Thesis done!

After a hard-working thesis period, finally everything is done. At the end, I presented 3 full working prototypes, a dissertation(pdf) and a final presentation with video user cases (flash). In this post you will find a small summary of each component.

Brief:

Motorola is interested in understanding how to facilitate human relationships, better connect people, communities, knowledge and their physical environment within a mobile realm through the support of mobile devices. Both the concepts of social networking and mobility are strongly representing the contemporary life of the so called Y generation (20 to 35 years old) and are living demonstrations of the potentiality of digital and electronic media in supporting/shaping our social environment. Motorola is interested in exploring the mutual relations between these two concepts and to explore how social networking and mobility will impact location-based communities in a medium term perspective (3 to 6 years).

Research

Wanderlust is supported by four main areas of research that are: Knowledge management and collaborative learning, location-based mobile experience, identities & personality and social networking:mobility communities and spaces.

Concept Generation

Wanderlust is a mobile service tailored for creative people that use their identities and needs (in terms of time and distance) to allow them to immerse in new or unexplored spaces as well to meet people with similar interests. Wanderlust enhances community behaviours by providing suggestions from people and places that can be relevant to you (ad-hoc social networking) using a knowledge management model.

More about the design process, Concept Generation (touch points, entry points, system flow, and matching), and the User Interface

more posts on UI here.

Prototypes

For the final exhibition 3 full working prototypes were shown.

Prototype 1

This prototype is designed as a distributed system following the three tier architecture, adopting the following technologies for each of the tiers:
1. data (Database) uses MySQL Community Server
2. application logic (executes most of the tasks related to the business application) Implemented in Java using JDBC to access the database and Web services to expose the functionality of the system
3. presentation tier (presents the information to the end users possible in different platforms and devices) A Flash RIA communicates with the server (Apache Tomcat & Axis) via WebServices (communication model between applications based on XML) which implement open standards and protocols (HTTP and SOAP).

With adoption of the Java programming language it is possible to deploy the application under different platforms, while the use of Web services responds to the fact that they facilitate the development of clients for different platforms and devices. The UI metaphor is based on the View-Master look and interaction

Client running on a UMPC

Prototype 2

This prototype demonstrates a user’s different identities represented by physical tokens (reels). Each reel is mapped to an identity; when this reel is introduced to the View-Master it will play a video showing the contents and attributes of this identity.
Components:original View-Master (red), epo wood body, arduino board, RFID reader & antenna

Prototype 3

This prototype uses the View-Master original interaction to cycle through a series of photographs. The mobile phone screen substitutes the original reels shown on the View-Master, the keyboard of the mobile was hacked and connected to a pushbutton.
Components:original View-Master (blue), epo wood body, nokia 2650 mobile phone, and a push-button

Conclusions

My aim was to build a service that would meliorate community behaviors with a set of tools and models following the knowledge management and social learning framework using the existing web services filtered with abbreviated information of the mobile. This service also contemplated the managing and visualization of multiple identities of each member of the community without building another layer of complexity in terms of user interaction and information retrieval. I believe that sharing experiences, point of views, comments, annotations, tips, and information can amend every community. Wanderlust is a vertical application build with these specifications. The context in which is exemplified can be changed into any other realm where community interactions and behaviors are valuable.
Wanderlust can be as an add-on of existing tourist, restaurant, museum, and gallery guides. It can also be in partnership with a series of public and private spaces to promote their activities, promotions, and events.Wanderlust solves one soft and subtle problematic that most of us have like don’t knowing what to do or how and where to spend our time. It also helps not socially gifted people to “break the ice” and engage into a conversation as well as cultural shocker reducer by making faster the integration
of a new member in a community by discovering commonalities within people. Wanderlust is favourable to you.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to:

Mika for the inspiration and cheerfulness, to Yasmina for the constant and useful critique, to Alex for brining the good times and the spirit, to Hayat for the listening, and encouraging, to Morgan and Melissa for the feedback and cooking, to Victor for the amazing support and guidance, to Pablo for the front end developing help and late night guidance, to Vinay and Patrizio for their prototyping abilities

For the concept guidance and ideas to Claudio, Federico, Fabio Sergio, Jan-Christoph, Alie Rose, Heather Martin, Simona Maschi , Vinay Venkatraman, Joseph Forakis, and Imran Ali.

For letting me use their beautiful illustrations: Kasumi Yasuda, Wabisabi, Matteo Sedile, Silja Göetz, Pascal Campion, Edtsuwaki, Ailadi Cortelletti, and Sigmund