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Smarter Apps for a Connected Living

Team

Gijs Gootjes g.gootjes@hva.nl
Davi Correa da Silva davi.correa@uniriotec.br
Ruben Rodriguez aparicio.ruben@gmail.com
Steven Van Hoegaerden stevenvanhoegaerden@hotmail.com

Commissioner: TWC

Description

We\'re developing a tool set or white label app for broadcasters, advertisers and format creators. It should be a generic kit that works for any kind of content and should be activated by Linear TV.

Final presentation at TWC

The 3rd of July the team present the final concept to our assigner. We expanded the presentation that we made for the expo, so everyone can talk about his role at during this project, challenges that he found and how he solved them. Also we took the big info-graphic that we made for the exposition. They said it was the biggest poster hanging on their place.

Poster

The presentation was really a success. Everyone in the company like it, and evenmore they like how the smart part of the TV now was triggered by the stickers, something without any technology on it. Combining the physical to the digital world was really a good idea, and the prove of this is that TWC, during the next weeks, will try to make this project real. The Connected Collecting Team hopes that this will happen and to be involve to see where this big project goes.

Setting Up Presentation

foto 2

Connected Collecting presents Final Presentation

This week we wrapped up every part of the project to be ready for the presentation!

The last details were taken care of. We were preparing the app so that  it could be experienced by the visitors in the presentation day. The team made the necessary adjustments so that people could trade stickers in our stand.

We also took care of the formal parts of the presentation.  In collaboration with Starting Point we got ready the animated video that explains what “Connected Collecting” is. The presentation and loop to present in the expo were also done.

We also worked on an awesome infographic that explains step by step how “Connected Collecting” was developed. The final result was just lovely!

Finally, we got some sofas, tables, bookshelves and flowers to pimp out our stand. We made the “Connected Collecting Living Room”. With two Smart TVs, tablets and physical albums we allowed the visitors to experience our concept. They scanned the stickers, uploaded them to the Smart TV, trade with others and unlock the exclusive content.

We got nice reviews of the project. The audience seemed to like what we explained them and showed them in our corner in the MediaLAB.

We still have to work on some details for next week’s presentation to the TWC team!

Filming the “Become a football star” episode

Yesterday we filmed the first episode for the exclusive content that will be contained inside the Connected Collecting Application. This episode will be a part of a series of tutorials that will teach young football players how to make awesome football tricks that professionals already do.

We worked with two young football street players, Willem (KNVB specialist) and the Spektor team. Each player was asked to perform one trick. Nick (black shirt) performed the Akka trick approximately 97 times so the camera could get the movements from many perspectives and speeds. Guido (white shirt) performed the “kangaroo” trick. We also got several shots of them just playing, freestyling and having fun.We got really great shots from different angles, and we are quite sure that the slow motion will rock!   For a moment, some kids witnessed the filming and were really impressed about the player’s skills. They were a great public, and even ask the player for their autographs. This is one great hint that we are moving in the right way in order to attract kids into our concept.

The next tasks that we need to do to finalize the episode are to edit of course and integrate the voice over. We will be doing so in the next couple of days. We are looking forward for the final result.

Working with the assigner

These are the last weeks of development and part of the team has started working at TWC’s offices. In this way, we can involve them in the development of the app and get feedback. We have a first meeting with Stephan Boer, designer from TWC, to discuss our actual design and see how we can improve it.

Working at TWC

Brainstorming about improving the app

All the feedback that we can get from TWC is very helpful, since they are experts in the development of TV applications. Also it is a very good way for us to learn about this kind of designs and implementations. Therefore, we are looking forward to work with them and be able to make a really good app.

Testing the flow and first functionallities

We found important to understand how the flow inside a TV app works and, more important, see how people, and specially kids, navigate inside a TV app. It is not like surfing Internet, because you only have the OK and directional buttons, so you can’t click anywhere you want. Therefore we invited a family to our studio and let them to try a pre-version of the app and see how they use it.

Kids are a difficult group for testing because they get annoyed when using something that is not finished and is difficult for them to understand is just testing. Because of that,  the app needs to have enough features implemented and some video content. This was also an important part of the testing because we want to know if the content we are producing is good for kids. For this testing, the kids were able to watch three different types of video content, look their digital album and scan physical stickers to add them to the digital album.

Testing the Connected Collecting App in Medialab Amsterdam

Testing the Connected Collecting App in Medialab Amsterdam

The output of the testing was really good. We understand why and were the kids get stuck most of the time and this give us the opportunity to improve the app. Also we found that the kids were expecting to find video content for every sticker, something nearly impossible because of the quantity of stickers, so it is our work to make clear how videos are unlock, where they are and what is his purpose in our app.

Our next steps is to finish all the features that the prototype will have, add the video content that we are producing and keep testing to know that we are in the good way.

Design / Implementation phase

We are currently working on the app’s interface, functionalities and content.

