Playground

Playground
A mobile service for social interaction
Martin Sandström
February 4, 2007
Master’s Thesis in Computing Science, 20 credits
Internal advisor at CS-UmU: Lars-Erik Janlert
External advisor at Sony Ericsson: Michael Henriksson
Examiner at CS-UmU: Per Lindström
UMEÅ UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTING SCIENCE
SE – 901 87 UMEÅ
SWEDEN
Abstract
The mobile phone industry is evolving at a rapid rate and new applications
and ways of communication are parts of the evolution. This master’s thesis
presents a concept for an application for use in mobile phones, mainly
targeted at people in their late teens. The application supports different
types of social interaction with known and unknown users and has
positioning and awareness features enabled by GPS and Bluetoothtechnology. The thesis describes already existing, text-based
communication channels over the Internet and mobile phone net and tries to
find distinctive features. Furthermore the design process used is described
and discussed together with the different parts of the application.
Sammanfattning
Mobilindustrin växer i rekordfart och nya applikationer och sätt att
kommunicera är en del av utvecklingen. Denna rapport presenterar ett
koncept för en applikation för mobiltelefoner, huvudsakligen riktad mot
tonåringar på gymnasiet. Applikationen stödjer olika typer av social
interaktion
med
kända
och
okända
användare
och
har
positioneringsmöjligheter med hjälp av GPS och Bluetooth-teknologi.
Rapporten beskriver redan existerande textbaserade kommunikationsformer
över Internet och med mobiltelefon och försöker reda ut vad det är som gör
dem unika. Designprocessen som pågått under projektets gång är förklarad
tillsammans med applikationens olika beståndsdelar.
ii
Preface
After four years in Umeå, one in Japan and one semester in Lund I now
know what I am. I am an interaction designer. People still ask me what an
interaction designer is and what I do as an interaction designer. The answer
is I make things easy to use. Even better yet, I make them a pleasure to use.
In a few years time I do not think I have to explain my occupation every
time people ask; interaction design is up and coming and the companies are
slowly starting to realize that a development team is not complete without a
couple of interaction designers and usability experts.
Interaction design is also about innovative solutions and new ways of
interaction. This thesis is a part of my master's degree project in Interaction
technology and Design and presents a concept for social interaction and
positioning in an application for mobile phones. As the ever so polite
female voice says on the train between Turku and Karjaa - Have a pleasant
journey! I did.
Lund, January 2007
iii
iv
Table of Contents
1. INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………1
1.1 Goal ........................................................................................................................2
1.2 Target group..........................................................................................................2
1.3 Method...................................................................................................................2
1.4 Limitations ..............................................................................................................2
1.5 Outline of the report……………………………………………………………….3
2. BACKGROUND……………………………………………………………….4
2.1 Related work .........................................................................................................4
2.1.1 Lovegety ........................................................................................................4
2.1.2 Nokia Sensor ..................................................................................................5
2.1.3 Speck ..............................................................................................................5
2.1.4 KompisKompassen .......................................................................................6
2.1.5 Hummingbird .................................................................................................6
2.1.6 Proxy Lady......................................................................................................6
2.1.7 Meme Tags ....................................................................................................6
2.1.8 Spotme ...........................................................................................................7
2.1.9 WatchMe .......................................................................................................7
2.2 Privacy ....................................................................................................................8
2.3 Online habits of the target group .....................................................................8
2.4 An overview of the computer mediated communication of today .........9
2.4.1 Communication over the Internet ......................................................... 10
2.4.1.1 Email.......................................................................................................... 10
2.4.1.2 Instant Messaging................................................................................... 11
2.4.1.3 Chat rooms .............................................................................................. 11
2.4.1.4 Online communities and forums ......................................................... 11
2.4.1.5 Blog ........................................................................................................... 12
2.4.2 Communicating on the go...................................................................... 13
2.4.2.1 Text messages (SMS) .............................................................................. 13
2.4.2.2 MMS........................................................................................................... 14
2.4.2.3 Internet via mobile ................................................................................. 14
2.4.3 Differences in stationary CMC-applications and Mobile phone
usage..................................................................................................................... 15
2.4.4 Discussion and future trends.................................................................... 16
3. WHAT IS PLAYGROUND?......................................................................17
vi
3.1 Key features........................................................................................................ 18
3.2 Jargon ................................................................................................................. 19
3.3 Modes in Playground........................................................................................ 19
3.3.1 User profile................................................................................................... 19
3.3.2 User presentation....................................................................................... 21
3.3.3 Remote mode ............................................................................................ 22
3.3.4 Close mode ................................................................................................ 23
3.3.5 Flirt mode..................................................................................................... 24
3.4 Message types ................................................................................................... 24
3.4.1 Street tag..................................................................................................... 25
3.4.2 Shoutout ...................................................................................................... 25
3.4.3 Local message ........................................................................................... 26
3.4.4 SMS ............................................................................................................... 26
3.4.5 Flirt message ............................................................................................... 26
3.4.6 Invitation message .................................................................................... 26
4. TECHNOLOGIES…………………………………………………………….29
4.1 Data transfer on distance................................................................................ 30
4.1.1 GPRS/EDGE ................................................................................................. 30
4.1.2 3G ................................................................................................................. 30
4.2 Positioning ........................................................................................................... 30
4.2.1 GPS ............................................................................................................... 31
4.2.2 Operator based services ......................................................................... 31
4.2.2.1 Telia FriendFinder .................................................................................... 31
4.2.2.2 Tre GURU................................................................................................... 32
4.3 Bluetooth............................................................................................................. 32
5. METHODS AND WORK PROCEDURE……………………………………33
5.1 The design process............................................................................................ 33
5.2 The research phase .......................................................................................... 34
5.2.1 Questionnaire ............................................................................................. 35
5.2.2 Focus groups .............................................................................................. 35
5.2.3 Social anthropological study .................................................................. 36
5.3 The idea phase .................................................................................................. 37
5.3.1 Brainstorm.................................................................................................... 37
5.3.2 Specification............................................................................................... 38
5.3.3 Scenarios and personas ........................................................................... 38
5.3.4 Graphic profile ........................................................................................... 39
5.4 The implementation phase ............................................................................. 40
5.4.1 Low-fi test .................................................................................................... 40
5.2 Hi-fi test ................................................................................................................ 41
vii
6. CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………….43
6.1 Discussion ............................................................................................................ 43
6.2 Future work ......................................................................................................... 45
7. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………………………...47
References
49
Appendix A - Questionnaire – in Swedish
Appendix B - Questionnaire results
Appendix C - Results from the Focus group
061016, discussion with seven boys, years old...................................................I
061017, discussion with four girls, 17-18 years old .............................................I
Appendix D - Results from the brainstorm session
How you can get in touch with and meet new contacts ..............................I
How a vibrant and dynamic feeling can be mediated .................................I
How the service can be abused and solutions to this.................................... II
Appendix E - Flow chart for Playground
Appendix F - Personas
Sabrina, 16, first year in upper secondary, natural science program ..........I
Markus, 18, last year in upper secondary, social science program..............I
Ida, 19, last year in upper secondary, performing arts program...................I
Appendix G - Scenarios
Dance partner .............................................................................................................I
Tasty latte ..................................................................................................................... II
Trip to downtown....................................................................................................... III
Good luck! ................................................................................................................. IV
Where are you?.........................................................................................V
Appendix H - Mood board
Appendix I - Colour map for various online communities
viii
List of Figures
2.1Lovegety
2.2 Meme Tag
2.3 Screenshot of Playahead and Lunarstorm
3.1 Zoomed-in state of Remote mode
3.2 The interface for creating a profile
3.3 Emoticons in Playground
3.4 Remote and Close mode
5.1 The design process
5.2 Screenshot of Nattstad
5.3 Sticky-notes from the brainstorm
5.4 Colour map for Playground
5.5 Concept art
5.6 Sheets from the low-fi test
5
7
8
18
21
22
23
34
36
37
39
39
41
x
List of Tables
2.1 Summary of discussed applications
3.1 The choices when creating a profile
B1 Persons belonging to an online community
16
20
Appendix B
xii
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Mobile phones of today are getting more and more integrated with other
technology and more and more targeted against specific target groups. The
first mobile phones that appeared on the consumer market had one key
function; you could call with it. Today they are not just phones; they are
gadgets and before you go and buy one you have to decide how you are
planning on using it. Maybe you want to have a camera in it. Or maybe an
mp3-player. Probably both, and an Internet browser and a calendar would
not harm either. And it has to look cool; reflect your lifestyle, talk your
language. With the mobile phone being a highly integrated part of people's
lifestyle and the increasing possibilities of combining technologies in the
mobile phone a concept for an application that uses GPS and Bluetooth for
social interaction has been designed. The application is named Playground
and aimed to attract people in their late teens.
This report is a part of a degree project in the Master of Science program
Interaction technology and Design at Umeå University in cooperation with
Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications' Creative Design Center in Lund,
Sweden.
1
2
Introduction
1.1 Goal
The goal of this project is to present a concept of an application for mobile
phones with focus on social interaction and positioning. A prototype
implemented in Flash has been made to show the key features as well as a
possible structure and graphic profile.
1.2 Target group
The application is designed for a specific target group, namely Swedish
people in their late teens, 16 to 19 years old. Defining a target group was
essential for the application to proceed and therefore done in the initial
phase of the project. Teenagers are keen on taking on new technology and
also have a strong culture in online communities and computer mediated
communication (CMC) and felt as a natural group to focus on for an
application of this kind. For more on online cultures and messaging see
section 2.4.
