Interactive Content

By lisannebinhammer June 22nd, 2015

Who’s that group?

Well, this is it. The final blog post. It’s devastating just to write this, and we can’t imagine what our readers are going through to hear this is the end. We’re sorry. So, just ‘cause we love you so much, we’re gonna make this post a little bit longer and a little bit more special. We’ll tell you about the past week (tasks and meetings and whatnot), what’s coming up in the near future, and what MediaLAB has meant to us (grab a box of tissues, now).

Gijs being Gijs.

From Monday on, everything was go-go-go. We usually have to work fast & furious, and last week was definitely no different. We all worked on the weekened as well, even though some of us had to move (Atossa is a winner). Atossa and Orlando finished the research poster, Gijs edited it down, and then they handed it off to Lisanne to make it look real snazzy. Lisanne was also working on the design of two more posters, both relating to the technical process. She also finished off our (60-page) book and (20-page) visual manual. Oh, and the keynote presentation with a few fun animations. Nikhil has finishing off the magic that only he understands. It’s all going to come together in the end. It really is.

Setting up the camera on a… stool? Pillow?

Shreya took some final shots for the video, and Atossa was amazing enough to give her a hand with her superior acting skills. She then cut it, cut it and cut it some more. What she came up with is a Kickstarter-like overview of our project, and we’re all super happy with the results. The final draft is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOJHzyJcDjY&feature=youtu.be #exciting.

Try outs. Everyone looks a tad tired.

We also had our Try-outs or last ever Peer Pitch where we practiced the final presentation that we are going to give this Wednesday. We played the first cut of our video, which we got some great feedback on, and gave a quick presentation, which we also got some helpful advice with (read: too much text).

At the OBA. So orange.

We had our very last translation session at the OBA on Friday with all of our stakeholders (more or less) present. We showed the video and got even more excellent feedback. We had to explain a few technical things to everyone, but we’re hoping we are all now on the same page. We also invited them to come by on Wednesday, and we’re crossing our fingers that everyone will be there. We’re hoping that you will be there too: Wednesday between 17:00-19:00 at Studio HvA. Please.

Lasercut goodness.

Right now, we’re currently working on our booth for the final presentation. Orlando got some of our designs lasercut (super cool) and Atossa has been busy figuring out printing (of the book/etc). We’ve got a whole set up in mind, with creating a complete experience for the people who come by to check out our work. We’re pumped, to say the least.

Remember this? Taken for Observe. Lisanne is sneezing.

Well readers, we’ve just handed in pretty much everything (sending zip files and pdfs and whatnot) and we promised you something extra special for this post. So we want to talk about our experience her at the lab. As a team, we figured out how to be professional, learned new skills and matured as people. Kidding, sort of. Don’t pay attention to the gifs. One of the most important things we learned as a multicultural and multidisciplinary team was to not only cope with each other’s differences (whether they be opinions or work mentality), but also to really learn from each other. We’ve gotten the chance to try new softwares, go to a vast amount of workshops and work with real stakeholders (not just imaginary ones, as many of us do in school). We also wanted to take the time to break down what we’ve individually gotten out of MediaLAB.

Orlando

I learned a lot of technical stuff.

Shreya

I’ve enjoyed getting thoroughly involved in all spheres of the project.

Atossa

I’ve gotten the chance to use my skills in a more practical way, as well as the chance to jump into a more managerial position. I’ve completely stepped out of my comfort zone. Oh, and I learned Adobe Illustrator.

Lisanne

I’ve gotten to learn a couple of new things. First, how the technical side works in relation to what I do (visual design) and also have dipped a toe into UX design.

Nikhil

I learned a hands-on approach, I learned quick prototyping, I learned how to translate my technical lingo into a more understandable one (for the rest of the team).

So full of love.

Our faces are small but our hearts are big. Anyways, now you know. This experience has been unforgettable and, once again, we’re going to insist: we’re pitching on Wednesday so, come. Really come. We’d love to meet our fan base. #jokes #notreally. It’s gon’ be epic.

Ps: Lisanne would like to add that she learned how to write a blog. Bazinga.

Peace & love.

