Research – DDI

By nereazabalo January 25th, 2018

Sprint 5 // Elaborating the final concept

The challenge for the fifth sprint of the process was to start elaborating the final concept of a cross-platform service, a new way of interaction for live streaming enabling personalization and group belonging, integrating the conclusions and ideas of the last sprints and deliver a business model and data model.

// Our users

As explained on the last post, after researching and observing different users’ profiles and behaviors, we created three different personas and designed three different solutions for each one of them.

As wrote in the last post, regarding Stephanie’s profile (foodie live streamer) and her pains and gains, we designed an easy way for the streamer to interact with her followers enabling group belonging in the audience. Making for her easier to get feedback from the watchers to improve her live streams and performance and the watcher can interact with the streamer through clicks, voice recognition, which makes the streamer work more efficiently. The solution enabled the streamer also to have smaller groups of watchers depending on the active role and engagement with the content.
In the case of Clark, we created a transparent and collaborative system for consuming and broadcasting news. In this concept, anonymous individuals can live stream their own content about news from their point of view. From the other side, Clark, as a journalist, creates his own online magazine (board) with the live streaming content of the anonymous people, with the help of a filtering algorithm.
And as a solution for Julia we developed a new way of interacting with an entertaining video content for the family in one screen/device enabling the participants to interact with the content (TV Show) through voice or face recognition and strengthening family bonding thanks to a shared profile.

Once presented the three different fields, users and solutions to our partner, we decided to focus on the first idea, the live streaming platform and interactions for streamer and watchers in a cooking context. Even though the first idea was chosen, we tried to get the most interesting features of the other two ideas and implement on the main one.

// Research

The research phase of the fifth sprint was based on analyzing live streaming platforms as well as observing different tools that could be used on the last concept proposed.

On the following graphic we visualized the different live stream platforms analyzed regarding affordability and use:

// Final concept

As a final concept we ideated a platform to enable an easier and more effective live streaming experience for live streamers and more interesting interactions for watchers.

From one side, the platform had some primary features as the possibility of changing the point of view of the live streaming video; buying objects from the live stream video by clinking on the screen through object recognition; hosting watchers in the live streaming giving them the opportunity to co-stream together with the live streamer; voice recognition in order to enable conversations and asking questions during the live stream.

From the other side, the platform offers some secondary features such as the possibility of having highlights and quick recap when the video is not live any more and the possibility of offering a different context depending on the context of the watchers while watching the live stream.

Together with the final concept we started to work in the data model behind the idea, in order to understand the kind of data that can be collected, the sources of data, and the key activities in order to get different outcomes and trends as a result.
In this data model, we started thinking on potential partnership that could be created with retail companies due to the interest they have on knowing what happens once their customers are consuming or cooking their products at home.

By maylismulderij November 22nd, 2017

Sprint 3 // Break up/Love letter

Dear Netflix, I have a confession to make. I think I’m in love with you…

When taking a closer look at the survey we did in sprint 1, we found out that there’s a fine line between good and bad personalization. People either feel scared and annoyed, or surprised and curious when they incur in new personalized experiences. Most of the times it depends on the company that is suggesting it. Some personalization is actually good, while other suggestions are not even close to what you are looking for.

We wanted to get a more detailed answer than the ones we got in the survey. That’s why we tried a new method: The Break up/Love letter. We wanted to find out what people like or don’t like, love or hate in personalized services. Instead of doing deskresearch, we wanted to dive into people’s minds. We asked them to write a love/break-up letter to their most used personalized service. Through writing the letter, we gain insights into their perceptions by provoking feelings of admiration, appreciation, frustration or aversion based on real-life experiences and interactions

We got some pretty great letters! We want to thank everyone who participated and made us laugh, cry or both at the same time. Here’s a collection of some of our best answers, enjoy!

“Dear Netflix, I have a confession to make. I think I’m in love with you. […] You always show me new things and there hasn’t been a time that I didn’t like your suggestions. You have opened my eyes to a whole new world of things.”

“Dear Spotify, nothing ruins my Saturday night dance party like the sound of some baby laughing right before ‘It’s raining men’ starts. Yes, I am a young woman of child bearing age. But I’ve been watching videos with you for years, you should know me better by now!”

“Dear Google, I love you for how you tell me when I´ll be arriving home before I need to ask you for it, or how easy you can guide me to places I´ve never been before. […] Even if you make business selling to others my most private info and dirtiest secrets, I really appreciate how helpful you are to me.”

“Dear Facebook I hate you for suggesting me marriage consultants after changing my status from married to nothing.”

“Dear Youtube, you used to be good, different and personal […] At least, that was until a couple of months ago. It was just another night of checking out videos, but this time I did so with the children of my neighbours, which I take care of sometimes. With them, I started checking videos of animated rabbits. It was a fun, easy night but since then, every time I go on YouTube, the first suggestions that I get is always about animated rabbits.

By rotemmark October 25th, 2017

Sprint 2 // Do I belong?

“Sense of belonging is defined as the experience of personal involvement in a system or environment so that persons feel themselves to be an integral part of that system or environment.” ¹

One of #Datass research terms was a sense of belonging, how one fits into a group, why and even when. We wanted to know how to strengthen the sense of belonging in the digital world, specifically in live streaming. In order to do so, we had to understand the term itself. It seems Sense of belonging is when one person becomes part of something, a group, maybe, and also feels like they are an important part of the group. The second part of the sentence is important, as the knowing part is what makes it a sense of belonging, and not only the fact that you belong.