1.3 Method
A typical design process for software development has been used,
consisting of three main phases: a research phase, an idea phase and an
implementation phase. The research phase consisted of a questionnaire,
focus groups, a social anthropological study of online youth communities
and an additional literature study on related work. The idea phase consisted
of brainstorm sessions, creating scenarios and personas, a specification of
the structure and functions of the application and a graphical profile
including a colour scheme and concept art. The implementation phase
consisted of low-fi tests followed by implementation and testing in Flash.
1.4 Limitations
Since the goal of the project was to present a concept rather than a final
product, less attention has been given to implementation issues, like
network and positioning technologies, and only a semi functional prototype
has been implemented. The prototype is displayed on a computer screen
instead of in a mobile phone and the functionality has been restricted to the
scenarios designed to show the key features of Playground. It should also
Introduction
3
be mentioned that the graphics are conceptual and in case of a real
implementation a graphic designer should be consulted.
1.5 Outline of the report
Below is an outline in order to guide the reader through the report and
make it easy to comprehend.
Chapter 2 – Background
Describes some related work and explains the usage and culture that is
associated with computer mediated interaction. With this background
knowledge the reader should be able to understand chapter three and how
Playground fits in a bigger context.
Chapter 3 – What is Playground?
Here Playground is explained, first in a brief overview and then in detail.
Chapter 4 – Technologies
Chapter four covers the technologies that Playground is thought to use.
This chapter is not necessary to read if the reader is interested only in the
concept of social interaction. It is however included for those who want to
know what technologies could be used if Playground would be
implemented with real network and GPS-features.
Chapter 5 – Methods
Chapter five explains the work procedure from idea to prototype for the
readers who are interested in the design process and what tools are used in
product development.
Chapter 6 - Conclusion
Here the result of the project is discussed together with some conclusions.
The different methods used are also reflected upon and the chapter
concludes with a section that possible covers future work.
CHAPTER TWO
BACKGROUND
In this section the background of the project is covered in an overview of
related work, some words on the privacy issue, a look into online habits of
the target group and a study of the culture and usage of messaging and
CMC-applications.
2.1 Related work
Playground is a tool for social interaction where you can communicate with
your friends, meet new people and graphically see the location of your
friends. Social interaction and positioning are easy to combine for a variety
of interesting applications, especially if the application is implemented in a
mobile device. Not surprisingly there have been many attempts, both
commercial and scholarly, at creating an application that integrates social
interaction with positioning. Below is a selection of work similar, or related
to Playground.
2.1.1 Lovegety
Released in 1998 by Erfolg, the same company that gave us the Tamagochi,
Lovegety turned into a major commercial success in the crowded cities of
Japan. The Lovegety is a small device that senses if another device is
4
Background
5
within a five-meter radius and then starts to sound and blink. It is a way to
flirt and meet new people and comes in a female version and a male
version. You can set the device on three modes; talk, karaoke and get2. If a
device of the opposite sex enters the five meter sphere and your modes
match you will be alerted and if they do not match you will still be alerted
but with another sound. It was welcomed by the hectic Japanese as a new
way to meet people when they did not have the time for club hopping [21].
Figure 2.1 Lovegety
2.1.2 Nokia Sensor
Nokia Sensor from 2005 is a software downloadable for Nokia mobile
phone owners. It is an application that uses Bluetooth to enable you to send
messages and share files with other Sensor users. Nokia Sensor also detects
if there is another user in the area and lets the users read and interact with
each other’s presentations, called folios. The folio consists of five pages
with a presentation, media files and a guest book [33].
2.1.3 Speck
Speck, also from 2005, is quite similar to Nokia Sensor. It is a program that
comes as a small accessory but can also run on Bluetooth-equipped mobile
phones and PDAs. Speck uses already existing buddy lists from a user’s
IM-client and allows the user to share files with other Speck clients. Speck
uses Bluetooth class one and alerts the user when a person in the buddy list
is near and in addition one can also set one's status to invisible or add a
location manually to one's user name [39].
6
Introduction
2.1.4 KompisKompassen
KompisKompassen is a prototype from 2004 developed at IT University of
Göteborg, Göteborg University and Chalmers University of Technology.
KompisKompassen is a handheld device that uses GPS to give a relative
position to the target by displaying a direction and a distance. The
prototype was designed as a friend finder-application but could be used in
many fields of application [8].
2.1.5 Hummingbird
Hummingbird, developed in 1998 at the Viktoria Institute in Gothenburg,
Sweden is a group awareness device that tells you if other members from
the predefined group, also carrying a Hummingbird, are present
(approximately within a 100 meter radius). The network is an ad-hoc and
only detects Hummingbirds within the group, and if it does the
Hummingbird sounds and displays who is near. The Hummingbird can be
used as a tool for social interaction but can also be used in professional
contexts [19, 47].
2.1.6 Proxy Lady
In 1999 researchers from the Viktoria Institute developed a prototype called
Proxy Lady. Similar to the Hummingbird, Proxy Lady is a mobile device,
running on a PDA equipped with a radio transceiver, that is used for
detecting people within your personal sphere. What makes Proxy Lady
different is that it is primarily used in work settings and associates people
with "information items" such as an email or a meeting. This is made
manually from a computer and when the person associated with the item is
near, Proxy Lady alerts the user and by that supports "opportunistic
communication" [9].
2.1.7 Meme Tags
Meme Tags from 1998 is part of a research on Group Wear at the MIT
Media Laboratory. Meme Tags are interactive nametags that could be used
at conferences to support social interaction among the participants. With
the Meme Tag, you do not only display your name but also so called
Memes; small messages and words of wisdom that are added via computer
stations located at the conference. These Memes are then spread when
participants meet and change Memes. In addition there are big screens in
Background
7
the conference area that gather data from the Meme Tags and visualize a
Meme's spread, popularity and other statistics [7].
Figure 2.2 Meme Tag
2.1.8 Spotme
Like the Meme Tags, Spotme developed in 2000 is also designed with
conferences in mind but is a commercial product available for companies to
rent. Spotme comes as a PDA and contains all participants’ "business
cards", together with possibility to scan the surroundings to know who is
around. It is also possible to arrange surveys distributed to the units and
involve the participants in meetings through interactive games [40].
2.1.9 WatchMe
WatchMe, from 2004, is another device developed at the MIT Media
Laboratory. It comes in a wristwatch design and supports communication
and awareness in an emotionally close group like a family, or close friends.
It supports synchronous voice communication, voice messaging and text
messaging and can in addition tell where the user is, restricted to the user’s
predefined locations, like "School" or "Office" and if he or she is moving or
engaged in a conversation (sensed by an accelerometer and a microphone).
If a person in the group wants to know where another person is, that
person’s face will appear on the display of the watched person's WatchMe
to let him or her know that someone is thinking about him or her [32].
8
Introduction
2.2 Privacy
Privacy will always be an issue when working with positioning. People
want to be in control of their personal information. They want to know if
they are being watched or tracked. There are many benefits from
positioning and tracking services, like for instance safety and a more
personal and targeted service, but it comes with a price. A general rule is to
always inform the user what information he or she must give to the system
to be able to access a certain service and then let the user decide if he or she
is willing to do so. it should also be on equal terms; if you can watch a
person, as an individual, that person should have the right and option to
watch you, like in friend-finder applications as Telia's FriendFinder (see
section 3.2.2.1) or Playground.
Two issues that were discussed in the focus groups and which the
participants found crucial to be designed for in order to use an application
like Playground were the option to be invisible and to have control of who
has access to the data that tracks your whereabouts. This has been thought
of together with other privacy issues in order to always let the user have
control and make active decisions regarding his or her visibility and
accessibility. For more on the details of Playground see chapter five.
2.3 Online habits of the target group
The target group is Swedish late teens, aged 16 to 19. This group is much
represented on the Swedish online communities and their activities online
are to a great extent integrated with their daily lives [5]. Most of the
teenagers that belong to a community online are members of one or both of
Sweden's biggest youth communities Lunarstorm and Playahead.
Lunarstorm is bigger and have a target group between 12 and 24 year olds.
Playahead is more popular in the big cities and is more niched towards
clubbing and nightlife in general. Their target group is 13 to 25 year olds
[1, 4, 25]. The questionnaire made at the beginning of the project showed
that besides all the activity associated with communities, the target group
also communicates with their friends via instant messaging-clients such as
MSN Messenger but online dating services are not popular. A reason for
this could be that Dating services have a clientele with higher average in
age and that flirting is already possible in the youth communities.
Background
Figure 2.3 Screenshots of
9
Playahead and Lunarstorm
2.4 An overview of the computer
mediated communication of today
What happened to face-to-face communication? It still exists, off course,
but with the introduction of the Internet communication has found a strong
competitor in textual based communication. 15 years ago people still
related on telephones when they wanted to set up a meeting or just talk
when they could not meet face to face. You actually went to the local post
office or bank to do your errands and meeting friends and new
acquaintances was something you did at your workplace, some cultural
association or at parties. Today we still go to parties and some people love
talking gossip over the phone for hours but is has been found that
Americans involvement in group-oriented activities has declined in recent
years [23] and a lot that was taken care of face to face have moved to the
Internet and are today done by email, instant messaging, online forums and
Internet communities and dating services. But why all this multitude?