By lisannebinhammer June 12th, 2015

The Cats Pyjamas

This week has been tough. We can’t lie, nervous breakdowns are happening as we try to pull everything together with less than a week to go. Oh, what we would do for another week. Or two. Or three, but anyways… We’ve been busy with our usual tasks – Nikhil with the wizardry, Lisanne with prototyping and other design-y things, Atossa and Orlando with research and testing and Shreya with our video – and we also had our Translate session which was super leuk.

The countdown that began at the beginning of the week. #Horror

First, a quick update on our tasks: Nikhil has been in the zone. So much so that we’re a bit afraid to talk to him in case we make him add a >> in his code when it should have been a ”. Or whatever. Go technical wizard, go. (Oh and side note: this is Nikhil in a past life. The man has skills).

User testing at the lab.

Atossa and Orlando have been multi-tasking like the pros that they are: working on the research poster (and paper) alongside testing, testing and more testing (in focus groups with questionnaires). They’re so close to getting it finished, with Lisanne helping with the design of the poster so that we can wow everyone during the final pitch. Bazinga. Oh, and they’ve been doing a bit of acting in the video, which Shreya has been handling all week. She’s been conceptualizing and storyboarding, and all of that jazz.

Shiny new logo.

Lisanne has been working from her design cave (a.ka. her tiny flat) on icons for the poster, a book (which is going to break down, well, everything from how our project works to our brand manual), the visuals and a bunch of other thingamabobs (which we are super excited about).

Trying out a few ideas suggested by Martijn and Dimitris: Placing seating in front of the screen.

Beyond all of our tasks, we had our Translate session on Wednesday with Martijn and Dimitris (who’ve we agreed are the cats pyjamas), along with the Observe team. Gijs is away in Italy but we’re trying not to miss him too much. #Sigh. It was an exciting session – with loads of new ideas coming from Martijn and Dimitrius – but we ultimately had to dismiss a lot of what was said (or put it in our “Next Steps” section of our paper). We are, however, going to think about how we could physically alter a space – very subtly, very slightly – to better encourage our users to really stop and see our screens. Stay tuned.

No one does selfies like these two. And apparently Orlando is a tad gangster. Or something.

Yes, this is a short post. But we’ve all got to get back down to business with the looming Wednesday deadline. So sorry, loyal followers, but there will be loads more next week! Kiss kiss.

By lisannebinhammer June 6th, 2015

The. Last. Sprint.

The. Last. Sprint. It’s happening. Now. It’s mind-boggling, natuurlijk, but we haven’t had anytime to process that #theendisnear. It’s been a busy week: Sprint planning with Gijs, splitting up tasks in order to be super-duper efficient and having group meetings to make key decisions for our final product.

Sprint planning, such fun.

On Monday we had our Sprint planning with Gijs. It was an intense meeting, which mainly involved us trying to simplify (and not complexify, as tends to happen over and over again) our idea. It was tough, but we managed to work out a solution that we’re going to roll with right until the end. Instead of using the time of day and the weather to change or enhance certain moods of our users, we’ve decided that these elements will simply work as trigger points for certain videos or hooks. Rather, we’ve divided our hooks into different categories that relate to a certain type of engagement that we want our users to experience (for example: we hope that our humourous category will invoke laughter). In this way, we have a more direct (and not to mention, measurable) way to have an impact no our users. Oh yeah.

Dividing up landmarks. Hooks. Everything.

After all of the craziness of sorting our ideas, we divided tasks: Atossa and Orlando on the research poster/paper, Nikhil working to get all of our back end modules into place and Lisanne and Shreya sorting out hooks, demos and other design elements.

Flashback: What our researchers actually do together.

Atossa and Orlando have made amazing progress on both the research poster/paper: they’ve got most of the poster filled in and already have gotten notes from Gijs from the first draft. They’ve got another meeting coming up with Gijs (and Marco, exciting) so that they can edit it into the brilliant piece of work that we know they will. Nikhil has been working with Tamara to sort the Twitter module, the “pipeline” for the Sound and Vision footage and just, you know, all of that other technical lah-dee-dah that impresses and confuses the rest of us. He says that different parts are “done” and we’re “almost there” so we’re crossing our fingers and just on the edge of our seats waiting to see it come together.

All of the coffee and all of the brainstorming featuring Lisanne’s hands.

