Heritage Week Event/Concept > SatNav Technologies

I have chosen to research into Sattelite Navigation systems to support the theories discussed within the "Guernsey Heritage Week" event. Satellite navigation systems such as GPS are an integral part of many leading in car navigation systems, which would be integral to promoting the event. It appears that GPS technology is compatible with both in car systems and small devices such as mobile phones which is crucial to the success of the scheme, thus allowing the GPS system to navigate users to a given area, and then allowing their mobile device to direct them to the exact location of the subject of interest.

It seems at current that the only fully functional Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) is GPS that is controlled by the United States, so in effect any other nation making use of this technology in systems such as in car and small device navigation is a client states of the united states, who have the right to cancel or restrict the usage of services that depend on GPS, not an issue for the proposed campaign (see ideas) but an interesting consideration politically when you consider the future of such technologies. Not surprisingly it seems that other countries or groups of countries, such as the European Union are launching their own GNSS.

"countries without their own satellite navigation systems effectively become client states of those which supply these services." Wikipedia

Above: The Mio A701 GPS PDA Phone makes use of GPS technology to provide a mobile navigation system for use on foot or in the car, making that phase of the event possible, it also has Bluetooth connectivity which would enable it to communicate with other devices, such as in car navigation systems mentioned in the concept, this means that it would be viable for the in car nav system to get you as close to the area of interest as possible and then communicate with the mobile phone to lead you to the exact spot. So in conclusion the technologies involved could communicate with one another to accommodate the concept.

Event(s) Emphasis/Ideaology

The emphasis of both events is to create publicity for these events by providing the consumer with a useful and interesting service, rather than bombarding them with advertising that they are far more likely to be sceptical of. People want something interesting and beneficial to them, advertising is not enough to create a successful event, it helps but it is not as valuable as creating a user experience that will keep the consumer interested. I am also interested in creating concepts that could be taken beyond the event and then be continued in use, rather than serving a purpose and diminishing in relevance once the event is over.

Ideas > Heritage Week

This event would be based around Guernsey Heritage event, this event model could easily be applied to any area in the country. Its aims would be to use mobile technologies to promote spots of heritage in Guernsey, for example the spot of German Underground museums or bunkers.

Concept: Channel Islands like Guernsey and Jersey are littered with historical spots of interest from varying periods of history, finding them however is not always easy, and interesting places are often missed or overlooked. The idea behind the event would be to promote these places and their locations to people via sat nav and mobile devices. By providing people with a service such as this as opposed to targeting them with advertising i feel people are far more likely to get involved and enjoy it. Step one would involve targeting users in their cars with devices such as Tom Tom SatNav. As users drive around the island and become near an area of historical interest the SatNav device would inform the users of this and ask them if they are interested in visiting the area, if the user accepts the invitation the SatNav device will direct them to the area of historical heritage, as the driver is on the way to this area the SatNav device would detail relevant facts about the areas history and importance to the area via audio so the users visit is put into context, better that they know what they are looking at when they get there. Not all historical spots of interest in densely populated areas such as the channel islands are directly accessible by car, so step two would involve navigating the users to the nearest convenient parking area, then the idea would be for the SatNav device to communicate with the users portable devices such as PDA's and mobiles via bluetooth or infrared, giving users the final directions to the area on foot via their mobile devices screens. These devices could then be used to provide further audio commentary to users when they arrive at the area via speakerphone. As well as this scheme there are many other ways in which mobile distributive devices could be used to promote the event.

Primary Technologies Utilised: In car communications (SatNav), PDA's, Bluetooth, Infra red, Mobiles.

Benefits for Company's/Event: Both the company's involved in implementing the technologies required and the event are set to benefit in some way. The event benefits by providing the consumer with an interesting service and will gain publicity when the information is disseminated to the consumers in their cars via SatNav Devices or mobile technologies. This could remove the hassle of finding these areas and provide the users with interesting information about the area, thus enhancing their overall experience. The company's producing the technologies involved would benefit from demonstrating to the public the possibilities of what such devices could be used for and are capable of, as opposed to just path finding/route planning and communications.

Technology Utilised by Target Audience: Assuming this campaign is targeting users of SatNav route planning devices, the likely hood that a mobile phone is not available to them to complete stage two of the concept is low. I feel that if users are utilising such new technologies in their car day to day then it would be contradictory to their buying trends if they did not possess a mobile phone.

Considerations/Notes This concept is based on the ideology that in the near future GPS technologies will become more widely integrated into mobile devices and cars. At current such devices exist but are not widespread enough to target a large consumer base. I predict however that with the rise in use of multi-purpose devices and navigation systems making use of GPS (required to run the event) that this concept would be viable in the near future.