Different channels have different purposes and maybe there is a reason why
we do not invite people to our wedding with an SMS-message or why we
add our friends to our IM-buddy list but not our head of division. In a study
on American postgraduate students it showed that they preferred different
channels for different situations. They would for instance use instant
messaging or email for making plans but not for apologizing, which
preferably was made face-to-face [41].
What nonverbal communication channels are used over the Internet and the
mobile net today? How are they used and what differs them from each
other in aspects of levels of formality? It should be mentioned that usage of
computer mediated communication tools and mobile phones differs with
culture and age but this study tries to find general usage aspects that can be
applied on most users and situations.
10
Introduction
2.4.1 Communication over the Internet
Today there are a variety of channels to choose among if you want to
communicate on the Internet, so called Computer Mediated
Communication (CMC). They all have different purposes and different
levels of formality. The language is always the bottom line message carrier
in textual based communication and the use of language usually sets the
level of formality. You could for instance write an email in very sloppy
English and it would be considered all right if sent to family members or
friends but not all right if sent to a job client [6]. Who the message receiver
is clearly affects the level of formality and since we tend to use different
channels for different audiences and message receivers there is an informal
distinction of formality also in the channels. It is also evident that different
channels develop their own form and syntax that suit the purpose of the
channel [26].
Divided in three general groups the purposes could be summarized as group
one; communicate with an already established contact, group two; meet
new friends and group three; share your opinion and experiences. Although
many of today’s applications fit in all of these categories an application
usually has a main purpose and with that in mind it is my intention to
describe some of the biggest and widely used applications in each group
and look at their key features.
Email, instant messaging, communities, (chat rooms)
Communities, chat rooms, (IM)
Forums, blogs
2.4.1.1 Email
Email was one of the first way of communication to hit the masses when
the Internet was introduced in the early nineties and today it is widely
spread all over the globe as the most common way of communication over
the net for professional and non-professional use [10]. Email is maybe the
most formal and safe way to communicate on the Internet, however it is
still inferior to regular mail and telephone. Is it because the longer the
channel has been in use, the more refined and formal it gets? Or is it
because you loose the personal touch that would come with a person’s
voice or hand written signature? Anyhow it was noted as early as in 1978
that email was not associated with the formality that was expected in a
typed letter [11] and the phone is still superior all textual based
communication forms over the Internet when it comes to socio-emotional
content due to the vocal cues it provides [41].
Background
11
2.4.1.2 Instant Messaging
Instant messaging (IM) is growing in popularity in the personal sphere, and
especially among young people [26]. The communication made over IM is
fairly close to a face-to-face conversation due to its real time chat style of
private interaction between two individuals. However, it has been found
differences in the way males and females use IM. Males generally have a
more speech-like style while the communication of females is similar to
traditional writing [27]. Misinterpretations exist but cues given by facial
and verbal expressions are exchanged for a variety of smileys and
emoticons; facial expressions illustrated by a set of characters, acronyms or
small graphics. Since the conversation is in real time emphasis is not on a
correct use of language but rather on getting the message through before
the conversation dies. IM is considered less formal than email, but with
new features like recording options IM too might transform into a more
formal way of communication, at least in the work sphere [30]. It may as
well be that we keep separate IM accounts for work and leisure as many
already do with email. On the other hand, IM is considered more suitable
for personal, informal communication due to its similarities to face-to-face
and telephone-mediated communication. IM is also a success thanks to its
ability to enable multitasking. While on the phone, you can do things
simultaneously but your conversation partner might still sense that you are
doing something else at the same time. With IM you can have several
conversations running at the same time while still doing something else and
you can also set your availability so that others can see if you are busy,
available or not present [41].
2.4.1.3 Chat rooms
Chat rooms works much like virtual mingle parties, synchronous in the
time domain but asynchronous in the space domain. Chat rooms were
popular in the early days before communities and IM took over, and were
quite analogous to real meeting facilities as bars, parties etc. Strangers met
and talked openly, sometimes with the option to go private. If you wanted
to "meet" again you had to decide on a time and date when both could. It
was used mostly for meeting new and already established online contacts.
The writing style in chat rooms are casual and filled with abbreviations in
order to keep up with the sometimes very fast pace.
2.4.1.4 Online communities and forums
The concept of online communities is much debated, much due to the fact
that there are so many definitions of the word community [22]. Here online
community refers to online community spaces that enable exploration and
interactivity with other members, but with its foundation in the offline
12
Introduction
world, hence it is not a virtual world or any kind of arena for role-play. The
basic structure for an online community is that you have to become a
member to gain full access to forums, presentations etc. Members interact
through discussion boards, or forums, labelled by subject (the community
space), or they can send private messages on an internal message system
(the personal space). Usually there is a more or less detailed profile page
for each member, depending on what kind of community it is. There are all
sorts of communities on the Internet. There are forums, which descend
from email-based newsgroups and bulletin boards, with a very narrow
target group based on an interest in a specific subject like a computer game,
a car model or an illness, as well as communities for youths with millions
of members where you can write diaries, upload pictures, keep in touch
with your offline friends and meet new online friends. The structure of
online communities is always changing and new kinds of communities are
brought to life. With online dating services the focus is on the users; the
presentation, or profile page, becomes crucial whereas there is less need for
interest groups and forums. There are also communities that focus on media
for entertaining, like small games and video clips. Here the members post
the media files and other members enjoy and comment the files but with
less care for whom the other members are. The jargon used on an online
community varies depending on the community but generally the language
used is relaxed and informal.
2.4.1.5 Blog
Blog is a portmanteau of web log and is a channel that has gained a lot of
popularity in a few years time. There are over 60 million blogs on the
Internet [44] and surely more to come. The blog descends from online
diaries, chronicles and perzines and is a website with journal-style entries.
The blog is dedicated to a specific subject giving the authors view on that
subject and often pictures and external links for an interesting reading. It is
also common to write about yourself, your thoughts on society, life and
your daily experiences in a more diary-like form but still for an audience in
mind [49]. The blogs usually keep high quality-language and layout,
probably because the purpose with the blog is to share an opinion with
others and therefore should be interesting and easy to comprehend.
We have seen that there are many CMC-applications on the Internet and
they all have their specific usage domains. These domains may change with
time and span both the personal and the work sphere and they may also be
put aside by future applications. There seem to be a need for various
formality levels in order to know how to interpret the message and the level
is set both with language and choice of channel. But what happens when
we introduce a new playground, with the mobile phone as platform? What
do we use our mobile phones for, except for talking, and where do the new
ways of communicating on the go fit in in our formality scale? With
Background
13
mobility things can be seen from a different perspective and in the next
section we take a look at textual and graphical communication with the
mobile phone in focus.
2.4.2 Communicating on the go
Besides verbal communication, the most obvious way of communicating
with a telephone, there are many other channels one can find in a modern
mobile phone. A mobile phone does not only have access to the telephone
net but also the Internet via a variety of protocols developed in order to take
second generation mobile telephony into the third generation, and in
practice increase data transfer speed thus enabling streaming of richer
media. WLAN is on the rise on the mobile phone front and many mobile
phones also have Bluetooth, which enables local peer-to-peer networks.
With all this technology the mobile phone is not just a phone anymore but
also a multimedia and communication gadget that offers applications for
every occasion. Except for CMC-applications that have been adopted from
the computer world, like email and IM, there are two relevant applications
especially developed for communication with mobile phones; SMS and
MMS.
2.4.2.1 Text messages (SMS)
Text messages sent by mobile phones, or Short Message Service (SMS),
are very popular in Europe and are growing in popularity in the United
States [39, 40]. SMS is limited to the small display of the mobile phone in
its presentation and one message contains a maximum of 160 characters
[42] (even though modern mobile phones can link several messages to one
long message) which makes it a strong alternative to calling someone if you
just want to give a quick information update like "I'll be home at nine." or
"Go ahead, I catch up with you later." SMS is usually cheaper than a phone
call and has also the advantage that you can communicate in silence, for
your privacy and without disturbing people around you. Furthermore it is
asynchronous so you are not dependent of the receiver’s availability, nor do
you have to engage in any conversation and greeting rituals if you are in a
hurry [17, 27]. SMS is widely used in the personal sphere, especially
among youths and is mostly used for informal communication [17, 27, 42]
including so called "lightweight" communication where you use SMS to
maintain more distanced relations in your social network. This could be a
colleague or a friend introduced by a friend where a phone call would feel
awkward but there still is a need to say something that can be interpreted as
"You are still in my network, I haven't forgotten about you" [20]. However,
SMS does not seem to be well suited as a work tool. Possible explanations
for this could be its informal style inherited from the personal sphere or
14
Introduction
simply that the effort in writing and sending an SMS is too large compared
to making a phone call when costs and privacy are no factors [42].
2.4.2.2 MMS
Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) is the next generation mobile
message service, similar to SMS but with one large upgrade: it enables
sending multimedia (pictures, video and sound) as well as text. MMS was
predicted to be a big, revolutionary success in 2001 [34] but unfortunately
for the industry that never happened [13, 15]. One key to the success of
SMS is the simplicity in the short, text-message. MMS however, suffered
from many teething problems when it was released and required quite a bit
of an effort to use [36] and this might have stopped MMS from reaching
the masses. It is also more expensive to send an MMS compared to an SMS
and it has been argued that people do not bother to send pictures etc. with
their phones when they can get the same file with better quality using their
computers and Internet [13]. Even though MMS has been compared to
SMS they are in fact two very different applications. With SMS you
communicate with text, hence mainly written language as the message
carrier whereas with MMS you communicate with media files as the main
message carrier combined with additional text. You could also use MMS as
a mere media transfer application, as for example if your friend wants the
same background image as you have and you send it in an MMS. Either
way of use MMS needs to be required as a unique genre of communication
with its on characteristics in order to be successful [28].
