That Sentient Feeling

Final post: The Lift as curator

2011-10-02T10:58:00.000+11:00

Our Final Video

Link to our temporary low resolution video.

Derek Powazek defines Serendipity as the moment of joy that comes from looking for one thing and finding another.

To prepare an experimental space for curating our own serendipitous encounters, we took ourselves on a serendipitous journey around Sydney, utilising the situationist practice of the dérive. Observing the activities of Sydneysiders with a keen eye for isolated experiences that could do with a little serendipitous pizazz, we found ourselves thrust into a cramped elevator with complete strangers, with nowhere to look except down. And it was here that we found our isolated experience that offers enormous potential for serendipitous augmentation: The mundane, awkward elevator ride reinvisioned.
But the question was: how could we reinvision this staple of urban awkwardness?

User research
Initial user research provided fresh ideas to our focuspoint and an expansion of ideas from now-revealed concepts. The user research lead to further brainstorming, where a law for serendipitous curation was formed:
(CURIOSITY + SAGACITY = SERENDIPITY)
The idea of ‘lift as curator’ was in formulation!

Further research
Next, we took to an apartment block for further user testing, interviewing 4 residents.

Conceptualisation
We began narrowing our concept further, including playing out a scenario first within our workspace and then inside an actual lift.

Our vision
In 2021 we envision an experimental space that promotes serendipitous experiences between residents of a modern apartment building, curated by the common elevator.
By utilising NFC technology in the residents’ mobile phone, the lift is able to obtain the identity of each resident before they enter the lift, and intelligently curate a serendipitous experience between residents in real-time.

Once the residents enter the lift, the lift assumes its role as curator — by analysing each of the occupants desires, needs, and life experience, the lift offers an opportunistic space that facilitates a serendipitous experience between each resident during the short journey they spend together. We understood that a successful serendipitous experience requires sagacity: without acuteness from the users, there is no serendipity. In the end, it is always the participants which must make the leap themselves.

User Scenarios

2011-10-02T10:55:00.000+11:00

These scenarios are important as they explain in more concrete terms how our concept is able to facilitate a serendipitous experience between residents of an apartment building.

User Scenario 1

Jacob leaves his apartment on floor eight to grab lunch and jumps in the lift. On the seventh floor, two other residents join the lift. Once inside, Jacob notices some icons appear above the two residents — above one, there is a taxi symbol. Above the other, there is a sushi icon with some stars. “I haven’t had sushi in a long time” thinks Jacob, and decides sushi as a good option for lunch. The resident with the sushi icon floating above them looks friendly and approachable, so Jacob decides to ask: “I see you’re a fan of sushi trains!”
“the only way to eat!” the resident cheerfully replies.
“So, I guess you’re the one to ask about where to get the best sushi around here.”
“If I know one thing about this city, its where to find the best raw fish!”
The lift opens on the ground floor. Jacob and the resident continue their conversation out the building.

User Scenario 2

Jacob enters his apartment building and enters the lift with another resident. Once inside, the lift begins playing softly through its speakers the new song by Coldplay. Jacob cant resist humming along to the tune, as he has been a long-time fan of Coldplay and loves their new material.
“Are you a fan of Coldplay?” Asks the other resident. Jacob turns around.
“I love all their work!” Exclaims Jacob.
“Me too, well, I’ve never heard their earlier stuff, but I like this new song of theirs” she says. The lift opens at Jacobs floor.
“Ahhh, well this is my floor, but next time I see you, I’ll burn you a CD of their music!” Says Jacob as he exits the lift.
“I look forward to that” the girl says, smiling shyly as the lift closes. Jacob’s head is spinning with possibility. A new mixtape to make for a beautiful girl!

User Scenario 3

Rose enters her apartment building in the evening after a day of work. She enters the lift alone. Once inside, the visual screen on the lift doors appears and offers her some suggestions for the night:

All Dogs Go To Heaven is airing on channel seven in an hour.
Wall Street 2 is available to rent downstairs at the lobby.
Reminder that there is a meeting she must attend tomorrow at 9am.

Rose quickly scans all the suggestions before averting her eyes to the mirror, and tells herself she must try cutting her hair short again soon. She exits the lift and enters her apartment and relaxes for a while on the sofa, before remembering that one of her favourite childhood movies is about to air on channel seven. She turns the tv on.

