Vandersault | Design Portfolio of Joachim Falck-Hansen

LOCATION BASED SOCIAL NETWORKS

With the advance of technology, numerous amount of people will be connected through GPS. One of the consequences of information shared in space, is the virtual line of history it displays. Along such a large shift in information availability, there is a vast need to choose to whom this information should be shared with.

In this project I explore shifts in how we could share social network history, and how, for open and closed networks we could navigate this information in a fluid and appealing manner.

I worked with Ya-Ting Maggie Kuo and Lena Edman during the initial phase of the project, collecting research, ethnographic studies, and mindmapping.

The Project was shared with Ericsson, whom initiated this project to the Master Students for their final first year brief.

ANIMATION SCREENS

These are examples of the stages the scenario brings to light, among them the filtering process, first who, then where, and at last when, whereas the results show a substantial difference within the form of search parameters added.

Naturally the search for everyone will always collect a rich amount of date, whereas the more speculative but supposedly most usfeul would be in navigating through the updates, and sharing puzzles done by people within a network you are connected to at a personal level.

ANIMATION PROTOTYPE

Creating a rough animation as a rapid visual prototype. This gave a sense for the behaviour and the resolutions that were required.

CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT

Drawing from insight to design direction.

The most fruitful research finding was what significance friend´s opinions have upon matters. Recommendations and decriptions from those closest to us have a very large meaning in shaping our decisions and coloring our experiences.

Secondly I have observed the interest in learning about the history of a place for newcomers. It is mostly in situations where individuals are waiting for somebody or some event, that people have an interest in being connected with others (and their experiences). My concept has developed around exploration of how experiences are stored within particular spaces.

MAPPING EXPERIENCES

Mapping experiences and relationships within Umeå and it´s outskirts.

The places where people live their everyday lives are also where they socialize most. There was a grand desire to visit natural places oustide the city core. Otherwise the compact size of the city shows a loyalty to socializing within clusters of spaces :home, school, downtown. A lot of the users shared common spots of interest within the natural environment as well.

PROTOTYPING

Lo-fi prototypes.

Paper prototype 1: Waynes Coffee 2 weeks ago. Half crowd: acquaintances/friends

Paper prototype 2: School/ Work 3 months ago. Many known,very variable how close to “updaters”.

Paper prototype 3: School/ Work 2 years ago. Many known,very variable how close to “updaters”.

Surprising likings of people they do not know (f.ex: if someone speaks spanish, it was interesting in that place), relating to having done something different. There was a lot of ineterest in viewing media shared by friends, but also by unknowns if they had some relation to who they knew.

GRAPHIC ITERATIONS

Early brainstorming session with my colleagues. We merged mappings of the space done over several days with different angles, and tried to create a unified understanding of the behavior here.

Some categorizations were based on the intentions of the visiitors. We were able to induce that there were four main interests at stake in the entrance hall. 1: going to an appointment. 2: waiting for someone. 3 Waiting to leave the hospital. 4. Patient in the hospital just spending time.

USER STUDIES

SHADOWING A BUSINESS STUDENT

My general observation was that the user, makes useof his iphone with equal commitment as his notebook.

He would not let go of iphone and uses it for everything, memory, music, camera documentation, djíng, checking weather, updating his status to facebook and twitter.

Particularily interesting was how the business student used the phone for remembering data on a bibliographical search. His experience could have been shared in this place for later use, if someone had a similar scenario.

He expressed an interest in knowing who was interested in having lunch at a particular time. A colleague of his would´ve shared this, but unwilling due to the update being shared for everybody and not only those interested in it.