2.4.2.3 Internet via mobile
Today it is possible to access the Internet with your mobile phone and use
mobile versions of email, communities, blogging and IM. This opens up
new ways of communication; the applications are more or less the same but
now they are used outside the home and in an environment that can affect
the communication. The involvement in the environment per se makes for
stories to be spread, as for example with mobile blogging (moblogging)
[14]. With mobility and constant availability some of the formality linked
with a channel might disappear, as with the Japanese youth and their usage
of mobile email, which is used in the same way SMS is used in Europe
[38]. Also moblogging might develop into a less formal way of
communication compared to regular blogging due to the inconvenience of
long text input on a mobile phone. Instead of formal language the focus is
rather on conveying the ambience of the settings of the moblogging.
Background
15
2.4.3 Differences in stationary CMC-applications and
Mobile phone usage
The biggest difference between stationary and mobile CMC-applications is
undeniably that with the stationary applications, mainly used from your
home or your workspace, the environment probably does not affect the
message very much, whereas with messages sent from outside your home
or workspace, which off course is strongly supported by a mobile phone,
the very environment may shape the content of the message. Mobile CMCapplications seem to have their biggest usage domain in the personal
sphere, often used for hypercoordination (an expression coined by Ling and
Yttri meaning short notice change of plans made over a mobile phone)[17,
29], lightweight communication or killing time, thus giving it a less formal
touch than stationary CMC-applications.
The circumstances in which the communication is taking place have to be
taken into consideration. It is for example hard to write long messages
while walking or with cold fingers and you do not want to share your
conversation with strangers on the bus. This makes mobile communication
not always the best choice but is still a good alternative to stationary
communication if you need to send an email or other type of message but
are on the road. It can also be the choice of preference if the environment is
a part of the interaction, as in the moblogging trend. Not only the
environment but also the technical restrictions set limits. A keyboard and a
big display, which is the ordinary HCI-setting for stationary computers,
make communication run smoothly and we do not have to think about the
tool itself and can concentrate on the message. Fixed payments enable us to
communicate without having to worry about big bills. On a mobile phone
however, we have to struggle with small displays, small buttons and
limitations in text input. As if this would not be enough, many have to think
about expenses in terms of money as well.
Below is a table summarizing all the application discussed with respect to
formality, field of application and environmental context.
16
Introduction
Table 2.1 Summary of discussed applications
2.4.4 Discussion and future trends
Nonverbal CMC has changed rapidly in 15 years going from email to IM to
all sorts of interaction in online communities along with SMS, MMS and
recently Internet-based mobile phone usage. Different channels suit
different occasions and have different levels of formality. Email still holds
strong ground as a formal and secure application spanning all
communication domains, but with mobile phones enabled to send and
receive emails there might be a new way of usage, more informal with
shorter messages and more similar to SMS. For IM, considered as a
foremost informal channel, to gain domains in formal use might be harder
due its similarities to verbal communication but without the socioemotional cues in a person’s voice. IM is being used in some workplaces,
and even though the conversations are mostly job related the channel is also
used for off-topic conversations and then on a lower level of formality [2,
42].
With more CMC-applications in the mobile phone new issues regarding
privacy and safety arise. SMS has been spared from spam but with email,
IM and web browsers in the mobile phone, spam and virus protection
becomes crucial if people are to use the applications freely. There will also
have to be strong policies regarding tracking and positioning if this kind of
services becomes more frequent. But if these issues are covered there will
surely be many new CMC-applications for both mobile and stationary use
including tagging [35], positioning and lifestyle and friend-finder
applications as the recently released Utatomo by the Japanese phone
company KDDI where you can interact with others with similar music taste
[24]. Looking at the trend of today the mobile platform and the stationary
platform will get more integrated, with the Internet as common factor.
Today you can send SMS from your home computer and you can read and
Background
17
post online community-messages from your mobile phone but the platforms
will always have their specialties. On a stationary platform you will have
lucidity, easy editing and easy text input, whereas a mobile phone can take
advantage of mobility and the changing surroundings when on the go.
However, mobile network operators have a big responsibility for new
mobile technologies to be a commercial success. They have to work
between the different operators and data transfer prices also have to be
under the limit where users choose a cheaper alternative of communication.
What the future holds is hard to predict and sometimes applications do not
even end up being used as expected, as with the pager for example [35].
Bill Gaver [35] puts it this way:
"Rather than dictating what a system is for,
or even what it means, it is often more effective to design
systems that are suggestive and open to interpretation. For
it is in the act of making meaning from ambiguous
situations that we are often at our most playful."
With this in mind maybe future applications should be released without too
many intentions and let the users themselves set the usage area and level of
formality. Just keep it simple and the users will set the direction and come
up with demands.
CHAPTER THREE
WHAT IS PLAYGROUND?
This chapter thoroughly explains the application and the concept behind it.
It states the key features first and then goes into detail for every mode.
Playground is an application for mobile phones with its fields of application
in social interaction, targeted to 16 to 19 year-olds. Playground is a
community-like application in that you can add your friends and keep in
touch with them, and you can also meet other Playground users based on
searchable profiles. All users have a profile as well as an ideal-match
profile. They also have a presentation consisting of a photo, interests and a
short text. Most of the functions in Playground use GPS-technology to keep
track of the locations of your contacts and location-based messages. The
profile matcher uses Bluetooth-technology and can be used both for flirting
and finding new friends.
Playground consists of three modes and a menu for navigation. The modes
are called Remote mode, Close mode and Flirt mode. Remote mode is the
start-up mode and consists of a map of the area where the users is located
and nodes, in the shape of animals, that represent users from the contact list
together with street tags – interesting spots around the city posted by other
users.
17
18
What is Playground?
Figure 3.1 Zoomed-in state of Remote mode. A street tag and three
animals are visible.
In Close mode you can get a feeling of what kind of Playground-users are
in the area. You can see which animal, interest and mood is highest
represented. Flirt mode appears when you have a profile-match in the area
and allows you to read the presentation of your match and send short-range
messages. In these three modes you send different types of messages to
other users and thereby interact with them. The message types are
described in section 3.4.
3.1 Key features
The profile matcher lets the user have an exciter and icebreaker wherever
he/she is, right into his/her pocket.
The Playground map lets the user locate and get in touch with his/her
friends without making a single call.
The street tag gives the user a dynamic wikipedia on people’s favourite
spots in the city he/she is present at.
The Right here, right now-mode gives the user an orientation to the people
in the surroundings’ mood and character.
What is Playground?
19
The user can also send local messages and mass messages, which give
him/her the possibility to select the type of message that suits the situation
best. Playground combines many different communication channels in one
application and in addition uses GPS and Bluetooth for positioning and
awareness.
3.2 Jargon
The jargon mediated via the music, graphics and text in Playground is
inspired by the online youth communities studied in the research phase and
should reflect the feeling of playfulness, exploration and urban lifestyle.
The name Playground was chosen as a metaphor for a place where people
play, have fun and interact with old as well as new found friends. The
whole city is the playground and this is also the message in the slogan in
the mood board; "Discover life, come out and play!” (see Appendix H).
3.3 Modes in Playground
Playground is a fairly complex application, which lets the user interact with
other Playground users in different ways. In this section all the modes, or
parts, of Playground are explained. See the flow chart in appendix E for an
overview of the different parts and how they are bound together.
3.3.1 User profile
The first thing a user does when starting Playground for the first time is
making a profile and a presentation. In the profile page the user both set
his/her own information and the preferences for the match Playground
should look for. The information that should be entered for both parts can
be seen in table 3.1, including the alternatives that can be chosen. In the
match-profile options include "Doesn't matter" for all categories whereas
the user has to be more specific when describing him/herself and also give
a precise age since the age becomes a part of the user name. The interests
are chosen from a list of icons that also appear in close mode. The rest is
displayed with radio buttons, drop-down menus and sliders. The user also
has to choose a user name but it does not have to be unique since
identification is made with the telephone number.
20
What is Playground?
Table 3.1 The choices when creating a profile Playground will search
for.
Depending on the choices when creating the profile the user then gets a
power animal that is thought to characterise the users personality. The user
is also informed which power animal he/she is looking for based on the
preferences. Obviously the power animal does not tell much of how the
user is as a person but also function as an avatar used in both close and
remote mode, and also in the user's presentation if not a photo is added. The
power animals available are the crazy monkey, the sophisticated parrot, the
wild lion and the indifferent crocodile. If a profile is too diverse, or the
match-profile has too many "Doesn't matter" the power animal will be the
diverse elephant. It should be possible to tell what character the power
animals mediate by looking at them, but for this a graphical designer should
be consulted and in the prototype they are neutral and rather childish
looking.
What is Playground?
21
Figure 3.2 The interface for creating a profile.
In the final stage of the making of the profile the user can set how sensitive
Playground should be when looking for matches. If the sensitivity scale is
set to 100% only profiles that match the preference profile exactly will be
registered. If the scale is set to 0% all profiles in the area will be registered
as a match (but in order to be alerted the match has to work both ways, i.e.
if the user does not match the match's preference profile nothing will
happen).