Concept Sketching

2011-10-02T07:39:00.000+11:00

Sketching different designs on what we imagine the interface in the lift would look like?

Danielle's icon cloud / halo idea

Hanley's speech bubble that connects to structure on the groud

Hanley's two ideas of visualizing on the ceiling and expanding shadows

Gary's idea on gaming scoreboards and the use of text

Mark's idea on labels and limiting icons


Laura's customizable visualization inspired by the Mac screen savers

Discovery:
Mark's idea that limits the 'interests' down is interesting. Users in the lift 'space' would probably only have 20 seconds to a minute to interact. We want to show only the common interest so that it gives the users quick guide on what to talk about. In cases where users don't share common interests then maybe nothing comes up or just random data comes up. As it gives users that do have common interests feel special and enhances the experience of 'serendipity'.

Other notes we are thinking of the amount of text that would be incorporated as examples such as events would still require some text. Other examples such as movie titles can be replaced with movie covers.

We were also discussing about 'choices' of 'interests' displayed. We think that displaying one icon maybe too little and sometimes wouldn't be something you want to talk about. We think broaden our choices may give users more flexibility. We were pondering between displaying 1-4 icons and we've decided to initiate our design to display 3 icons/interests at a time.


Master minds at work

User Research Discovery

2011-10-02T07:02:00.000+11:00

After the third round user testing we found out that some people are intrigued to interact with people in the lift while others are very reluctant.
People are more willing to interact and communicate based on mutual interests. Especially when there are interesting information that potentially can be exchanged. User #2 will interact upon valuable information.
Some outliers that is reluctant to interact will be taken into consideration in our design. User#1 is reluctant to interact even if she is encouraged by some of our concept designs that implements common interests with other passengers. However, she is happy to observe.
This shows that we need to take into account that some people may not meet 'serendipity' through our design.
Other situations that we are considering include

people who are willing to interact through our lift experience but did not have the need to take the lift.

To conclude,
User#1 was not sagacious
User#2 was not curious
User#3 was sagacious + curious = serendipity!

(ROUND 3) More User Research

2011-10-02T06:14:00.000+11:00

Once we have our concepts down, it's time for more user research!
This time this research is aimed to discover how users would react to our 'curated' lift and their reactions with other users / passengers.
Some key points to observe

Willingness to interact with other passengers
If not willing to interact what would be the reason and would our design be the key to trigger that interaction?
Are they interested in the information displayed or the common interested implemented. For example, plays common music the users like?

User #1
User usually feels socially awkward in lifts and is reluctant to talk to other people. It is hard for her to approach other passengers even if the lift plays common music showing that the passengers share common interests. However, does not mind being approached.
She is still reluctant to interact with other people in the lift even if icons displays that shows common interests of other passengers are displayed to her.
* She does not find it neccassary to talk to people. i.e. not interested in others
*She often feels socially awkward and shy
The only reason to get her to interact with others is when forced upon. For example, when she needs to ask for directions or forced to social in a new environment.
*"I would rather observe then talk to the people"

User#2
User does not interact with people in the lift because he find its unnecessary. Compared to being socially awkward, the reason why he doesn't interact with people would be that he is not interested in others. However, if icons and displays are displayed to him showing that different passengers share common interests, he would strike up a conversation IF there is something that he wants to know. He is more interested in what information he gains from this interaction.
Ways to get him interacting with others also include being lost and need directions or asking for the time.

User#3
User occasionally talks to people in the lift. Curious about other people's days and lives. Would be more encouraged to talk to people if common interested were somehow displayed to him. He is very interested in music therefore the audio implementation would intrigue him to talk to other passengers. He thinks that it is a great chance for him to talk to people and would appreciate this medium.

Storyboards and User Profiles

2011-10-02T06:08:00.003+11:00

The following drivers licenses are small snap shots of the types of users that are expected to use our prototype.

Ongoing Timeline.

2011-10-02T06:04:00.000+11:00

Ooh. Had forgotten to upload a photo of this ongoing timeline.

Feature set for lift

2011-10-02T04:22:00.000+11:00

As we come towards our final design for our lift experience, we were looking into potential feature sets
for our lift. Some that we derived from our brainstorm are:

Personality: Modern lift man?