Lisanne and Shreya divided up all the hooks (we’ve got 180 hooks now) and put them into an Excel (no small feat). It may seem like a bit of a dull task, but hey, someone’s gotta do it. They’ve also created three different demos (with animation) so that we can really start to see: (1) if people understand that certain videos are referencing certain landmarks, (2) if people actually laugh, or feel inspired, or whatever the goal of the hook happens to be when it appears on screen and (3) how different timing strategies (for example, playing three different hooks for ten seconds apiece, then having a 20 second “break” from videos/hooks on screen) can work to our advantage. Whew. They also met up with Felipe to discuss responsive design, as we really need to start to consider how different screen dimensions will have an affect on our design. Boy oh boy. Oh, and side note: Lisanne has been deciding on typefaces for the hooks (each category will have a typeface that suits the tone of the hook) and branding the project. #wild #happydesigner #atlast #justanotherhashtag

Sunny weather finally hits Amsterdam. Most of our team is MIA from this photo but, still. Proof that there is good weather in Holland.

We all met up on Friday to see what everyone has been up to (we were all working from various locations this past week) as well as to map out all of our next steps. It goes without being said that we’ve got a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it, so… we’re putting the petal to the metal or however that saying goes. Enjoy the sunshine!

By lisannebinhammer May 31st, 2015

To Do or Die

Well. At this point in time, we’re looking at only one Sprint left folks. Soon there’s gonna be a lot of celebrating (in the hugging/crying/beer-drinking form) but until then, we’ve got, ahem, a crazy-ton-load of work to do. To put it mildly. We’ve spent this past week trying to accomplish some of the things on our To-Do-Or-Die list, such as creating demos to pitch our ideas, which involved sorting through videos, creating hooks and some creative editing. We’ve also starting on our research poster, user tested at the OBA and had a few meetings. Oh, and we Peer Pitched, Sprint Reviewed and Retrospected as well (is that even a word?).

Oh hi.

Also, side note: There was a serious lack of photo-taking this week; oops. So, instead, you’re gonna get pictures of Nicholas Cage. Hope that’s alright.

Here we go.

One of the first things that we did this week was to create a demo that would better illustrate the goal of our new concept: to have landmark-based videos and hooks. So, Atossa sorted through some Sound and Vision videos and found ones suitable for the Volkshotel and the OBA. Then Lisanne created some text-based hooks and Shreya edited the videos to create the fun little demo you can watch here.

All smiles.

The first clip is a combination of: cloudy weather, someone has used #Volkshotel on Twitter, in the morning. The clip is nostalgic, it relates to some of the activities you can do at the Volkshotel, and the hook is non-intrusive. Perfect to show on a screen during breakfast. Or so we hope. The following clips follow the same formula: the videos are based on the weather and what #landmark someone has just Tweeted, and the hooks are more relative to someone’s mood during a particular time of day.

Oh boy.

Atossa and Orlando have also started working on the research poster. It’ll be a beautiful thing when it is finished, and they have been incorporating things like the an introduction to our project, the methods we have been using, key points of discussion and next steps. After that’s done, we’ll have a solid outline to move forward into the research paper. So exciting.

When we user test. This is accurate to the #feels.

On Thursday, we headed over to the OBA to do some last-minute user testing. We were super curious to see if our results would be similar to the Volkshotel (aka people just licking their elbows, everywhere). Unfortunately, the screen that we need to use (the one facing the street) isn’t working atm, so we improvised and tested on the screen that they have inside the OBA. Not exactly the same, but some OBA visitors we’re definitely stopping to watch the demo. Holla…

So excited.

Our research geniuses also had a Skype meeting with Guusje Hallema, someone we’ve been trying to talk to for a while now. Totally worth the wait. We got insights such as how we need to start conducting more structured interviews when we ask users about the effectiveness of our design. In this way, hopefully we will be able to generalize our results and have some concrete feedback to build off of. Nice.

Just creepy.

Our (last, ever) Peer Pitch was a bit different that unusual; Orlando and Nikhil presented together (for the first time ever, #bropower) and we were only pitching to the Publishing Tools team instead of all of the groups. Our audience may have been smaller, but the feedback was super valuable, as always. One of the main things that we need to consider is the automization of our project: do we have to manually sort through and place hooks on videos, or can we use programming to basically do it for us in an effective way? We shall see…

Oh my.

