Interactive Content

Post-post Honeymoon

This week has been surprisingly calm. We planned out our third sprint, had an amazing UX workshop with Marco and got right to work executing tasks. It’s like our team went through our honeymoon phase (aka the first sprint, we were all lovey-dovey with our ideas and each other), our post-honeymoon phase (aka the second sprint, an awkward rough patch when reality sunk in) and the post-post honeymoon phase (aka now, where we’ve adjusted and have gotten used to the idea of doing mundane tasks together like laundry on Friday nights).

Some of our user stories.

On Monday, Gijs helped us out with our sprint planning from the get-go, which was real helpful. We created eight distinct user stories from the perspectives of each our area of expertise. They ranged from “As a creative coder, how can I display the collected data in a dynamic way?” to “As a researcher, how can I involve our target audience more in our prototype experiments?” After writing down at least a thousand-and-one tasks (as per usual), we shifted several of them to the Product Backlog on the Scrum Board, as this sprint is minus two days (Happy Easter, y’all).

The Dutchtub: Classic example of great UX design.

On Wednesday Marco gave a UX workshop where he gave an impeccable presentation on designing experiences that are self-defining, and invoke happiness and motivation. We also learned about the relevance of emotions to design, and how moods, sentiments and emotional traits are quite different from emotions themselves (which are brief and intense). #feels.

Fleshing out our person: The charismatic Mike.

After Marco’s talk, Felipe took over and we did a quick activity where we learned the importance of filtering our user-centered research into models and maps (read: more stuff that is, well, useful). We took one of our personas (Mike) and tried to understand how he would experience the prototype we are currently working from what we understand about him, no assumptions or embellishments whatsoever. Zip. Nada.

Shreya’s Spectacular Sketches.

As for our tasks, Shreya and Orlando have been working to understand the spatial attributes of Canvas (at Volkshotel) and OBA Linnaeusstraat, and how can this understanding can be incorporated into our design. They’ve been looking at how users move through the spaces and this shapes their experience of the space. Oh, and Orlando is creating digital models of the space for reference. Capital A for Awesome.

Project model, brainstorming fun.

Lisanne and Nikhil have been figuring out the visual side of things, starting with the project model (above), so that our concept is easily understood (read: translate everything to “mom language”). We’re still working with maps, but this time, our prototype is going to feature landmarks from Oost and a sprinkle of generative design, with Nikhil delving into Processing for the first time (so. exciting). We like to dream big. Are we biting off more than we can chew? Maybe… Stay tuned.

Half-Way There (Living on a Prayer…)

“Strangers talking” = Our eloquent Sprint goal.

This past week has been eventful. Although our Sprint goal seems straightforward enough (pictured above), it is not easy-as-pie-cake-whatever-dessert you’re eating right now. We’ve been making communication models, designing maps (yes, more maps) of Amsterdam, having meetings, hijacking Twitter and learning Processing till we’re cross-eyed. Oh, and we met the halfway mark of our Second Sprint – had our Translate session – and sort of re-evaluated our entire idea. Super leuk.

Some of the models Atossa has been developing, wahoo.

One of the key tasks in this sprint was to create separate models related to engagement/ communication/conversation. Atossa, our resident culture and communication expert, is going to do a separate blog post on all of the various models she has been working away at. She’s been converting all of her research into beautiful visuals with Illustrator which is super awesome considering she only started working with the program a few short weeks ago. Kudos, girl.

Fun inspiring design stuff: Map of Amsterdam Oost by Egidius Bink.

Lisanne worked on designing an illustrative map of Amsterdam – mainly focusing on the key landmarks in certain areas – which ultimately reminded Nikhil of Pokemon. Which is, you know, a designer’s dream. Check out this tweet for a sneak peak of what it looks like.

Fresh off the Volkshotel’s Instagram page: Love in Cyberspace. Who isn’t interested?

Atossa and Orly met with Janneke of the Volkshotel to discuss how she handles their PR & Communications. They discovered that for the Volkshotel, engagement is defined by the meetings and conversations that people have either while they are physically in the Volkshotel or digitally through social media (with Instagram being their most favoured). They also learned that the Volkshotel had an event called ‘Complaining with Noel Loozen’ (see the video here), where people were allowed to complain 24 hours straight to another person (#livingthedream). Through this, they received a lot of press coverage and began to redefine the way that the Volkshotel is seen: not just as a hotel, but also as an experimental space.