3.3.2 User presentation
The presentation is available for other users when a contact is established in
flirt mode and as a signature when a street tag is placed. The presentation
contains the user's user name, a space for a picture that can be loaded from
the phone's picture folder and space for a tag line and a short presentation
text. The tag line functions as a head line for the presentation and has a
22
What is Playground?
bigger font than the presentation text. It also displays the interest icons that
were chosen in the profile mode as well as an emoticon that mediates the
user’s mood. Emoticons that can be picked are happy, sad, angry, lost, in
love, naughty, tipsy and cool.
Figure 3.3 Emoticons in Playground
3.3.3 Remote mode
The remote mode, also called "Your Playground", is the main mode. Here
the user can see his/her contacts that are in the same part of town as well as
local Street tags. The map is centred around the user, who appears as an
avatar like the other contacts. The map reloads every five minutes so if the
user moves, so does the map. There are two map views; zoomed in and
zoomed out with zoomed out as default. When zoomed out, the map covers
an area of approximately 3.3 km x 3.6 km and when zoomed in, 1.2 km x
1.3 km. By navigating among the avatars and Street tags and selecting one,
options regarding that object appears on the screen. If an avatar is selected
the options are send an SMS or view that users’ presentation. If a Street tag
is selected the options are to save, delete or read the tag. If the user selects
his/her own avatar the option to see his/her own presentation appears. If an
avatar seems to be asleep (an animation of "Z"s is attached to the avatar) it
means that the contact has stayed within the same area, approximately a 30
meter radius circle, for seven position updates, i.e. 30 minutes, or more.
The coordinates are checked by the GPS-enabled server that tells the
Playground clients where to draw the avatars and if to add the sleepanimation or not. If a user is at a location not covered by the map he/she is
still traceable. In the contact list, to the right of the user name is the town
he/she is located in at the moment. If he/she would be invisible or in a place
What is Playground?
23
not registered in the database with cities and places, for instance abroad or
a rural area the text "Unknown location" appears to the right of the user
name instead.
3.3.4 Close mode
Contrary to remote mode, close mode tells nothing about specific objects.
Close mode, which is also called "Right here, right now" rather functions as
a live feed survey of other Playground users around the user. The
Playground server gathers all user profiles within approximately a 50-meter
radius and sorts out the three most frequent power animals, interests and
moods. This is then displayed in the user’s close mode. This feature was
added to Playground to give a feeling of socio-contextual awareness. Close
mode can tell the user what kind of Playground users that are in the area.
By looking at your Playground's close mode you can find out if the power
animal you have as preference is strongly represented, or you can see if
there are many others with the same interests as you in the area. An
implementation option could also be to add gender awareness by letting the
rays in the background be red and white if the majority would be girls and
blue and white if the majority would be boys.
It should however be understood that Playground does not measure the
people in the area but only other Playground clients. The result of the
survey might therefore be heavily misleading if the user interprets it as if it
was based on every single person in the area.
Figure 3.4 Remote and close mode
24
What is Playground?
3.3.5 Flirt mode
In order to add excitement through unanticipated interaction with other
users the original idea of a mobile dating service was kept alive and
resulted in Playground's flirt mode. Flirt mode is designed to support
flirting but practically, it can work equally well if the user just wants to use
it to meet new friends. By setting the preferences in the profile (section
5.3.1) the user can control the search criteria and in addition form his/her
presentation to be either flirt or friend-finder oriented. The flirt mode only
appears when there is a mutual match, and this is locally restricted to the
Bluetooth class two-limit of ten meters. When a user has a match
Playground enters flirt mode, alerting the user with vibration, sound or
both. The user can watch the presentation of the match and decide if to
ignore the match, send a message via the Bluetooth connection or block the
match. If the match is blocked it means that that Playground client is
ignored by the profile matcher in the future. There is no way to manually
unblock a client so it should be used with caution and is foremost for
prevention of stalker-like abuse.
If the users decide to message each other they do so over the Bluetooth
connection, thus if the ten meters limit is exceeded the connection will end.
If a connection is unintentionally ended or ignored the profiles are still
searchable, however not before twenty-four hours have elapsed. There is
one alternative if the user is still interested and wants to get to know the
match better but is not yet ready to meet face to face, and that is to save the
presentation of the match for later. Flirt mode is however mainly for local
communication, hence the Bluetooth-based message type, and therefore if
the user wants to contact a saved match the only way to do so is by a local
message. This is thought to encourage a fast transfer to face-to-face
communication as well as, again, protect the user from stalker-like abuse.
3.4 Message types
With all the different types of messages that Playground supports it can be
a bit confusing. This section helps the reader to sort them out and
understand the differences.
What is Playground?
25
3.4.1 Street tag
The Street tag has its name from the graffiti culture where a tag is a
person's, or crew's signature that they spread over town to mark their turf
and show where they have been. A Street tag in Playground works in a
similar way, hence the name. A Street tag is a message the user associates
with a certain place and place on the Playground map for all users to see.
The Street tag is only visible for one hour and only for those who have the
tag's coordinates represented on their map, i.e. other users will not see the
tag unless they are in the same part of town or travel there within an hour.
The one-hour limit has been set as to prevent the map from becoming
cluttered. The tag has a genre attribute attached to it so other users know
what kind of tag it is and may discard it without reading it if they are not
interested. If they are interested they can save the tag (and later also delete
it), which then becomes a permanent icon on the map. The genres a Street
tag can have are café, shopping, nightlife and cool stuff. It is foremost a
way to communicate your opinion and inform other users of something that
have caught your eye. If Playground would become a commercial success
and widely used the Street tag would probably fast become a victim to
commercial ads from beckoning shops but as for today there is no way to
prevent this.
An idea not implemented in this version of Playground, though a possible
development, could be Private tags. Those could be visible only for the user
that places it or a group selected from the contact list.
3.4.2 Shoutout
The Shoutout is a mass message that goes out to everyone in the user’s
contact list. The Shoutout appears at the top of the map as a single-line
scrolling horizontal text and is limited to 90 characters in order to make it
comprehensible since the screen is limited to 28 characters per line. The
message is on a scrolling loop for five minutes or shorter if another
message takes its place. The Shoutout can be used for messages that
concern all of your friends, like in arranging a spontaneous party or for
small greetings. There is a setting in preferences that can disable Shoutouts
from all, or individuals.
26
What is Playground?
3.4.3 Local message
The local message has similarities with the Street tag in that it is bound to
specific coordinates and delivers a message to a receiver, but in this case
the receiver is unique and chosen from the contact list. The receiver
receives the message if and when he/she enters the area around the given
coordinates. It is the server that keeps track of the local messages, its
coordinates, receiver and if the receiver is in the area. When the message is
received and read it can not be saved and should be treated as a message
that has both a place and a certain time associated with it, something as
perishable as a face-to-face conversation.
3.4.4 SMS
SMS is actually not a message type in Playground. The reason it is brought
up here is that it can be used from Playground. When choosing a contact
from the contact list or from remote mode, the user has the option to send
an SMS. Then Playground creates a link to the phone's SMS-interface and
when the message is sent jumps back to the Playground client. On the
receiver side the SMS does not appear within Playground but acts as a
usual SMS. The collaboration between the two applications is possible due
to the fact that both SMS and Playground use telephone numbers as
identification.
3.4.5 Flirt message
The message sent in flirt mode is sent over a peer-to-peer Bluetooth
connection and as with the local message, it is not possible to store the
received messages. For more on the message and communication in flirt
mode see section 3.3.5.
3.4.6 Invitation message
Before you add your friends to your contact list, you will not be able to see
where they are by using Playground. Since positioning is a delicate issue
regarding privacy it is important that the users have strict control of who
can locate them. This is solved with an invitation that needs the clients
telephone number for identification, and then the permission to add the user
to the contact list. The adding is mutual, so is the deletion of a contact, i.e. a
user can not have a contact without that contact having the user in his
contact list as well. The adding is made from the contact list as the first
What is Playground?
27
selection, "New contact" and then the new contact's mobile phone number
is asked for. With the phone number known Playground knows where to
send the invitation. In case the given number does not have a Playground
client installed a pop up message will alert the user. On the invited person's
Playground a pop up message appears, informing the person of the
invitation.
The adding procedure works much like the one in flirt mode; after the alert
pop up the user can choose to block the inviting person from future
invitations or see the person's presentation. From the presentation page the
user can choose to add or block the person. If added, the person is added to
the contact list and also appearing as an avatar in remote mode if visible
and in the area. The person that initiated the invitation receives a pop up
alert saying the invitation is approved and the new contact is added to the
contact list.
28
What is Playground?
CHAPTER FOUR
TECHNOLOGIES
This project has focused on the concept of computer-aided social
interaction and is nothing more than a proposal for how an application of
this kind could be designed. However it is still of value to look at the
positioning and data transfer technologies of today to see if an actual
implementation of Playground is doable. There are many standards and
protocols if you want to transfer data to and from your mobile phone. You
could use the GSM-net, the faster GPRS technology or the even faster
standards of the third generation mobile telecommunication. You can then
add wireless local area networks (WLAN), Bluetooth and Infrared data
transfer possibilities to your list. With regard to positioning the list is not as
long, but at least offering global positioning system (GPS), net supported
techniques like trilateration or finding the nearest base station, or
Bluetooth-solutions giving directions relative to your own Bluetooth
device.