Displays connections from social networks: 'likes', 'events', 'media views' (Youtube, TV, Music)

Audio representation: Play music based upon common interests

Visual Representation:
-icons/ badges : triggers curiosity via sagacity / mediums of curation
-door/ ceiling / walls
-screen/ projection

Even though these were refined features that we aim to implement it was still hard to imagine these integrated in a lift experience. Therefore, in order to come up with the general situation of taking the lift we've decided to set the targeted background to residents halls or apartments where the average users in a lift would be 1-4. We then initiated our design based around the final ideal average of 3 people, we then expanded from there.

Feature sets mapping

Acting it out

2011-10-02T03:30:00.000+11:00

Acting out the Lift Sequence. Building scenarios as part of our thought process for our 'Sentient Lift'.

Mark pretending to be the augmented lift (he's a great method actor)

While Garry enters into the lift

Expects to interact with the lift

More acting in a real lift!

Conceptualizing (and Penguin)

2011-10-02T01:40:00.000+10:00

After reviewing our recent and past findings. We began narrowing our concept further, with nice colourful chalk.

The location we did this in was discovered serendipitously and we had fun getting scared, and letting our imaginations run wild (well, half the time, we were running from brain-hungry zombies).

Chalks flying everywhere!

with Approval Filter.

Our Puppy. Meet 'Penguin' :)

Summary of our conceptualizing (in takeaway format).

(ROUND 2) Results Discussion

2011-10-02T01:00:00.000+10:00

After the second round of user testing, we were getting pretty hungry.

So, we found a cozy spot, and played back the user interviews, our audio notes, and summarised and discussed our results over dinner.

User Testing (and exploration) - ROUND TWO!

2011-10-02T00:05:00.000+10:00

Ok. So we've got our new concept. Time to make some more observations and go hunt for more user tests!

Went to the iHouse.
Observations in and around.
Danielle handled most interviews (with recordings for later reference).
Mark took written notes whilst this happened.
Laura on Photos.
General Brainstorming in the background.
Very open, rest of the group chucked in questions when/where appropriate.

Photographic evidence of our testing. (We had to hide / omit certain faces / people due to personal preferences.)

Lift!

Exploring. Hmm, people on higher levels tend to use lifts more.

Interviewing, ...

in Context!

boards

Back to a nice and cozy place of inquiry.

More Users!

(Thanks to 'J', we have the term 'Lifty Time!')

Explaining Stuff.

Communal Notices.

Ah, what a cycle. One of Garry's first points for potential concepts was how Romeo and Juliet fell in love.

Changes to Concept, Iteration.

2011-10-01T23:00:00.000+10:00

Based of the previous user testing, concept is now NARROWED down *yay!* :D

We narrowed down our general ideas a lot, which was really great. Even better, we narrowed down potential locations.

Out of all the areas we'd observed, we've finally landed on 'Lifts' as a great location for a focus point. (In an approximate, modern 'future' apartment'.)

Spasms of ideas

2011-10-01T22:30:00.000+10:00

1. The waving door

When you walk through a automatic door, some people would give the door a wave to trigger the door to open. What if if this action triggers the door to wave back to you?

2. The guiding lights

Upon discussing that sometimes people don't want to be approached (In a train with earphones on) and some people who might want to be approached (In a park/open space). However, people may feel insecure in dangerous places such as dark alleyways.We can have an implementation that can approach the users so that the users feel comfortable and safe. For example, Hopscotch by Fiona Venn & Reinhard Germer. (Fig 1.)

3. Interaction on trains

There are times that you can't hear properly on the train and missed out knowing which stop you are approaching. A device or implementation that rewards you by reminding the person next to you which stop is approaching. This gives rise to more friendly interaction on trains.

4. Ticketing

Dipping your bus ticket into the machine and getting an interesting messages on your bus card.
Existing examples: Fortune cookie, name on Coke, funfacts on beer lids and tampons and mints.

5. The Interactive Lift

Within this space where users can interact and bond connections. Our goal may be to encourage the users to spark a conversation or just showing common interests such as playing music that the users both like. This can be a great platform where a lot of interaction comes in and gives rise to serendipity!

(Fig 1.) Hopscotch by Fiona Venn & Reinhard Germer.

Initial User Inquiry

2011-10-01T22:00:00.000+10:00

Started user testing with two people. Looking at specific case scenarios, so that our concept may be iterated further.

In Preparation. Testing Testing...

Garry doing the Hakka

User Setup
(1 hidden User - Left)

Interesting. "Ok, I'm getting this."