Development: Building the interface for the dynamic content for the Connected TV app.

Design: Creating the visuals that will be shown in the Connected TV app: the album page, and the individual players.

Preview of the visual designs of "Connected Collecting" app

We are also implementing the designs in the app.

 

Implementing the visual designs into the TV app

This week, we will also discuss the final stuff regarding the “Trade Market” section.

Content: To create the content that will “give life” to the digital collection of stickers, we are working together with Spektor (http://spektor.nl/) and Willem Boss from the KNVB. We will be producing the pilot episode of a series of tutorials that will instruct kids how to do football tricks so in the future they can become football champions just as the members of the Dutch National Football Team.

We are currently working on the preproduction phase.

Looking for motion graphics talent

Description:

We are looking for a creative motion graphics talent with experience who can make an infographic video that lasts for 30 to 60 seconds that will showcase the life of a football player. The infographic needs to be professional because it will be used as high quality HD content for Smart TV’s. This infographic will be used in the prototype of our app as an example of a video that can be unlocked when you unlock a digital sticker.

Example of what we are looking for:

Project:

MediaLAB Amsterdam is working on a project that will increase the usage of Smart TV’s. We are working with 5 international students on this project, in cooperation with TWC, the leading Smart TV apps developer in Europe. We are currently in the process of developing the prototype of a Smart TV app. This app is going to be a digital sticker album which can be viewed in any Smart TV. It will give an added value to the whole sticker collecting experience and the usage of the Smart part of the Connected TV. More information about the project will be explained during an intake interview.
Requirements:

  • Experienced with making animations and infographics
  • Able to speak Dutch and preferably English
  • Available to work on the infographic starting from Wednesday 15/05.

There will be intake interviews starting from Monday 13/05 untill 15/05. We will provide a workspace and a compensation for the effort you put in the infographic. You might have the opportunity to work on more projects like this in the future.

Contact:

If you are interested, send a mail before Tuesday 14/05 to Steven Van Hoegaerden at medialabconnected@gmail.com  with your portfolio and we will contact you as soon as possible for an intake interview.

Design presentation

After our last meeting at TWC, we started designing and making wireframes for the digital sticker album. We also made some decisions on how we are going to do the trading and the collecting and the scanning. We worked out some of these features but we wanted to get the feedback of TWC on these features. The reason why we had this meeting was to see if our design was going in the right direction, if our wireframes are correct and if the trading, collecting and scanning is interesting for the users.

Steven Design Presentation

We took a Philips Smart TV back to the Medialab from TWC so we can start testing our app on it. This is how happy everybody was with the TV!

Carrying smart tv

The feedback after the presentation was that we need to think about what makes our app special and what the killer feature is. We decided that this is going to be the scanning, trading and the collecting of the digital stickers. We first added some games and interactivity but we are not going to work that out due to a lack of time. So after the presentation we are going to work more on the trading, scanning and collecting.

We already made a scanning system that recognizes the sticker and sends the sticker in to your digital album. It works like this: the smart phone makes a picture of the app, the picture gets send to a server and the server recognizes the picture and puts it in your digital album.
Here is a video of how it works:

The flowchart we made is an idea of how our app will work. The end result can be found here. It is a clickable flowchart, so you have an idea of where you can click.

 

 

 

Paper prototyping

We made some paper prototypes of our app to see how people would use it and which kinds of troubles they have while using it. We started with making a cardboard Smartphone, Smart TV and tablet. We then took big papers and started drawing every possible screen on there, so we could take the cardboard devices and go over the screens on the paper.

In the beginning it was difficult to figure out which had to be on which screen because none of us made this before. There were still so many aspects which were unknown so we had to fill them in.

 

Afterwards we made these paper sketches digital by using the app Protosketch. You first take photos of the paper sketches with the app, and then you link each photo to another. Later the app connects them all and you can click on the sketches you made… et voila! You have a digital sketch.

We use all of this work to understand how our concept will work in a visual way. Also we test it with some children, and now we are working on the different features that the prototype will have, like the scanning or the trading of the stickers.

 

Concept Development

After analizing the insights that we got thanks to the interviews and our research we came out with four different concepts to answer the question:

How can Connected TV help convergence and increase user engagement?

The concepts explored different trends that are going on today on media and interactivity. The first concept was called “Pinapple” and aimed to pin moments on shows and then share them with your friends or making comments on them. The second concept was the “Recommendation”, it would recommend you the best shows on TV according to your interests, your friend’s interests and the social media buzz. The third concept was called “Couch Coach” and it was inspired by the passion that football generates upon fans; you could challenge your friends and community to let them know that you knew football better.

The elected concept was the “Digital Sticker Album.” It involves the collection of stickers for an album on a specific subject such as the worldcup. It involves trading stickers with your friends and unlocking extra content as you advance on your sticker collection.

This was our Concept Pitch Presentation on April 3.