Based on the article “Sense of belonging: A vital mental health concept.” ¹, we based those two assumptions;

There are two dimensions of belonging:

Fitting – one feels his characteristics work well and fit the system or environment. It could be in geographical terms, gender, age group etc.
Valued involvement – being needed, accepted and valued. One needs to feel acknowledged by the group, for what he brings to the table and who they are.

What affects the level of sense of belonging:

Energy one is willing to put in of the involvement, in sense of time and effort.
The desire and potentiality for something meaningful in the involvement, like what you can learn or get from this involvement.
The potentiality for shared characteristics.

Those Values combined can change the level of Belonging.

Sense of Belonging Changes when the group changes

The sense of belonging change when the group changes. And when you became part of the group for certain common grounds and they have changed, your sense of belongings change as well. This happens in a lot of places where there are group growth and changes.

In order to still belong you need to adapt and evolve.

“…The college provided a social media site where students could “mingle” and meet each other prior to selecting roommates and arriving on campus. He was able to develop a sense of belonging before he had attended his first class…” ²

Social media creates belonging in the virtual space to help and strengthen the creation of sense of belongings in the physical space. This works the other way around, Physical worldconnections strengthen the socil media sense of belonging.

In the end, sense of belonging is an important part in creating a group. We would like to use data for creating a sense of belonging in the digital world.

Until next time,

#DATASS

DAT Rotem

Hagerty, Bonnie M. K., Lynch-Sauer, Judith, Patusky, Kathleen L., Bouwsema, Maria, Collier, Peggy (1992/06).”Sense of belonging: A vital mental health concept.” Archives of Psychiatric Nursing 6(3): 172-177. Read it here.
Julie Willcott “A Sense of Belonging In A Digital World “. Read it here

By lorenzopositano September 14th, 2017

Sprint 1 // Google Form questionnaire

// Introduction

To go deep in the user understanding, we wanted to question people about their online habits, especially regarding:

Networking and group belonging
Data and privacy policy
Personalization of the online experience

That’s why we created a Google Form to share among our friends and colleagues.

// Process

We first wrote down many questions, more than we needed. After laying out the form on Google, we realized that it was too long and some questions were superfluous. Therefore we scaled down to 30 questions in 4 sections, in 15 minutes. And then… share to everyone!

Big competition between the Netherlands and Italy. Sorry Spain and Israel 😉

// Findings

These are some of the questions we asked.

Networking

How do you access to social networks?
Situations where use a particular social network
Do you accept strangers on social networks? If yes, why?
Frequency of usage
Pages you follow
Do you think that social media have somehow affected your relationships and networks?

Data usage and privacy policy

What personal data are you MOST and LESS willing to give?
Do you use social login?
Opinion regarding some common data usage
Do you read the privacy policy before accepting a new service?
Do you know that when you use an app, you produce new data like what you click, geolocation and time of usage?
Would you be okay if the company uses those data you created when using the app?
Would you like to be able to adjust the data you share or create?
Would you like to have more insights in the data that companies have of me?

Personalization

Examples of personalized service you use
Do you prefer a standard (no data needed) or personalized service (data requested)?
Do you know what AdBlock is?
Opinions regarding online personalization
When you incur in a new personalized experience (like a suggestion of the book you might like, a personalized advertisement, …) you feel…

The dataset

You can take a look at the dataset here.

Summary

By rotemmark September 13th, 2017

Dat Maker’s Sprint

Written research is all fun and games, but a tangible research is a whole different level.

While researching data and data driven innovation, we found our selves swamped with topics, and like the data field it self, the topics were all connected but varied. As you can probably understand, confusion may arise.

At a makes sprint in media lab, if you are not familiar with, you have 2 rooms packed with technological instruments for, well, creating and making, like laser cuts, 3d printers, and hand machinery. As you might imagine, our team got some tingling feelings in our fingers, wishes to use it all, forgetting about products for a minute.

But the process s important, in order to make not only a good use of the machines but a right use for our project as well.

We have started with brainstorming, what it meant for us is writing on post it notes what ever crossed our minds, each o us on their own, or together as a team. we found it is really important to let each other have their own time to write their ideas, that way w keep our mind open and our brain creative, which is futile at this stage of work.

After clustering it all out, we started thinking, and connecting the thoughts together, mixing them from different fields, to find interesting new ideas.

A tip from the #DATASS: keep the conversation flowing, as this stage is where the magic starts to spark!

Writing our ideas out took time but we made it! Making a plan to execute it for the next two days of the sprint and getting the materials. (thanks, Pavel!)

Our idea was making people understand the concept of data as a currency as well as for as to learn about what types of information people are willing to give and analyze it to a visual end product. It meant we had 3 part of our project:

1// Data exchange (or how we like to call it; Data Casino): where you answer our questions, and you get coins in return.

2// aMAZEing game (a pun was intended): a maze you use your coins in to get ahead in.

3// Data viz: a glass display of the answers’ data from the exchange questions.

We have divided the work load between us and ready, set, SPRINT…

Nerea and Maylis wrote the very invasive questions.

(Oh, and they were having fun doing it.)

Rotem was making the maze plans and the coins.

(Maze planning is a migraine in the making.)

Lorenzo was building the Data viz and the Data Casino

(Glue is known as the best way to get high in Amsterdam)

We really loved letting people try out our game, we also learned a lot from watching people play, and we are going to keep working to improve the game and get better information from the gamers.