Bromance.

Orly and Nikhil have been busy understanding and designing the different layers of content generation for the screens, i.e., designing a meaningful manner of extraction of available content (such as the archived footage from the Sound and Vision Institute). They’ve also been finding context from the available data (both Big Data and Social Media) in order to monitor relevant content that will trigger interest in the viewers. Also, more emphasis has also been made on visualizing the content and data in creative through software like Processing and OpenFrameworks. Translation? They work hard. They work really hard.

Q: When do strangers actually talk to each other? A: In a lot of surprising, and awkward, situations.

We had our Sprint Review session on Wednesday sans Gijs – we missed him loads – which went well. Shreya designed a snazzy presentation, and we dragged Felipe along because his insights are really invaluable (read: always on point. He is the one who instigated the brainstorming session pictured above). After learning what our fellow comrades are up to, and getting some suggestions on how to push our project further, we had a fiery brainstorming session which resulted in us changing our idea. It seemed like the logical thing to do… #yolo? Instead of our looking solely at social media and archived footage to produce visuals on-screen, we thought it would make more sense to consider things like the relationship between the sound of the environment (that the screen is located in) and the visuals on-screen.

Getting all cozy. Finally reunited.

When Gijs finally came back, we got the chance to tell him what we have been doing, and the reasoning behind our shift in idea. Ultimately, he brought us back down to earth and we’re back following the same initial idea we were working towards to begin with. #rollercoasterofemotions. Lesson learned? Don’t. Change. A. Sprint. Halfway. Through. No matter how unbelievably awesome your ideas seem. Interactive Screen Team Out.

Sprint, sprant, sprunt

Our first sprint has come and gone. It’s been a real journey (yes, life changing) and it’s hard to believe we’ve got five more to go. It was an intense start to the week – we got kicked out of the lab the night before our peer pitch – but we’ve made loads of progress in terms of prototyping, literature, surveys and meetings.

First slide of our presentation. Yes we are teases.

On Tuesday we pushed ourselves through the night to get our first official working prototype. Lisanne designed, Shreya CSS’d and Nikhil and Orlando coded. Result? An animation that is activated whenever someone includes #Volkshotel in a tweet. It’s a small piece of the ginormous 3D 80 story puzzle of a project we’re working on, but it’s an awesome foundation to build upon.

Apple “Bookshelf” = skeuomorphism

Atossa and Orlando have been busying working on our research paper, and their thoughts have been focused on – along other things – remediation and skeuomorphism (which is a design style that features an element from an earlier period that has now lost its function). You can read more about skeumorphism here.

Survey results.

Atossa and Shreya got some intell on the VolksHotel, OBA Linneaustraat and the screens at OBA Linneaustraat through surveys. They asked passerbys on the streets to fill out questionnaires in order to see their familiarity with these spaces and how they have experienced them. Atossa stood on the streets for hours in the freezing Dutch wind and may have gotten a bit sick as a result. Seriously, this girl is dedicated. Team member of the week. 

Crazy tunnel we walked through to get to the Sound and Vision building.

We had our first meeting with the Sound and Vision Institute, which we had to travel to Hilversum to get to (=fun sleepy train rides). We heard about what content they have to offer our project (from videos of Dutch wildlife to retro infomercials about phone televisions to sound clips from the 1900’s), and what kind of projects they’ve been working on to date. It was really inspiring. 

We also met with Daan, a MediaLab graduate, Masters student at Delft and an employee of Ngage Media. He told us about the projects he has been working on and showed us a bunch of cool work, such as National Geographic’s augmented reality project in Rotterdam CS. #wacky

Seeing our work displayed at the Volkshotel for the first time. Wild.

We gave our very first peer pitch on Wednesday, which went well, more or less (read: we talk, a lot. A lot. Editing ourselves must be worked on. Killing our babies and all that). We also met with the VolksHotel to pitch them our first idea. They gave us a lot of insights and things to think about as we jump headfirst into the next sprint on Monday, such as ideas revolving around early adaptors, gentrification of Amsterdam and ways to get people to talk to each other in larger cities. So much.

