahead for tablets.

How does it look?

Usability Test

We have tested our concept and screens on four persons:

World Map

1. Esther de Goede (Communication and Multimedia Design, 20 jaar) 2. Monique van de Ven (Kunstopleiding,19) 3. Lotte van Erp (Geen studie,19) 4. Felix Marcolina (Economie en Recht, 20)

Shows the users where they have been. Google remembers the location where the pictures are taken, that is a strong function. Saving pictures on the internet is a good thing in sence of not being able to lose them.

All of the buttons weren’t clear for all of the tested persons, they said that placing them in a group and making them smaller is a better idea. Widening the background will give the users a better/nicer/more full user experience. Everyone gave other meanings on the buttons then what they really meant. On of our tested persons, Monique didn’t dare to click the button with time, because she thought it was for resetting it. And the setting should be more clickable, e.g. with a slider. Linking the platform to your Facebook friends makes it easier to search on those persons. Home-screen Most of the users will click on the bubbles in the middle, on the bubbles itself. When they see them it wasn’t clear if it was you or another person. The date on the ID-card isn’t clear: what happened in that month? They didn’t immediatly understand that the date on the ID-card is his date of birth. A small call-to-action is needed. Felix thought of a calender when he saw the Time-button. The world map-button reminded him and Lotte of a route or a roadmap. Finally they shared the opinion that our Upload button could take them a step back, a former visited page. Exeptional was Lotte’s thought on the Time-button, she thought is was a stopwatch. According to her the World Map button shows the location where you are right now. Profile (button and screen itself) Monique thought that she first had to click on the world map to see his locations. The particles of the chain didn’t look that they could be zoomed in on, the pictures were. Here should the function of letting the users switch throughout years be. They both didn’t understand if each chackle represents a different year, because one year would contain a large number of pictures. Our tested persons would upload pictures which visualizes things what make them happy and proud. Other bubbles should contain pictures too. Felix and Lotte thought of the Profile button as an contact-agenda or as people who you can call or search on. - The function of tagging someone should be more clear, a small call to action in form of text is needed. - When done after viewing a picture they would like to click on a small X-button.

Sketches

Annex

- Paper sketches - Digital sketches

Sketches

Brainstorm

Summary article about Storytelling

Sketches Brainstorm

Sketches

Brainstorm

Sketches

Brainstorm

Sketches

Brainstorm

Sketches

Brainstorm > Business Model Canvas

Sketches

Digital sketches

Usability Test Testpersoon Esther de Goede (Communication and Multimedia Design, 20 jaar) Het eerste scherm zegt me nog niks De wereld is misschien dat er andere mensen zijn die ik daar kan vinden, op een kaart waar de verhalen van mensen te zien zijn. Waar die zijn. Tijd: Aantal mensen die verhalen vertellen, al kan dat een groot aantal woorden. Pijl is niet duidelijk een knop. Wijst naar het poppetje, dus horen die bij elkaar Eerste knop, wat gebeurt hier Herhaling van die andere knop. Hier komt het aantal mensen. Ik twijfel of het aantal mensen zijn of heeft het met geld te maken. Of het zijn het aantal berichten die gestuurd zijn. Omdat het twee vakjes zijn, lijkt het een komma. Geklikt op landkaart Misschien dat ik iemand zoek, maar wie? Facebook vrienden heb ik al, waarom zou ik dat hier zoeken op andere mensen in de wereld. Ga niet naar pietje in Afrika. Het zijn net knoppen. Heb alles al geordend op facebook, dat hoef ik niet opnieuw te zoeken. Facebook vrienden terug willen zien in het platform. Dat lijkt me wel interessant. (zoeken naar persoon) Het irritante is dat je niet meteen je persoon vindt, iedereen heet het zelfde. Dus als je het met facebook zal koppelen. Daar zit iedereen al (duiken) Vrienden zien bobbelen, het is een onderwaterwereld dat is wel cool. Op bubbel, ben ik dat, of is dat mijn vriend. Is hij dood. Hij heeft zo’n kaartje aan zijn voet. Kun je zoeken naar dode mensen Ik weet niet zoveel van mijn opa, en die heeft jarenlang is amersfoort gewoond. En in het logbook van Amersfoort houden ze alles aan, wanneer je getrouwd bent of geboren. En het lijkt me leuk als ik dat in kan zien. Maar vind het eng om daar naar toe te gaan Ik zie nu 2013, een dag. Juni 2013. Is hij toen overleden, geboren. Misschien wanneer die overleden is. Of misschien is het een speciale maand. Als ik hem aangeklikt heb dan zinkt hij naar de bodem. En als ik op hem klinkt dan selecteer ik dan. En dan kan ik naar beneden scrollen en dan kom ik meer over hem te weten Uit het ding dat naar beneden valt. Het is natuurlijk zwaar. Google dingentje is locaties waar hij is geweest. Andere is een profiel/ informatie En die andere is een foto. Oke daar kun je op inzoomen. Wat zijn die andere balletjes. Mischien andere foto’s. Maar ik vind het wel raar dat het dan geen foto’s zijn. Maar misschien wel als zal het mij minder triggeren om er op te klikken. Het rondje is zonde van je scherm. De knoppen zijn groot en robuust. In het rondje vind ik heel mooi, dus het is zonde van je scherm. De onderwaterwereld is heel magisch, dus maak het groter. Foto, heel je scherm. Mist een kruis. Dat geeft het gevoel dat je uit de onderwaterwereld gaat. Iemand taggen, bij de Facebook, die herkent hoofden. Wel gevaarlijk soms wordt je getagt op