29
30
Technologies
4.1 Data transfer on distance
Playground will integrate SMS as one way to communicate with your
friends. In addition, there will also be three other types of messages
irrespective of the distance to the receiver and one type of message for
short-range messages. Two of the long-range messages will be bound to the
location where they are posted and must therefore go via a system that
keeps track of the coordinates. For the long range messages GPRS, or any
newer data transfer technology, could be possible alternatives.
4.1.1 GPRS/EDGE
GPRS, General Packet Radio Services, is sometimes called 2.5G and
EDGE, Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution, is sometimes called
2.75G. This is because they still use the GSM-net but offers fairly high
transfer speeds (around 40 kbps for GPRS respectively 200 kbps for EDGE
[37]).
4.1.2 3G
3G, or third generation mobile telecommunication, offers a range of new
technologies for sending and receiving data, all with high bandwidth.
Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is based on GSM
and is planned to be the next standard for telecommunication. WCDMA is
the radio technology used in UMTS technology and can deliver a transfer
speed of 350 kbps that is said to be increased to two mbps in the near future
[3, 46]. The technologies for 3G is constantly improving and even higher
data transfer bitrates are anticipated in the next few years [37].
4.2 Positioning
One of the key features of Playground is that you can see where your
friends are. You can also send them messages bound to a specific location
as mentioned above. For this, some kind of positioning technology has to
be used. GPS seems to be the best alternative of today, but it also has its
drawbacks.
Technologies
31
4.2.1 GPS
Ground Positioning System (GPS) is a technology that takes use of three or
more satellites in space to calculate a terminal’s position on earth. GPS has
many fields of application, for instance in navigation systems, surveying,
mapping and positioning. The error is often less than ten meters but GPS
requires free line of sight in order for the receiver to establish contact with
the satellites. For this reason GPS does not work very well in urban areas
and not at all inside buildings. Since the application of this project is
thought to be used primarily in cities and also should work inside as well as
outside it is crucial to bypass this problem. That is possible thanks to
Assisted GPS (AGPS). AGPS-terminals are connected to a network and
assisted by ground stations with more computing power resulting in a more
accurate position. A great benefit with AGPS is that with the help from the
ground stations it works in urban areas and inside buildings [8].
Today regular mobile phones are not equipped with GPS, which is a
requirement for this application. Even if they were they would be quite
expensive and not targeted for teenagers with their limited income. But in
the future, GPS might be more integrated into the mobile gadgets as we
have seen with cameras and music players and likewise those technologies,
prices for GPS-enabled phones might become quite reasonable.
4.2.2 Operator based services
The positioning services provided by the mobile network operators are not
of immediate interest because they are not very precise but it is still of
interest to see what they offer their customers since the operators could
have an essential role in a real implementation.
4.2.2.1 Telia FriendFinder
FriendFinder is a positioning service provided by Telia. As a customer you
pay a small fee every time you use the service. You access FriendFinder by
WAP, SMS or an ordinary web browser. You invite the people you want to
share the service with and you can also send group messages to several
people. The person you want to find appears as an icon on a map if he or
she is not in invisible mode or has turned off the phone. The position is not
very precise however and only tells you the city and in which part of that
city your friend is. FriendFinder uses a positioning technique called CellID, based on trilateration. Three ground stations sense you and from the
distance to each station your position is calculated. In urban areas, where
32
Technologies
the ground stations are closer to each other, the accuracy will be 100 to 200
meters, whereas in rural areas it might be as much as kilometers [45].
4.2.2.2 Tre GURU
With the GURU service that Tre provides, you can access Hittakompis.se, a
positioning service for you and your invited friends. As with FriendFinder
you can choose if you want to be positionable or invisible, and if you are
found you appear on a map. You pay for GURU on a monthly basis but can
then use Hittakompis.se as much as you want. Hittakompis.se uses both
Cell-ID and AGPS since Tre has AGPS in their ground stations, but their
more precise AGPS-service does not work inside buildings [18].
4.3 Bluetooth
Bluetooth is the preferable technology to use when two persons
communicate with Playground on a short distance basis. With Bluetooth,
one system can detect another and, in the case with Playground, match the
users’ profiles to see if they match. If they match, a virtual handshake is
established and the rest is up to the users, deciding if they want to send
messages via the Bluetooth connection or end the connection.
Bluetooth comes in three effect classes; class one, two and three, where
more effect means longer range. Class one can communicate within a 100
meter radius, whereas class two has a ten meter limit and class three only
five meter. Class one is also the most power consuming one and not
suitable for battery powered devices [50]. However, this would not be a big
problem for Playground since a ten-meter radius would be enough, and a
100-meter radius would be too big when you want to find your match.
To always have Bluetooth on, looking for matches, takes battery power.
Bluetooth does not consume that much energy, but it might suggest a more
deliberate usage anyway, affecting the intentional spontaneity of the
application.
CHAPTER FIVE
METHODS AND WORK
PROCEDURE
The following section covers the work procedure and the methods used in
each project phase.
5.1 The design process
A design process is the process something goes through to become a final
product. The product can be hardware as well as software and services.
Depending on what is to be designed the design process differs somewhat
but there are some stages all "from vision to product"-design processes
contain. Below is a general idea of what stages need to be included in the
design process.
33
34
Methods and work procedure
Figure 5.1 The design process
All products start with a vision; an idea of how something could improve or
enrich our lives in some way. In the starting point the vision is specified
and the outline of the project is set. The feasibility study consists of
research, interviews with the stakeholders, a market analysis etc. This is
done in order to understand the current situation and find out how the new
product would be welcomed. In the feasibility study the technical feasibility
is checked as well to see what technology is available today or will be in a
near future. The next step is to produce one or several concept-proposals
and test them with prototypes, scenarios etc. The proposals are then
evaluated and one is chosen for the final product [43]. The implementation
should go hand in hand with testing and when the final product has been
out on the market for a while it should go through a follow-up and a new
evaluation; is this what we expected? Are we pleased with the result?
Should there be follow-up products?
The design process of Playground is divided into three phases; the research
phase, the idea phase and the implementation phase. Roughly each phase
correspond to two of the stages from the model above.
5.2 The research phase
The research phase consisted of a study on related work and a questionnaire
followed up by two focus groups. In addition an social anthropological
study was carried out at different online communities during a period of
approximately two months.
Methods and work procedure
35
5.2.1 Questionnaire
A questionnaire (see Appendix A) was designed and handed out to students
at an upper secondary school in Lund. At this stage it was not yet specified
what kind of an application Playground would be, more than that it would
support social interaction and maybe be some sort of dating service. 137
students, 62 girls and 75 boys, aged 16 to 18 answered the questionnaire.
The answers revealed that the interest for mobile dating was not very high
(2.1 on a 5-graded scale) whereas the interest for IM in the mobile and the
possibility to see where your friends are were quite high (A 4 each on a 5graded scale). The answers also showed that the interest for blind dates
(which were of interest because of their connection to online dating) was a
2.8 on a 5-graded scale and that the most popular online communities were
Lunarstorm and MSN Messenger. See Appendix B for the complete results.
The results spoke for a change of plans and the planned dating service
moved towards a mobile community where you could interact with other
users and easily locate your friends.
5.2.2 Focus groups
Focus groups are more or less strict group interviews. The focus group
often represent the target group and topics related to the product are
discussed with one or two group leaders that control the discussion so that
everyone is participating and no opinion goes unheard [48].
There were two focus groups involved in the Playground project. They took
place shortly after the questionnaire and the groups consisted of students
that had agreed to continue helping out. One group consisted of seven boys,
all 18 years old, and the other group consisted of four girls, 17 to 18 years
old. The genders were kept separated hoping that they would speak more
freely that way. Some new ideas were born and existing concepts were
evaluated. The following ideas was later implemented in the prototype:
•
•
•
The sensitivity in the match-search is adjustable.
Playground should support a quick initiation of contact between two
matching profiles.
It should be able to save the matching profile for later use.
Privacy was also discussed and given much concern. Preferences in
graphics were close to the "bright colours on dark background"-style that is
found at Playahead.se and Nattstad.se among others. See Appendix C for
the complete results from the focus group sessions.
36
Methods and work procedure
Figure 5.2 Screenshot of Nattstad
5.2.3 Social anthropological study
A Social anthropological study is a field study of a culturally bonded group.
The anthropologist spends time with the inhabitants and observes their
daily lives [11]. During the research phase an social anthropological study
was done in order to find out what the jargon was on different online
communities and also to see what kind of people was attracted to different
communities. Membership was created on following communities:
Playahead.se - The second biggest online youth community in Sweden.
Spraydate.se - Online dating service that is free of charge.
Piccaboo.com - Community with focus on nightclubs and party photos.
Next follows a description of the tested communities based on the
observations made.
Playahead is a very dynamic community with many activities going on.
You can browse the users’ presentations, photos and blogs, interact in guest
books or private messages and engage in competitions, forums. You can
create teams, read magazines or buy Playahead merchandise. Playahead is a
solid online community but it is still obvious that it has its roots in the
offline community. The articles and photo reports are centred around
nightlife, music, celebrities and fashion trends. The jargon is hip yet
humorous in a laid back style.
The pace at Spraydate is much slower than on Playahead. The community's
foundation is the users' presentations. There are interest groups but most of
the activity is taking place in people's guest books or in private
conversations. Spraydate obviously attracts a different target group and the
community is foremost a place where you meet possible dates and after
some messaging go on to the next step, whether it is IM, telephone or a date
IRL (in real life).
Methods and work procedure
37
Piccaboo is probably the most anonymous community of the three tested.