Ideas > Health Awarness Week

The idea would be to promote a mock up event such as health awareness week by targeting supermarket users with dietary information that has specific relevance to them and their current buying trends.

Concept One: Consumers in today's shopping market often use online shopping as a way of making their shopping easier, all they have to do is go online order their food and wait for it to arrive at their door. This means that organisations such as Tesco's this have an insight into the buying trends of the consumers; once these consumers have selected the items they want and sent it of to Tescos or other supermarkets that provide an online service, the information could be collated and summarised in terms of how much of their dietary needs consumers have satisfied by what they have ordered. Is their a high presense of cholesterol in the foods they have selected or maybe their is a lack of protein? The results of this could be sent back to the user via mobile devices such as PDA's and mobile phones, or back to their computers via e-mail. Thus informing the users of what is lacking in their diet and re-enforcing the message of health awareness week through providing case specific statistics that are useful to consumers rather than bombarding them with boring health leaflets.

Primary Technologies Utilised: Web, E-Mails, Mobile Phones, PDA's, SMS Messaging.

Benefits for Company's/Event: The interesting thing behind this concept is that both party's are set to benefit and it could be a mutually beneficial project. Firstly organisations such as Tescos or other supermarket chains will benefit from the co-branding of their online service and the themes and connotations of an event such as health awareness week. They will appear to have the customers health and best interests at mind. The event of health awareness week would benefit from the publicity it would gain from such large organisations, and would have a far longer reaching message and benefit to consumers if the service was to continue post event.

Technology Utilised by Target Audience: The fact that these users are using the web to order their shopping suggests that they are open minded to the use of technology, and therefor are more likely than not to possess the technology required to target them with the campaign, such as mobiles or PDA's.

Concept Two: This concept would target users in the shop as opposed to those buying food online. Firstly the consumer would conduct their shopping as usual, Tesco's have recently incorporated "self pay" terminals, this would be incorporated into the second step, users scan their food at the self pay terminal and a dietary summary of the foods selected is provided prior to the user finalising purchase. The next step would consist of recommendations of food purchases to help balance out the consumers overall diet. Users are then given the option to receive directions to these foods in the supermarket via their mobile devices. The message of Health Awareness week could be conveyed through the terminals themselves of via consumers mobile devices. Offshoot promotion could consist of advertising the function to users via the web or other media platforms.

Primary Technologies Utilised: Web, Mobile Phones, PDA's, SMS Messaging, Sat Nav.

Benefits for Company's/Event: Again both the campaign and the businesses involved are set to benefit, which is crucial to the marketability and commercial viability of the scheme, and to its success. The campaign could benefit from advertising through the serve yourself terminals, as well as co-branded sms messages to the consumers. Tesco's would stand to gain from the coporate image gained by co-branding with such a campaign, and if the scheme was to be succesful then consumers may continue to benefit from the dietry advice offered.

Technology Utilised by Target Audience: The fact that these users are using a self pay terminal to purchase products suggests that they are open minded to the use of technology, and therefor are more likely than not to possess the technology required to target them with the campaign, such as mobiles or PDA's.

Background Research > Mobile Browsing Becoming Mainstream

“A global increase in cell phone ownership and a rise in the use of wireless services by people over 35 may lead cell phones to dominate Web browsing, a new study says.”

I personally find it unlikely that a medium dominated by designers who have traditionally been produced to work for the screen or print will adapt so quickly to producing work for wireless phone browsing, this sort of transformation will happen at the rate of the designers as opposed to its demand from consumers. Although the corporate force of commercialism dictates that the medium will inevitably become more prevalent. However I feel this will not be because it is on the whole that useful or desirable to the consumer, more that it will line the pockets of the corporate monkeys that drive it forward. I feel progress should be for the right reasons. What is our society becoming?

“90 percent of households in Japan, South Korea and urban China own cell phones, as do 80 percent of households in Western Europe, 60 percent in Canada and three out of four households in the U.S.”

From this statistic I would grant the fact that there is huge potential for the medium to develop onto the mobile phone, this statistic also makes it very commercially viable, but so far this seems to be the driving force behind its development rather than its practicality.

”27 percent of adults aged 35 to 54 who are living in households with cell phones claim to have browsed the Internet on their phone. Only 21 percent of them did in 2004, according to Wright. Twelve percent of those 55 and older also engage in mobile browsing. “

I would expect from that statistic that this form of commerce is attempting to target the older age bracket as they have more spending power. This is a low percentage and a very vague estimate, how many of those people do this regularly? This also begs the question that how many of those people would actually purchase something using a mobile phone, and does the restrictions of the viewable area lead to infringing customers rights on product misinterpretation. I feel a law suit coming on! It is well known that older customers are more sceptical about online buying, let alone divulging into this on their mobile phones.