Usability Test een foto die je niet wil. Maar bij het hoofden herkennen. Als dit zo zal blijven ligggen zal ik het weg klikken en naar een andere foto gaan. Wat ook wel grappig is om dit te doen met filmpjes. Een vriendin van mij waarmee ik op ballet, en die zal ik dus wel gedigitaliseerd willen hebben. Rondje is raar, als dit taggen is wil ik een vierkantje. Zo doet facebook het ook. Nu lijkt het net of ik hem geselecteerd heb. Lettertype niet te lezen. Iets simpelers, zakelijker ofzo. Omdat het gaat om het taggen. Dit is meer een kop font. Het lijkt net een tekstballonnetje., alsof hij het zegt. Hoe switch ik tussen de jaren. Je kunt twee pijltjes plaatsen, Maar dan moet je wel kijken of je dan tussen jaren of maanden doet. Wereldkaart. Geeft weer waar ik geweest ben. Google onthoudt op mijn iphone waar je foto’s heb genomen. Dat vind ik echt cool. Dus op de wereldkaart kun je zien waar hij allemaal een foto heeft genomen. Ook als je er op een klikt dat je dan de foto’s van daar ziet. Ik heb het ook liever op internet staan, dan ben ik ze ook niet kwijt.

Usability Test Felix denkt bij de eerste knop (00) n een kalender. Bij die daaronder denkt hij aan een route of kaart. Bij het poppetje denkt hij aan mensen of contacten. En bij de pijl denkt hij aan een pagina omhoog of terug. Hij zal als eerste drukken op de landkaart maar die heeft hij dan graag een omhoog(als eerst). Lotte van Erp dacht eerst dat de plaatjes in de knoppen uitvergroot zouden worden als je er op drukt. Maar daarna dacht ze dat je bij de knop met het tijd, ook tijd kon instellen of een stopwatch activeren. Bij de landkaart wordt er volgens haar een plek aangewezen waar je nu bevindt en kun je een route plannen waar je naar toe wil. Het knopje met het poppetje, zou je iemand kunnen bellen. En met de pijl kun je terug. Ik zal eerst drukken op het knopje met het poppetje. Monique van de ven zal als eerste in het midden drukken als dat mogelijk is anders anders op de pijl. Als het uploaden is dat zal die hier gaan werken. Lotte van Erp verwacht hier dat ze als ze op het poppetje ziet, je kunt zien wie er “meespelen” in het verhaal of op de locatie.

Zijn dat verschillende jaartallen. 1 jaar is bij mij echt heel veel foto’s. Foto’s die ik er bij zou zetten, zijn foto’s van mijn hondjes/ vakanties. Dingen waar ik gelukkig van wordt. Of dingen waar mensen om kunnen lachen. Maar meer voor mijn vrienden. Of dat ik mensen zou kunnen accepteren. Verhalen van erbij bijvoorbeeld van mijn oma. Vroeger zal meer handmatig moeten gaan dan. Het is wel leuk dat foto’s dan niet meer kunnen verdwijnen. Ook gesproken verhalen zou ik ook leuk vinden. Misschien bij foto of filmpje dat je er iets over verteld. De persoonlijke kleine dingentjes achter een verhaal. Bijvoorbeeld bij een foto met een jurk die mijn oma zelf gemaakt heeft. Dat je dan hoort dat mijn moeder voor wie de jurk was hem niet mooi vondt. Of dat ze de jurk twee keer opnieuw moet doen die kleine dingetjes. Ik zal de foto’s weer weg doen op er op te drukken of hem naar beneden slepen. Weg slepen is wel lastig omdat ik hem dan weer weggooi ofzo, terwijl ik hem wel wil houden. Tijd, meer laten lijken om slide ding van Apple. En het blauwe ding dumpen. Monique van de Ven(kunstopleiding,19), Lotte van Erp (Geen studie,19) en Felix Marcolina(Economie en Recht, 20) Monique van de Ven denkt bij de knop met 00 denk ik aan resetten. Bij de landkaart denk ze aan het kunnen selecteren van een regio of plaats. Bij het poppetje denk ik aan profielen van mensen of aan iemand inschakelen voor hulp en bij de pijl denk ik dat ik of weer terug ga naar de vorige pagina of gerefreshed wordt, of ga uploaden Eerst wilde ze drukken op de Landkaartje, En dan het poppetje Die andere twee later omdat ik bang ben dat die hem reset of dat die naar een andere pagina gaat

Used Sources 1. http://www.youtube.com/user/lifeinaday 2. http://www.exquisiteforest.com/forest 3. http://thenews.com.mx/index.php/living-articulos/8447-curating-a-life-immortality-goes-virtual 4. http://bear71.nfb.ca/#/bear71 5. http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=exquisite+forest 6. http://www.citeworld.com/tablets/21923/tablets-smaller-cheaper-everywhere 7. http://www.focus.de/kultur/medien/kultur-digitale-unsterblichkeit_aid_146250.html 8. http://www1.wdr.de/themen/digital/liveson100.html 9. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve created a Dropbox where all of our sketches, pictures, presentation and animations are located saved: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/bncosicsfsw2n87/fqdBB8B0YA