Focus is on nightclubs where Piccaboos's photographers are taking pictures
that are posted on the community. You can then add the photos to your
favourites and comment them. You can also read about new clubs, events
and celebrities. Every user has a presentation but the interaction among
users seems to be quite less than at for instance Playahead.
The study of Piccaboo was not of very much use in the making of
Playground. The studies of Playahead and Spraydate, however, resulted in
inspiration to the user-profile as well as to the jargon. The study of
Spraydate, where the users under twenty were quite few, also supports the
result from the questionnaire that suggests that teenagers are not very
interested in dating services.
5.3 The idea phase
With the input from the research phase it was time to start thinking about
the look and feel of the application, as well as specify its functionality. This
started out with a brainstorm session with interaction design colleagues.
5.3.1 Brainstorm
Figure 5.3 Sticky-notes from the brainstorm
Four interaction designers participated in the brainstorm session. Ideas
were spoken out loud and illustrated on sticky-notes. It was open for the
other participants to develop and discuss the idea in order to generate new
38
Methods and work procedure
ideas. All the ideas was put up on a white board and arranged in topics. The
goal was to generate ideas around three topics:
•
•
•
How do users get in contact and interact with each other?
How do you create a dynamic and vivid feeling in the application?
How could the application be abused?
The session lasted for about 90 minutes and generated many good ideas
that was written down and later used when all the modes and functions
were specified.
5.3.2 Specification
A strict specification for functions, navigation etc. is crucial when it is time
to build high-fidelity prototypes. If the specification is exhaustive the
implementation of the prototype can run smoothly and there is no need for
questions like "What happens next?". In the specification all the states,
navigation and interaction types was decided. It was later experienced that
the specification needed some changes but it was however a very good tool
to start out with. A flow chart visualised the specification. See Appendix E
for the flow chart.
5.3.3 Scenarios and personas
To really understand the fields of applications and the benefits from an
application that is not yet out on the market scenarios are often used.
Scenarios are short stories that usually are visualised with pictures in a
cartoon-like way. A scenario should emphasise a key feature and show how
it is used in a typical situation. Scenarios are good both for presentation
purposes but also for the designers themselves to understand how the
application is to be used in a concrete way [31].
The scenarios could be backed up by personas, typical users made up by
the designers to be used in scenarios or on their own to facilitate the
understanding of the application's usage [31]. For Playground five
scenarios (see Appendix G) and three personas (see Appendix F) were
created. Three of these scenarios were later implemented in the Flash
prototype to display the key features. Below is an example of a persona
used for Playground.
"Markus, 18, last year in upper secondary, social science program
For Markus life is all about having a good time. Since finding a job
nowadays is just contacts anyway he reasons that being out partying and
meeting a lot of people is more important than good grades. Markus lives in
Methods and work procedure
39
Malmö with his divorced mother and lives after the motto “two is better
than one, three is even better” that is up for individual interpretation. He
has a lot of acquaintances and also fairly many he refers to as good friends.
In order to keep in touch with everyone he uses both Internet communities
and instant messaging, however on a Friday night his cell phone is his most
important tool."
5.3.4 Graphic profile
Parallel with the other work a graphic profile took form. A colour scheme
was decided based on observations on youth-targeted web sites and the
preferences of the target groups. Some concept art were also drawn and,
together with a mood board, set the feeling of Playground. The graphics
were not a priority but the intention was to at least mediate a feeling of
urban streets, nightlife and playfulness.
Figure 5.4 Colour map for Playground
Figure 5.5 Concept art
40
Methods and work procedure
5.4 The implementation phase
The implementation is the result of all the earlier stages in the design
process. With Playground the result of the implementation is far from a real
product. Implementation here rather refers to the making of a prototype in
Macromedia Flash, displayed on a computer screen. From the beginning
the prototype was planned to span the whole application but it was later
decided that it was better to focus on the key features since much of the
interaction is alike and there would not be time to cover the whole
application in the final presentation anyway. Before the work in Flash
begun a low-fi test was executed, testing the navigation in the three
scenarios. After the implementation in Flash, a hi-fi test was executed,
working in the same way as the low-fi test but this time with the prototype.
In addition questions were asked about the icons and the navigation in
general.
5.4.1 Low-fi test
Low-fi prototypes are made and tested in order to test major structures and
concepts before too much effort is made on implementation. They are
rough and short on details [31]. The Playground low-fi prototype was made
out of paper sheets, where each sheet represented a new state on the
display. A pilot test resulted in a few changes in the navigation but
otherwise it worked fine and was then tested on three university students.
All the test persons owned a mobile phone and were used to the
components you use to interact with the phone, for instance physical
buttons mapped to actions displayed on the screen. The test persons read
three scenarios and after each scenario their task were to recreate that
scenario using the low-fi prototype.
Methods and work procedure
41
Figure 5.6 Sheets from the low-fi test
The tests resulted in a back-function that were displayed on the display in
addition to the hardware back-button, as well as an idea to introduce genres
to the street tags to let users know what kind of tag it is without reading it.
5.2 Hi-fi test
When the changes in the structure and navigation from the low-fi test were
registered the implementation in Flash begun. The finished prototype was
tested on five university students, different from the low-fi testers but with
equivalent knowledge about mobile phones. The test tasks were:
•
•
•
•
•
Explain the icons displayed and what they are supposed to
represent.
Zoom in and out in "Your Playground"-mode
Move between "Your Playground" and "Right here, right now".
Place a street tag about the café you are at and check that it is
displayed correctly in "Your Playground"-mode.
Post a local message to Anna in your contact list.
The test showed that the icons were correctly interpreted except for the icon
for the shopping-street tag, which most users thought meant bank.
However, they later said that it felt quite natural with a dollar sign for
shopping and that it was anyway cooler than a shopping cart that could
have been an alternative. The rest of the tasks were easily solved and the
navigation felt intuitive. The one problem that occurred for some users was
to understand how to navigate between the nodes (friends and street tags)
42
Methods and work procedure
on the map. This could be due to the navigation cross that gives directional
input (since you navigate with the up and down buttons) that has a quite
discreet design, and when displayed on a screen even the tactile attributes
and feedback are lost. However, after they found out by trial and error, the
users said that it was easy when they had tried it once.
CHAPTER SIX
CONCLUSION
The outcome of this master's thesis project is the conceptual design and
prototype for Playground; a mobile positioning and friend-finder service.
Chapter six discusses the result, the workflow and future work.
6.1 Discussion
When this project started the goals were not yet clearly decided, all that
was known was that I would design and propose a concept for a mobile
phone application that enabled social interaction and dating for Sony
Ericsson. In the project specification the goal was stated as follows.
"The goal of the project is to present a concept for a dating service for use
with mobile phones. The concept should work as a guide for a commercial
application and result in a survey of demanded functions, implemented in a
prototype in Flash."
Obviously the goal was changed when it became clear that the target group
was not very interested in a pronounced dating service. Others than that the
results answer to the goal statement. The final product has many features
and it was sometimes hard to find a balance between a solid concept and all
43
44
Conclusion
the ideas that was brought up during the process. Playground still needs
evaluation in order to see if there is a natural use for all the functions, or if
the application would remain more or less the same conceptually even if
some function were discarded. For instance, would Playground still be
Playground if the Shoutout message was discarded or is it too much of a
key feature? If Playground would hold as a commercial product or not is
arguable but even if the whole concept is not implemented in one single
application, it can still work as inspiration for smaller applications. Judging
from test users’ comments and the trend with mobile applications today, the
concept of a community-like application for mobile phones and the usage
of positioning are hot topics for application planners. If an application like
Playground is still interesting for the users when GPS are as common in
mobile phones as cameras are today is hard to tell, but the interest for
application that support social interaction will probably always be there and
then Playground is one alternative.
Working with Playground has been a great challenge and put theory into
practise in a way that summarise the knowledge learned at Umeå
University in a good way. Working with every part of the design process
has been very stimulating yet demanded careful planning in order to have
time for all parts, also those at the end of the project. Many times I have
been forced to stick to the deadline even though new ideas called for my
attention or I was not completely satisfied with a result. It has also been an
interesting experience to work all alone with such a big project. My
experience is that working in a team gives a better result thanks to more
ventilation and reflection of ideas and problem solving, and a faster
progress when the project can proceed simultaneously on several fronts.
Now the project has proceeded in a very linear way with one moment
following another. However, working alone has also given me the rare
privilege to not having to compromise with other wills and been a good
exercise in self-discipline knowing there is no one expecting me to get up
in the mornings and work all day. If I could choose I would still have
chosen to work in a team however, thinking it would have taken the project
one notch up.
Looking at the methods used during the process I think they have worked
overall well and suited their purposes. I would have liked to include even
more user participation; more focus groups and also interviews. But as I am
a novice in interview technique I alone would not have used the resources
in the most efficient way. Furthermore it is always time consuming to work
with people, demanding time for administration and analysis of the
material. To counter the brainstorm with another focus group meeting
would probably have been a good idea to check with the target group that
Playground was heading in the right direction.
Finally, I should mention the two most important things I learned from
working with this project:
Conclusion
45
The importance of a feasibility study
The feasibility study should be the first thing to conduct when initiating a
project. The feasibility study tells you if it is even worth the effort,
confirms your assumptions and helps you calibrate the product with the
target group. The questionnaire made in the beginning of this project gave a
good indication of what the target group was interested in, and foremost
showed that the dating service I had in mind had to be modified to attract
the target group.