Our Sprint Review on Friday morning was, well, pretty intense. Our stakeholders from OBA really thought we were onto something (=awesome), as our new idea has the potential to grab someone’s attention. However… we need to still consider things like: who is viewing the screen, and how will it have an impact on them? After #allofthefeels, we sat down with Gijs, as we do, to Retrospect. We’ve basically got to go full throttle as we move forward into our last few weeks at the lab. Gijs recommended that we get someone to help out with all of the technical stuff we need to do. We are also going to create “manuals”, where we provide a basic outline of what each screen would contain depending on where it is located, and start looking into how we can categorize our hooks so that they are more effective at different locations. Fun times.

So much.

Will we be able to do it? Will we be able to drink enough coffee? Code enough lines? Cite enough sources? Be able to package this project and sell it off before all hell breaks loose? C’mon. Guys. We’re Project Encounter. ‘Nuff said.

By lisannebinhammer May 26th, 2015

Hey Girl…

With this week over, we’ve only got a month left at the lab and already our team is starting to get all mushy with each other (picture moments like Gosling and McAdams on that boat in the rain). Case in point: we spent Monday night at the Volkshotel together, all cozy sharing beds and morning coffee (and testing our work, naturally). Super cute. We’ve also been busy with our Translate Session, solidifying our new concept and getting started on this Sprints’ tasks – from our research paper to more technical ones.

Shreya cartoonifyes everyone. Told ya things were getting cute. Top to bottom: Lisanne, Gijs, Orlando, Shreya, Atossa, Nikhil.

On Monday, before said cuteness happened at the Volkshotel, we pitched our separate concepts to Gijs. Everyone had researched like mad in order to pitch something new, but we ultimately decided to go with the concepts that had come out of Atossa/Lisanne and Shreya’s pitches: provocative hooks that are landmark related. Wanna know more? Keep reading…

A room with a view.

So after our meeting, we headed over to the Volkshotel to check in and begin our 24-hour (sort of) testing marathon. Side note: A huge thank you to Alexander for letting us stay over. It was hella fun and the rooms were outta this world (Really. Have you ever been a hotel room that uses chain mail or a newspaper as a shower curtain? Yeah, neither had we…).

They be taking photos like we famous…

Our first round of testing was during dinnertime. And folks? We. Got. Results. We played the video (link here) and watched as patrons took photos, laughed, chattered, pointed, and um, licked their elbows. For like, a while. It was a smash-hit success. More or less. We went to bed all happy and super proud of what we had achieved.

Breakfast buds.

The rest of our testing, however, was not quite so successful. During breakfast (included in our stay #ballers) and lunch, people barely looked at the screens, let alone had any real reaction to the content. Sigh. We realized that we have to start creating content that changes re: time of day. #Genius.

Translate Session. Good times.

After our testing, we sat down once more with Gijs to discuss our findings and make plan moving forward. We’d come to the conclusion that our previous idea (the one that we’ve just been pouring our sweat, blood & tears into for the past few months) just hasn’t been having any sort of effect on our users (read: zero engagement. Nada). Doing something drastically different, however, really did, so we’ve decided to keep on going with it.

Hooks with humour work.

To break it down, the way that our current idea works is… One. We gather data, three different kinds, grouped into two different categories: Weather data plus social media data and time of day data. Two. We use these two different categories to filter different kinds of visuals that will appear on the screen. The first category (weather plus social media) determines the quality and content of the archived footage that will be displayed on the screen. The second (time of data) determines the type of text-based hook that will appear on the screen. Then three, content on screen, four, users, five, engagement. It’s a rough sketch but hey. We’re on our way.

Unrelated photo, but part of the Volkshotel breakfast. Cute sprinkles for one? On board.

Post Translate Session, we sat down to divide up tasks. Atossa and Orlando have started work on the research paper, with all of their mad researching skills finally coming out to play in a very serious way. You go Glen Cocos. Shreya has begun to look into different stories that revolve around the landmarks that we have selected, as we want to develop our hooks accordingly. Once the stories have been created, Lisanne is going to play around with hooks, and then Nikhil is going to code us through to the other side. Hallelujah.