Background Research > Mobile Commercialism

“In its original meaning, is the practices, methods, aims, and spirit of commerce or business. Today, however, it is mainly used as a critical term, referring to the tendency within capitalism to try to turn everything in life into objects and services that are sold for the purpose of generating profit; commercialization, where the value of everything, including such intangible things as happiness, health and beauty become measured in purely commercial, materialistic terms, and where public services are being privatised or outsourced to private companies.”

“The related term "commercialized" is often used in an accusing way, implying that someone, often an artist, has compromised the quality of his work for monetary gain by selling out. It can, for example, be applied to a painter who uses his/her talent to do flattering, expensive portraits to order, an independent music band that signs a contract with a major record label and then changes its music and/or appearance to become more appealing, or a novelist who switches from writing difficult "highbrow" novels to populistic thrillers.”

The topic of commercialisation is particular relevant to that of web based mobile phone services. The article mentions how commercialisation is that act of turning everyday objects into ways of making money, the phone is rapidly becoming one of the most commercially viable tools for corporate businesses. They can target mass numbers of customers anywhere around the globe from anywhere.

Not only do phones offer various ways of leeching your money through useless downloads and ring tones, they are now becoming a platform for viewing the web, opening the customer up to endless advertising and exposure to commercialism.

We are living in a society of endless information and bombardment to visual imagery to tempt us into purchasing products. But essentially what does this mean for our social and cultural structure and how much does the mobile phone contribute to this? I would argue that the mobile phone is fast forgetting its original purpose which essentially is communication. It is turning into a ball and chain of information and advertising that distracts us from our everyday lives, or essentaily is set to become part of it.

The article also mentions that commercialism can be compared to an artist lowering their standard of work for financial gain. I would argue that the same could apply to a designer producing websites for mobile phone screens that are far less useable and have little in the way of graphical finesse compared to that of their 4:3 monitor aspect ratio relatives.

Background Research > Web Shifts (Web 1.0 vs. 2.0)

The ways in which we digest content are changing as we speak, mediums such as TV and Radio have been traditionally very structured. The publisher dictates to the consumer what they will consume and most crucially how and when they will consume it. The Web had traditionally been founded on similar values, the webmaster would publish content and it was for users to view. But traditional trends in the Internet are changing, no longer is the user interested in digesting a dictated experience and static content. The user can now contribute to this content and ultimately define their own user experience. Web sites like my space are interesting examples of this shift, users interact with one another and explore various content that has not been provided by one author but provided by a community of people contributing their own content.

Here are a few ways in which the web is shifting from its original roots dubbed web 1.0, to what the web was always hyped up to be web 2.0, an online archive of user defined experiences.

Interpret = Engage

Channels = Platforms Rather than having TV channel with linear broadcasting we have platforms for media to exist on.

Push = Pull Rather than media been dictated and pushed to us we look for it and pull it in.

User = Participant No longer are we just a user, we contribute to the experience using our own content.

Solipsism = Social Networks Groups of people exist online, networking, recommending and defining their own experiences.

Authority = Recommendation No longer are we told what is best to buy, other people talk about and review products to aid our decisions.

Taxonomy = Folksonomy Out with over organisation and tagging, and in with linking and sharing of sites and content

Brand Control = Brand Co-Creation No longer do brands exist alone, they work together to have a more prominent market presence, for example Nike and Ipod.

GUI = Persuasion Paths

Dialogue = Relationship

Bacground Research > The Long Tail Effect

"Forget squeezing millions from a few megahits at the top of the charts. The future of entertainment is in the millions of niche markets at the shallow end of the bitstream." - Chris Anderson

This quote from Chris Anderson starts me off on the topic of the Long Tail Effect, an economic model often used to detail the buying trends of online media, such as video and audio. Imagine if you will a huge HMV store in the middle of London, and imagine how many records they sell. You will notice that a vast majority of sales will come from the top 40 records or albums and the further down the charts you delve the more this buying tails off. Until you reach the records that simply aren't purchased more than once or twice a year, and inevitably get removed from the store. In a sense the tail off in sales limits the length of the "tail". However imagine an online record store, shelf space is not required, recommendations are available, and the diversity of tracks available far outreaches that of the average local record store. Niche markets continue to search out old tracks or B-sides that were forgotten by record stores 20 years earlier, the reason being the customer knows they can dig deeper and find what they are looking for, its all out their for them they just have to find it. These trends create the long tail effect, these niche market tracks continue to find an audience even if its just one or two downloads a month, and why? Because an online store can offer far more content to the customer because they're floor space is not limited, they don't push media to customers in the same way as high street stores, the database of tracks is their for users to search, recommend and define for themselves, and ultimatley will pull in the media we want.