The importance of releasing a first version of the product
As I worked with the prototype new ideas kept coming though the
specification was already set. The bigger ideas I had to reject, but smaller
ideas concerning graphics or navigation I could implement in the prototype.
What I noticed was that being a designer, it will never be perfect due to
new inputs and how the brain likes to chew on ideas for a while and then
come up with some, at that point, obvious improvements. So the only thing
to do if the product ever is to be released is to release an alpha version.
When that is done, the bug fixing and refinements go on and eventually a
beta version is released and the big wheel keeps turning but before that
someone has to push it out from the developer's cave.
6.2 Future work
Playground is still a concept and has a long way ahead before an
implementation of a real, functional application is possible. Disregarding
the technical issues, there are still many things that could be done on a
conceptual level. Evaluation is the most critical one. Now that a prototype
exists it should be tested on the target group, not for usability testing but for
feedback regarding the concept with positioning, different messages, flirt
mode and so on. Furthermore should the whole application be implemented
in the prototype and undergo profound usability testing. In case of a
complete implementation the graphics should be revised and redone in
collaboration with a graphic designer.
The profile should be reworked together with target users. As it is now the
subjects and alternatives are to a high extent based on the profiles in online
communities and my own opinion. Since the match making is based on the
profile, the profile's content is of great importance if flirt mode is going to
be a success.
46
Conclusion
There should also be an investigation on who will run Playground.
Playground is depending on a network, that in addition has GPS installed in
its ground stations. This inevitably requires a mobile network operator it
seems, and thus the question is: should it be a pure operator supplied
service or should there be more parties involved? That issue is beyond the
scope of this report but would be a most delicate question if Playground
would become reality.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Many people have been of great help during this degree project. I wish to
thank all people I met at Sony Ericsson and especially my external
supervisors Michael Henriksson and Sara Mirdal. Thanks to Michael for
letting me do this project at CDC and thanks to Sara who always supported
me and gave me useful input even though she had her own job to think
about. I also wish to thank my internal supervisor, Lars-Erik Janlert for
reading and commenting all the stuff I sent him.
Thanks to all teachers and students at Polhemsskolan that let me invade
their classes with my questionnaire.
Special thanks to Jonas and Sofia for being my friends and colleagues and
helping me with valuable discussions and brainstorms during our stay in
Lund.
Finally I wish to thank all the users involved in the testing of the prototype,
i.e. my neighbours in my student corridor at Wild Duck where I enjoyed
many late morning cups of coffee.
47
48
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Appendix A
Questionnaire – in Swedish
Appendix B
Questionnaire results
Science program, Polhemsskolan 18/9
Participants: 62 (17 with a partner) girls, 75 boys (9 with a partner).
Total: 137
Age: 16-18
Internet communities
Generally the girls mostly use Lunarstorm and MSN, whereas the boys also
are members in communities for people with special interests.
Table B1 Persons belonging to an online community. X-axis is how
many and Y-axis is the names of the communities represented
Appendix B
Average from the questionnaire answers
137 students answers on a 5-graded scale where 5 is very likely and 1 not
likely at all in claim 1-3 and completely agree respectively do not agree at
all in claim 4.
1. I could go on a blind date: 2.8
2. I could sign up on a dating service for mobile phone use: 2.1
3. I could use instant messenger (MSN, ICQ etc) for mobile phones: 4.0
4. I would like to see in my phone where the contacts in my contact list are:
4.0
Boys’ and girls’ answers separately on a 5-graded scale where 5 is very
likely and 1 not likely at all in claim 1-3 and completely agree respectively
do not agree at all in claim 4. (boys | girls)
1. I could go on a blind date: 2.6 | 3.0
2. I could sign up on a dating service for mobile phone use: 2.3 | 1.9
3. I could use instant messenger (MSN, ICQ etc) for mobile phones: 4.0 |
3.9
4. I would like to see in my phone where the contacts in my contact list are:
4.2 | 3.7
The answers do not differ very much between the boys and the girls. The
interest for blind dates is moderate and the interest for a dating service in
the mobile phone is even a bit lower. However, the interest for IM and
positioning is high and should be considered when the application is
designed.
Appendix C
Results from the Focus group
Place: Ekmanska salen, Lunds university library
061016, discussion with seven boys, years old
It was harder than expected to have a discussion where everybody were
involved. The opinions were quite unanimous and showed strong mental
models based on the existing net communities and MSN Messenger
regarding how you meet people, search for profiles etc. Most of the
participants wanted a high rate of graphical content, yet a simple interface.
The profiles should have a picture and a presentation text. You should be
able to find everyone with an account, like in MSN Messenger, and be able
to add and block users. Privacy features, like controlling who can see your
profile, was considered important. Graphical themes for a personal touch
were attractive.
I was most interested in the design of the profile and flirt mode. Following
ideas are worth noticing.
Different profiles for flirts and friend-finding.
A match can be saved in a special flirt mode-contact list.
Be able to set the sensitivity in the profile match-search (0-100%).
Contact is preferably established fast in flirt mode. The profiles are sent and
then the communication can continue via SMS or Bluetooth messages.
061017, discussion with four girls, 17-18 years old
The girls were more talkative than the boys. I had changed approach
slightly and was more generous with my own ideas that we discussed. The
girls also thought that privacy was one of the highest priorities. Shoutouts
and Street tags received good response. The Street tag should be visible to
all users but only for a short period of time. An idea of widening the
contact list with semi-contacts; the contacts from your friends’ contact lists,
was not very popular however. More than one picture should be viewable
in flirt mode for a more accurate judgment of the person’s appearance. The
profile should cover interests, age, personality and maybe length. The
graphical user interface should be dynamic and with dark colours combined
Appendix B
with bright highlight-colours. Animations could preferably exist in an intro
but could be distracting in the interface.
Appendix D
Results from the brainstorm session
The brainstorm took place October 23.
Participants: Martin Sandström, Sara Mirdal, Jonas Dahl and Sofia
Carlander
How you can get in touch with and meet new contacts
Show your profile, like flirt mode or with a separate friend-profile with
more focus on interests.
You look for missing parts of a “puzzle”, for example: “I got Kahlua, who
got milk?”
You search for shared interests, taste in music etc.
You search for general, predefined icons: animals, non-smokers etc.
A friend recommends you and the contact is passed on.
You can visually se the contacts of your friends and decide if you want to
contact them.
You represent yourself with an icon and find similar or related icons.
You can send messages to the people in the area and communicate with
them.
Instead of seeing individuals you can only see moods, interests etc. in the
area. Contacts are established without help from the application.
How a vibrant and dynamic feeling can be mediated
See yourself in relation to others.
Mass-messages to everybody in the contact list. Appear and disappear by
themselves.
Vibrations corresponding to the activity in the area.
Position-history so you can path-trace and see where a user has been.
See other users as flowers that are open or closed depending on how
outgoing they are.
Virtual tags that tell something about the place they represent.
Communication with GPS-drawing, step tracker, photos etc.
You see users from an intimity aspect; good friend, aquaintance, stranger
etc.
Instead of seeing where the users are you see directions of where they are
heading.
You can see if a user is still or moving.
Leave tags at specific places. Your friends can receive them when they get
there.
You have to be at a place to to access the information asociated with that
place.
Appendix D
Visualize activity in the area with colours.
How the service can be abused and solutions to this
Guerilla marketing
Viruses
People that claim to be someone they are not in order to get in contact with
others.
Never reveal the exact position of people, or have a time delay.
Different circles of trust with different access of personal information.
Always be able to turn the application off or be invisible.
Control of who can add you to their contact list.
Appendix E
Flow chart for Playground
Appendix F
Personas
Sabrina, 16, first year in upper secondary, natural science
program
Sabrina lives a sheltered life with her parents, younger brother and the
family’s dog in a suburban area outside of Stockholm. She spends most of
her time doing her homework, training soccer or hanging out with her
boyfriend or friends. Most of her friends are on the soccer team so they
often meet in large groups, going in to Stockholm for shopping or playing
soccer in the park. Sabrina’s favourite subject is biology and she likes
taking long walks with her boyfriend in the local hiking area.
Markus, 18, last year in upper secondary, social science
program
For Markus life is all about having a good time. Since finding a job
nowadays is just contacts anyway he reasons that being out partying and
meeting a lot of people is more important than good grades. Markus lives in
Malmö with his divorced mother and lives after the motto “two is better
than one, three is even better” that is up for individual interpretation. He
has a lot of acquaintances and also fairly many he refers to as good friends.
In order to keep in touch with everyone he uses both Internet communities
and instant messaging, however on a Friday night his cell phone is his most
important tool.
Ida, 19, last year in upper secondary, performing arts
program
Ida has recently come back from an exchange year in Italy. Her passion is
acting and besides her acting classes in school she is also involved in an
improvised acting group with strong left-wing sympathies. When not
performing she likes to chill out at cafés discussing and chatting with her
friends. Though she is very social and easy going and likes to meet new
people she has not yet found any good boyfriend material. Ida lives in
Stockholm but a lot of her friends that have already graduated have moved
to other cities to study and Ida often visit them on weekends. She is not
fond of computers but has found it very convenient to use email to keep in
touch
with
her
Italian
friends.
Appendix G
Scenarios
Dance partner
Appendix G
Tasty latte
Appendix G
Trip to downtown
Appendix G
Good luck!
Appendix G
Where are you?
Appendix H
Mood board
Appendix I
Colour map for various online
communities