Nikhil’s excited face?

Tune in for next weeks post to hear all about how our Peer Pitch and Review sesh goes down. Thanks for being so loyal to the blog! Kisses.

By lisannebinhammer May 13th, 2015

Hacks and more hacks

It’s been a short week for most of the teams at mediaLAB, but not for us. Yes, we’ve been working since last Friday afternoon. We hacked all weekend long, and have gotten back down to regular business ever since with our fifth (!!!) Sprint. We’ve worked on our Sprint Planning, had a mini team challenge (we’re planning to pitch brand new concepts on Monday), and a business workshop on Wednesday.

Friday: Brainstorms and serious stretching at the Waag Society.

Our hackathon was nothing short of insanely intensive. It was held at the Waag Society (which is an amazing building to hack in, btw), and we got to meet and collaborate with people from FabLab, Europeana and the Sound and Vision in order to research, code and design a prototype over the course of a single weekend. The goal was to use archived data in such a way as to promote and educate the public about cultural heritage. It was like a Sprint in fast-forward times 100.

Creating a video to demonstrating our concept with Director Shreya.

Our concept for the hackathon was to use motion-based sensors in order to reveal archived footage on the screen. It was our first time messing around with sensors, so our technical geniuses had a blast and a half. We also started looking at hooks, or attention-grabbing devices that would spark curiousity in our users and motivate them to look at our screens in the first place. For business purposes, we included an app mockup, to show how our idea could go beyond a large-scale screen experience, to a more personal one. Check out our super video, creds to Shreya. Nailed it.

Final presentation at the Waag Society.

At the end of the hackathon, we were fairly delirious (to the point of eye twitches). But we received some awesome feedback and, even if we didn’t win the competition, we got the chance to try out some new ideas and we’re closer than ever as a team. Or something. Oh, and we also renamed our project: Project Encounter. We also worked on a logo for it. Righteous.

From left to right: Shreya, Atossa, Orlando, Lisanne and Nikhil. LA The Voices.

On Monday (eyes still twitching) we had our Sprint Planning with Gijs to discuss our plan for the next few weeks. Gijs had the brilliant idea (sort of) to divide the team and pit us against each other for a few days to do yet another hackathon. Atossa and Lisanne formed one team, with Shreya, Orlando and Nikhil forming another. We went off to work, scrambling to form new concepts centered around context profiles and hooks. #bringiton

Business workshop happy faces.

Wednesday morning we had a business workshop, where we tried to define our product and service, customer relationship and cost structure (amongst other things). Nikhil rocked the show (life calling, probably) and we gained some insights as to how we can transform our project into an actual money-making business. Cha-ching.

Preview of Atossa and Lisanne’s visuals: Archived footage + high impact phrases.

Although we’re planning to pitch our concepts on Monday, we’re all about #sneakpeeks so we thought we’d give you a brief overview about what we’ve been working on. Atossa and Lisanne came up with a solution that takes data from current weather sources, social media platforms and/or news headlines in order to render videos and texts that are reflective of certain moods of different landmarks in Oost. Shreya, Orlando and Nikhil split up their team so they’ve got three different concepts they’re working with.

Shreya’s concept: Using natural footage within a city setting.

Orlando is working in extracting data from the OBA Linneaustraat, such as how many books are being checked in and out, and then translating this into visuals. Shreya’s concept uses video footage from Artis Zoo in order to transport pedestrians outside of the cityspace and into a more natural environment. Nikhil is looking at visualization the data surrounding Science park such as lectures given, newsletters and Twitter activity. In short: we never don’t have ideas. It’s wild.

Shreya’s excited face. Barcelona’s gon be epic.

Now we’re onto yet another long weekend, with some of our team headed to Barcelona and some of our team volunteering at this year’s Fiber festival. Also: shoutout to Felipe and Gijs, who had birthdays this past week. Party on.