Thank You.

*thumbs up*

Formula Process

2011-10-01T21:30:00.000+10:00

After much research, observation, and deliberation. We came across a great formula that summarized our definition of serendipity.

This definition arose from our reflection of our serendipitous journey to the White Rabbit Gallery. Reflecting on mutual artworks, and how different people come to appreciate them, our definition of serendipity was refined. Such serendipitous events arise by works or events that attract entities through curiosity, and retain their foci through sagacity.

Essentially;

Our Serendipity File: a collection of ideas while thinking about something else.

2011-10-01T21:00:00.000+10:00

Space within spaces:

The idea of peopletransitioning between places without stopping or acknowledging where they are,or the people that are around them. Movement between these spaces are fast paced,with eyes focusing straight ahead, somewhat lonely in a place full of people. Whatcould be introduced to such a space to transform the mundane trip to the station,or through a pedestrian tunnel into a journey which is inspiring and somewhatserendipitous.

Social observation:

Many people whilewaiting for the bus, for their coffee to be made or waiting for a friend, a lotof people sit far away from each other. If there was an inspiring way toencourage people to sit together to and start a conversation, it opens newopportunities that did not exist before (e.g. create a new business network, a new friend, even romantic ties)

Virtual space withthe public space:

One idea we have been exploring is the meshing the real world with the virtual world. When considering public spaces, we explored our experiences and observations with public transport, and considered current social aspects and dullness of waiting and traveling.

On modern day buses, passengers are recorded via several cameras placed strategically in thedrivers blind spot and problem areas. The idea is to reduce the awkwardness ofseeing yourself in the monitor and to induce a conversation within this smallenclosed space. As the passenger sees themselves in the monitor, the livefootage is meshed with filmed footage of a person doing something funny behindthem (e.g. pulling funny faces) causing the real passenger to turn around. Theidea is spontaneous fun, and encourages passengers to be aware of the people around them.

Game theory:

One of the ideas that we were looking at were designs that implement gaming experiences. The little problems that we came across in everyday could be explored and solved by creating gaming environment with rules, points and gaming sounds and lights. By changing everyday chores such as putting rubbish in the bin, or preventing risky behavior such as preventing people from speeding, into something fun and communal, it changes the way we think about the task and encourages people to take part. Another good point is that provides a great way to monitor the situation and if successful, help keep the issue under control at a local level. A lot of current examples surround recycling and throwing rubbish in the bins.

Examples from TheFunTheory.com

The world's deepest bin

Serendipitous Journey

2011-10-01T19:35:00.001+10:00

So, we decided to go on a serendipitous journey (also, to satisfy our hungry tummies).

A map of our journey :)

Garry's Evolving!

Two pairs hanging out

Like a scene from a movie

What exactly is this?

It's interesting enough to be photographed numerous times

Watch. Stop. Ubiquitous signage.

Family portrait

Surprises down alley ways

Reflective and reflexive.

Honed observation skills

The meaning of life is 24, not 42.

Definitely a serendipitous experience.

Fleeting items of the past recycled for the present.

Alley art

Alley art part deux

Bye bye art gallery.

Continued journey

Serendipitous cycling

Awesome.

Full.

The silent elevator.

The Lonely Fountain

Ooh, what's this.

Information visualisation

Return.

Encounter Photo

2011-10-01T18:59:00.001+10:00

This is a photo taken by our team while observing our urban city through the technique of dérive. When we stumbled upon this building with the words ‘ART GALLERY’ sprawled across its white exterior, we assumed that we had stumbled upon The White Rabbit art gallery, a place we had heard many good things about and figured it would be a great place to further our observations. Looking around for an entrance we were dismayed to find the building boarded up, but instead of following our course before we noticed the ART GALLERY type, we took a turn down the alley where we indeed found ourselves stumbling upon the real White Rabbit gallery!

And upon entering the gallery, within minutes we stumbled upon the ‘pleasant surprise’ of our first major concept for an ‘isolated experience’ which could do with a bit of serendipity pizazz: The Elevator Ride.

3:30pm Sketch

2011-10-01T15:28:00.000+10:00

Woot. (Rush Job xP)

5 Sentients
All for one and one for all!

Brainstorming: Isolated Activites.

2011-10-01T15:25:00.001+10:00

Brainstormed starting points to explore: "identifying an activity that is currently a mostly isolated experience."