So much passion. So many strange conversations.

Our retrospective – reflecting upon how our sprint went – was also filled with ideas, but more on the how-to-better-orient-ourselves-so-we-don’t-stay-in-the-studio-til-we-get-kicked-out side of things. A.k.a, our team is highly creative, but we need to balance that with structure. We got this. We think.

Our team mascot.

At the end of the day, we’ve sprint, sprant and sprunt our way into the beginnings of what we know will be something amazing. And we couldn’t be more excited to keep learning, growing and pushing this project to the next level. Interactivecontentforthewin.

Recap: 2.5 Weeks

The past 2.5 weeks have been a big blur over here at MediaLAB. In between making towers made of spaghetti and marshmallows (don’t ask) and perfecting the art of paper airplanes (contact us if you need the template), we’ve gotten to know each member of our team, gotten our hands dirty with some film production, learned the basics of SCRUM, went to a conference, met our stakeholders and other key players, and have started tweeting.

Avatars. Just to clarify. We’re real people too.

To start, we’ve got a wicked team. International, interdisciplinary; we’ve got our bases covered (or so we hope). From left to right, meet:

Nikhil. Technical engineer from India. Also really good at raising one eyebrow. Atossa. Dutch researcher and media and culture expert who has an obsession with sticky notes and to do lists. Shreya. Indian product designer with a serious user experience mindset. Bridging language barriers between the coders and designers since day one. Orlando. Our architect and urban planner from Mexico. He sometimes wears giraffe costumes. Lisanne. Graphic designer from Toronto. The one with the USB.

One of the first things that we did as a team – after laying out our backgrounds, from a cultural perspective and technical point of view – was understand our personalities through a Belbin test. We’re all part Explorers or Innovators, and we’ve also got Chairmen, Completers and Team Players. Side note: some of us have characteristics such as “impatient” and “impulsive”.

Lights, camera, action.

 Our first team project was the creation of a User Scene, where we set out to make sense of our research question from the user’s perspective. As a team, we agreed on making a short film, which we shot at the Volkshotel (who is one of our stakeholders). You can view the video here. Fun fact: The night before the deadline of the project, we stayed at the studio til 23:00. We’ve been nicknamed the owls of MediaLab. Translation: working on time management skills is a must-do.

Scrumboard, take one.

During the very first week, we had a SCRUM workshop with Alexander. We learned the backbones of the method and how we would be implementing it over the next twenty weeks. Actually using SCRUM, however, was super challenging for our team; we got a bit stuck in the ideation process and had trouble deciphering the definition of the different components of the SCRUM board.

Mission Impossible-esque.

Interacting with paintings.

Phoenix-like.

During the first full week at the studio, we went to Integrated Systems Europe 2015. We were able to check out the latest screen technologies and some of Europe’s most influential futurist business masterminds. Nikhil – being good at raising one eyebrow, and ultimately, the smooth-talker of the group – was able to make several connections while the rest of us stumbled around, wide-eyed and giddy (see above) with all of the exciting developments that are being made today.

Barber shop chairs & exposed ceilings: Welcome to the Volks.

The new OBA Linnaeusstraat.

We’ve also had three stakeholder meetings, one with the Volkshotel and two with OBA, which were full of information and insight. At the Volks, we chatted with the owner and other key players over coffee about the history of the space, the different events that they host and the types of resources that our available to our team for our project. At OBA, we got to understand the issues that the library as an entity is facing in today’s tech-heavy world, and how OBA is working to transform itself into a cultural center. Oh, and did we mention that the Volkshotel wants us to stay at the hotel for a night to become better acquainted with all that they have to offer? Yes. Yes, please.

Beyond our stakeholders, we’ve met with creatives such as Marcel Bolton (take away: “Never ask people what they want, they’ll refer to something they already know”, and had workshops that ranged from helping us communicate visually to how to become database search experts. Score.

Finally, we’ve also set up a Twitter account at @iscrnmedialab15. So follow us for frequent updates on articles we’re reading, brainstorms we’re doing and bagels virginities we’re taking. It’s all on there.