By lisannebinhammer May 8th, 2015

Short & Sweet (& Scott)

This week has been funny (not funny ha-ha mind you, although we did have our fair share of giggles). It’s been real short due to holidays (Happy belated Memorial and Liberation day to all you Dutchies) and taking a day off as we get ready to spend the weekend hacking at the Hacking Culture Bootcamp at the Waag Society. #excited. As a result, this blog post will be short and sweet, focusing on our Peer Pitch, Sprint Review and Retrospective (all of which happened on a jam-packed Wednesday, btw).

Some of the feedback from our peers. Graph=visuals. We think.

Our fourth Peer Pitch went fairly well. It’s always super interesting to see what the other teams are up to (especially getting to see what the Playful Learning team has been doing, as they just got back from a two-week trip to Spain), and getting feedback from the rest of our peers is most helpful. Beyond minor adjustments to our presentation (such as bringing up the point size of our type to you know, a readable one), we received insights mostly related to visuals of our project, and how we can up our game moving forward (by focusing on hierarchy, for example). Bazinga.

Sprint Review.

A few hours after the Peer Pitch, we headed to the Volkshotel to talk with our stakeholders. It was a stimulating meeting, with feedback ranging from the visual (not enough white space) to the intellectual (such as considering provocative conversation starters). We need to start designing one message for all of our screens that will trigger different kinds of conversations for different people. Ultimately, we’re starting to realize that we may or may not need to reconsider kind of everything we’re doing. Or something.

Retro. Gotta love that Amsterdam sun.

After that, we sat outside with Gijs to retrospect on the past Sprint. We discussed things like how we’re going to have to be super strategic from now on (with only two Sprints left to go, #yikes) and how we need to loosen up on our group discussions (and just have one big one at the beginning of our Sprints).

Not bad, Microsoft. Orlando is just a tad off.

We’re headed to hack later on today, and we’ll keep you posted as to how it all goes. We’re hoping for epic results and just enough sleep to get us through our Sprint Planning on Monday. Later.

By lisannebinhammer May 1st, 2015

Just breathe…

It’s been a rollercoaster of a week. We’ve tested our visuals, had our translate session, went to a serious slew of meetings and edited some of our work from last week. Whew. We’ve also been dealing with a slightly-paralyzing-and-completely-anxiety-provoking feeling that we just haven’t got a lot of time left before our very final presentation. Breathe. In. Out. In. Out.

Design testing at the Volkshotel. Shreya is... well...

Design testing at the Volkshotel. Shreya is… smiling?

One of the first tasks we set out to do this week was to test our prototype. We headed to the Volkshotel on Tuesday to Role Play (it’s a method people) in order to gain some design insights. It was the first version of our visuals that Lisanne had added colour to, so it was interesting to see how, well… yellow everything looked. Oops. Beyond realizing certain things from a visual perspective, we added another task to our mile-long to do list: buy a splitter (so we can display different visuals on the different projectors in the space).

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The Intelligent Environments team… not looking too impressed.

On Wednesday we had our Translate Session, which was set up a bit differently this Sprint. Instead of creating a digital presentation we filled out a form, which basically linked our user stories to our methods to our insights. It was a simple, effective way to explain what we had been up to in the past week. It made the entire session a lot more informal, and we were able to have a real back-and-forth discussion about our work with Tamara, Gijs, Mariska and the Intelligent Environment team. We mostly talked about technical issues we’ve been having (such as the amount and relevancy of our data sources) which was a belangrijke thing to do, for sure.

Martijn meeting. The awed look on our faces.

We met with Martijn de Waal on Thursday morning, who is an expert in the field of engagement as it relates to the urban sphere (and the author of Atossa and Orlando’s all-time fav, “The City as Interface” – read: they were a bit star struck). He not only showed us spectacular projects to inspire us, but also brought up key elements of our project (such as the “Landing Zone”, the physical area where people have discussions about a screen) that we hadn’t thought about before. We realized that we need our visuals to be more provocative and playful in order to encourage users to be, well, interested. It was a brilliant meeting and we all felt a tad enlightened afterwards.

Snacks during our chat. More fruit-based mascots.

After that meeting, we had a chat with Gijs about what we had learned from Martijn, and started to think about potential user stories for our next sprint. #Onit. We’ve pinned down a couple of ideas that we want to start working towards, which is fantastic because the month of May is riddled with holidays so all of our ensuing Sprints will be cut short. Sigh.

New & improved.