Beep Beep. Initial 'quantity' brainstorming ends.

Sticking up the ideas.

Hmmm. Discussion time.

Concept terms.

5 W's and an H.

The Writer's Block - Serendipity in art and the written word

2011-10-01T15:19:00.003+10:00

After initially reading and deciphering the brief, each team member took an aspect of the brief that interested them, and explored it further in online journals, articles, artist bio websites and book abstracts. This enabled us to explore the idea of serendipity within an academic context and how it is already applied in the natural virtual world.

Each team member then summarized their findings and prepared a mini presentation for the rest of the team, creating perfect start for some idea generation.

Brief History of Serendipity

Serendipity – was coined by Horace Walpolein 1754. There was a legend about three princes of Serendip (old name forCeylon) who used to travel throughout the world and whatever was their aim orwhatever they looked for, they always found something very much better. Walpoleused the term serendipity to describe the faculty of making happy chancediscoveries.

Theorists and Theorems

There are no cohesive theories aboutserendipity, as it is associated with a wide range of meanings.

For example, Case defines serendipity as 'the action of, or aptitude for, encountering relevant informationby accident' (Case 2007: 337). Cunha refers to it as 'the accidental discovery of something that, post hoc, turns out tobe valuable' (Cunha 2005: 320)and Cooksey suggests that serendipity is 'the happyconvergence of the mind with conditions' (Cooksey 2004:25).

Austin discussesfour types of opportunistic discovery of information, which are:

· blind luck (chance that comes with noeffort),

· happyaccidents (chance which is due to exposure to seemingly unconnected facts andexperiences),

· preparedmind (chance is perceived due toexposure to many facts related to the problem at hand) and

· individual (chance favours a particular individual as aresult of the person's distinctive knowledge or interest).

Historic Representations of Serendipity

Cybernetic Serendipity (presentedat the ICA in London in 1968) was the first exhibition to attempt todemonstrate all aspects of computer-aided creative activity: art, music,poetry, dance, sculpture, animation. The principal idea was to examine the roleof cybernetics in contemporary arts. The exhibition included robots, poetry,music and painting machines, as well as all sorts of works where chance was animportant ingredient.

Figure One: Cybernetic Serendipity Exhibition Poster, 1968.

Work cited:

Case, D. (2007). Looking for information (2nd ed.) London: Academic Press.

Cunha, M. (2005). Serendipity: why some organisations are luckier than others. Lisbon: Universidade Nova de Lisboa. (FEUNL working paper series)

Cooksey, E.B. (2004). Too important to be left to chance – serendipity and the digital library. Science and Technology Libraries, 25(1), 23-32.

Austin, J.H. (2003). Chase, chance and creativity: the lucky art of novelty. (2nd Ed.) Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press

Initial Research and Presentation

2011-10-01T14:04:00.001+10:00

We just did some initial research, starting off from the recommended links and finding others from there.

Hard at work researching different parts of the brief.

After an hour, each person presented their research and we discussed it as a group.

Doing Presentations.

Focusing Hard.

Striking audacious poses.

Taking Notes.

Being generally awesome.

Hello World!

2011-09-30T20:49:00.000+10:00

This is the design blog of 'That Sentient Feeling' (Sydney University), for the OZCHI 2011 Student Design Challenge.

(Poster attached for historic purposes).

We are five explorers, fueled with the passion of web and interaction design, with the singular goal of creating and producing innovative work. We believe that design is about letting your creativity run wild and experiment with the new and outrageous in order to find the right balance between form, function and aesthetics.

We are inspired by the way that design affects our everyday life, learning and understanding that good design is about creating something which is intuitive to interactive with, easy to learn and a pleasure to use. We love that design is an ever-changing and evolving process which we are continually excited and amazed to be a part of.

We are students of the Design Computing program at The University of Sydney who have dabbled with a range of projects featuring sound, web and animation. Our group, 'That Sentient Feeling', is a tribute to our very own "sentient studio" that we have utilised while working on projects throughout our time at university, and also represents the connection we wish to make with our audience, creating projects that enable our users to think, feel and experience.

The Five Sentients:

Danielle Yu - 'The Golden Eye'
Laura Minchella- 'The Dreamer'
Mark C. Mitchell- 'The Conqueror'
Garry Taulu- 'The Thinker'
Hanley Weng- 'The Chosen One'