One of the insights from the Translate session and our meeting with Martijn was to edit our engagement model a bit. So, Atossa added new elements such as “exposing users to a vague message” and having users “identify with the message”. Man, this girl is good. The next step in fleshing out the model is to make it quantifiable, so that we can measure our user’s activity through the model. What a time.

Shreya explaining the technical wizardry.

We also received feedback to improve upon our technical flow chart, which Shreya and Nikhil have been working on. We introduced a more comprehensive framework to represent data flow through data processing and visualization modules (as some components were left out in our previous version). We’ve got to make it clear enough for all of the very un-tech-saavy people out there, which is tricky but these guys have got it.

Team elevator photo at the Northern Light building post-meeting.

On Friday we went to meet with Northern Light, the fantastic company behind the OBA Linnaeusstraat building. It was a bit of a journey to get there (read: we walked around Noord for about 45 minutes slightly willy-nilly) but it was totally worthwhile. The studio space itself was lovely, and the people we met, even more so. We got to understand what they had originally intended for the space (to have it be sort of like a pop-up cultural center), and what they think the screen should be used for. It was heel leuk.

Roses from cats. Fun Fridays.

Now we’re on to a four day weekend (really, the month of May is #doingitright) and we’re feeling something along the lines of this. Tot ziens!

By lisannebinhammer April 25th, 2015

Fourth times a charm

We entered into our fourth Sprint this past Monday. We’ve gone down the rabbit hole and into the wilds of Sprint Planning, interviewing, researching, a user-testing workshop, meeting with Oost Online and improving our visual design with brainstorming sessions. This Sprint is gon’ be epic.

Orlando and Atossa's brainstorming faces. And gestures.

Orlando and Atossa’s brainstorming faces. And hand-waving gestures.

To start off the week, we sat down with Gijs to ideate and plan for this Sprint. We’ve gotten to be pros at this part of the process (it used to take us days to brainstorm, and now we’re good to go in a matter of hours), and we created a load of user stories that basically build upon user stories from our previous sprint (a.k.a – on a basic level – adding colour and text to our visual design work).

In Oost - just look at all of those doors to knock on.

Fieldwork in Oost – just look at all of those doors to bang down.

Atossa and Shreya have been interviewing the residents of Oost left, right and center so that we can incorporate more personal stories into the visuals of our project (somehow…). Atossa came up with the idea to knock on doors to talk to people instead of bombarding them with questions on the street. Call it a genius plan, call it slightly stalkerish, but the girl managed to get 24 interviews in the span of a single evening. Hey, if it works…

Model of Engagement, Interactive Screen style.

Atossa has also been delving further into research about engagement so that we can readapt the pyramid of engagement (see a few blog posts back) to better suit our project. We want to understand engagement in quantitative terms, so that we can actually measure the effectiveness of our work. Side note: Atossa gets oh-so very excited about research. It is heartwarming to the max.

The Chocohashtag – Work from Jochen.

On Wednesday we had a user-testing workshop with Jochen Riester. Beyond fits of laughter (after learning about certain projects like the Chocohashtag and the Bierkini), we gained some really valuable insights about different types of research (exploratory, descriptive and causal) and the difference between qualitative and quantitative research (read: numbers matter). Jochen suggested that we get help figuring out certain visualizations by actually asking our users – or kids, because kids just get things – to draw out different icons.

Roughin’ it out: Technical flow of things.

On the technical side of things, Nikhil and Shreya have been working to create a technical flowchart so that our audience (and um, some of our team members, maybe) can actually understand how we are translating our data into visuals. Super important. Orlando has also been looking at making sense of RSS Feeds (aka Rich Site Summaries or web feed formats that publish frequently updates information like blog entries or twitter feeds or news headlines), as we want the information on our screens to constantly update (as more tweets or other types of stories get fed into our data streams).

Orlando mapping out Oost, pre-meeting.

On Thursay Atossa and Orlando met Willemijn Hendriks and Jeroen Groenewegen, participants in the Skyscrapers program. The Skyscrapers program is currently working on Oost Online, a website that updates the public about the general goings-on in Oost. They want the website to include content that younger people will be interested in. So… we discussed the possibility of a collaboration, in the form of an article about our project to go on their website, and the content of their website to go into the visual output of our project. It’s really exciting and we’ll keep you updated to how it all goes down. #happydance

Design all day, e’ry day.

We also had a mini-brainstorming session where we started thinking about the different types of stories we are incorporating into our project (so far, tweets, news stories and personal narratives) and how they can translate on a visual level. Ultimately, we’ve realized that we need to do a lot of text-based experimentation with our users in order to understand if our ideas are coming across (cue: exciting music). Lisanne has been working on creating different variations of the design – from different screen sizes, to different colour palettes, to typographic play – so that we can test over and over. And over.

Orlando gets ready for Kingsday, or something…

With all of the testing we want to do next week, a few of us may or may not be putting in some extra hours this weekend. But starting Sunday evening, our laptops will be closed and all of the orange will be worn. Happy Kingsnight & Kingsday to one and all!

By lisannebinhammer April 17th, 2015

Winks and Wormholes

Well, we’ve done it. We’ve officially reached the half-way marker for mediaLAB. It’s absolutely wild to think about. It doesn’t feel like it has already been two-and-a-half months, but here we are. This past week has been filled with interviewing people from Oost, testing at the Volkshotel, preparing our presentation, Peer Pitching and giving our stakeholder Sprint Review (and brainstorming a tad).

Folks of Oost.

Atossa started off her week (actually, she went out on a Sunday cause she’s just that awesome) with some fieldwork in Oost. She interviewed people in order to understand their stories about the area so that we can potentially add these stories onto our interactive map of the area. She found that people – young and old – have a lot of stories to tell about the area, like first dates ice skating at Jaap Eden Ijsbaan and all kinds of goodness. Another insight? People love sharing their stories, and feeling like they are making a contribution to their neighbourhood. Amazing.

So bright. Such test.

On Tuesday morning Nikhil, Atossa and Lisanne headed over to the Volkshotel to test our prototype. We checked out our work on two different resolutions, so that we could compare the look and feel of our visuals with our test at OBA last week. Unfortunately, there weren’t a lot of people actually at Canvas at 11 o’clock in the morning (note: breakfast ends at 11, lunch starts at noon), so we didn’t get the chance to do any user testing. But now we know…

Revised project model: Used during the presentation to well, explain stuff.

We also spent a lot of time as a team preparing our presentation (for our peers and stakeholders). Giving presentations is something we struggle with as a team (read: always over time, always all over the place; we’re like your funny uncle who shows up at Christmas and tells really long stories that don’t make a lot of sense). So, we looked at our user stories on our SCRUM board and revisited all of the work that we’ve been doing this sprint and attempted to translate it into a clear narrative. Oh, and we rehearsed. And tested. A lot.

Post-Peer Pitch happy faces.

Wednesday morning was our Peer Pitch and all of the previously mentioned rehearsing and testing paid off. We were within the time limit (hello milestone) and got some stellar feedback that our narrative was much more coherent and easier to follow that our previous presentations. Score. One of the best things about giving a solid presentation is our feedback was more about our ideas (instead of, you know, the overall messiness of our pitch or something). We had a bit of a brainstorm afterwards, to talk about how we can better incorporate the residents of Oost into our project, and also inform them as to the goings-on of our project. It’s gonna be fun.

One of the many group shoots we took this week. Shreya's channeling Charlie's Angels.

Pre-pitch: Taking some group shoots. Shreya’s channeling Charlie’s Angels.

The next day we headed over to the OBA to give our pitch to our stakeholders. It was our first time presenting at OBA, so we showed up super early to make sure everything was more or less flawless. Gijs wasn’t able to join, but Felipe was there to help facilitate and guide the pitch which was great. We’ve gotten to the point where our ideas make sense to our clients, but they want to know how – on a very concrete level – our ideas are going to work for them.

Teaching Nikhil how to pronounce Oost through rhyming words.

Ps: Two other accomplishments this week: Cleaning out the disaster that is our group locker. Going through it was like entering a wormhole into another dimension. Crazy. Also, we finally taught Nikhil how to say Oost properly. He’s been saying it like (b)oost when it’s really more like (b)oast. What a time.

No words.

C’ya next week!

CREATING TOMORROW