Background Research > Be Bold and Simple?

“The problems you face are further complicated by varying lighting conditions. Mobile phones are used everywhere; indoors, outdoors, at night, and in bright sunlight. For mobile Flash content in general and animation in particular, this means you have to be bold, don't focus on small details.”

These design considerations are very interesting, and something I had not considered until reading this article by Adobe. It appears that small detail is easily missed on a mobile phone screen due to varying lighting factors and the movement of the screen while using it. It had also occurred to me while using my phone to play an online game of brick breaker, that focusing on such vibrant colours on a small screen that is moving constantly in and out of focus is very bad for your eyes. Could it be that mobile phone companies or M-Commerce businesses could be accused of damaging the health of their customers? In America anything is possible!

“Users most likely will not even notice subtle smooth colour transitions, unless they just can't tell anymore what they are looking at. Pump up the contrast. Even if that bothers your colour-sensitive eyes, your users will thank you for it.”

If users require high contrast to view websites and imagery effectively then this may conflict with artists and designers who feel that their work is been misinterpreted by the restrictions of the mobile phone screen. It think the user needs to realise that the internet on mobile phones is useful for informational based things like the weather or downloads of music etc, but as a platform for browsing it constrains the mediums that’s may be presented on it to a high degree, this may have implications when browsing sites such as Amazon and eBay with purchasing in mind.

“For animations, focus on close-ups, while avoiding panoramic views and pans (see Figure 3). A lot of detail will be lost on the small screen, and as great as your animation may look on your desktop computer, if it can't be seen on the mobile phone the user will not appreciate it.”



Figure 3: Close-ups immerse you in the content.

It seems from comments like this that simplicity and bold colours are the what designers must use to translate visual content to the audience effectively in varying conditions of mobile phone use.

“Slick motion graphics in Flash often require high frame rates to look smooth. You can see people using 30, 60, or even 100 frames per second (fps) to achieve the appearance of smooth motion with tweens. Try that on a mobile phone, and chances are you will only see something stuttering across the screen, which is anything but a pleasant experience.”

This demonstrates another restriction of mobile phones in displaying a media type that is now prevalent to the web and will be featured on numerous sites that users may navigate using their phones. Mobile phones may also have restricted memory or connection speeds, because at the end of the day they have nothing on the processing power of even the most average PC or Mac. So this means that special consideration should be taken by designers when considering the use of large files such as video or graphical elemnts, are they necesary to convey the content?

“At this point you may wonder, "Is it really worth all the trouble?" The answer is a resounding "Yes." If you're not trying to squeeze a two-minute-long animation onto a phone, you'll probably not even face half the troubles that we went through. For us, it was a challenge we couldn't refuse, and we succeeded. And I hope that what we learned will save you some headaches and trouble as well.”

It seems that this designer relished the challenge of producing for a new media platform, and on the basis of succeeding they feel it was worth the effort, however when you think of what has actually been produced and could look so much better then you have to ask the question, are the restrictions this media platform poses to designers work really worth it? In todays market, the resounding answer has to be yes, imagine from a business perspective the advantages of been able to push media out to users on different platforms, at any time of the day, in any place.

Background Research > Creating Experiences for the Small Screeen

“Before you get started, you have to realize how small the screen you're targeting really is, not just in terms of resolution, but also in terms of physical size. Take a business card, and cut it in half that's about the size you are designing for.”

This shows how the designer must adapt to design with the small screen in mind. If the mobile phone is ever going to be a useful way to display media types, especially visual ones, special consideration must be taken with design. Rather than just displaying normal sites designed for monitor aspect ratios

“In technical terms, the display on a Symbian Series 60 phone is 176 x 208 pixels, which is only slightly bigger than the screen size of other Flash Lite–enabled phones. Of course, if your application is not running in full-screen mode, you have even less room to work with.”

This shows how small an area designers are forced to work with if the are designing media or websites specifically for mobile phones. The complications of small screen sizes do not end their. Screen sizes on mobile phones are not a standard size or aspect ratio, this makes designing for them an impossibility. What may look fine designed for one screen size and ratio may look terrible for another. Is some standardisation needed? I think to some extent yes, however this will restrict the design of phone dramatically. But I feel that this needed so that designers are clear what they are working for.

“Note also that mobile phones use a vertical aspect ratio. Desktop content is often created with a TV-like 4:3 or a cinematic 16:9 aspect ratio. On a small device screen, you don't want to waste a pixel, so you really have to think through the design of your animation to make the most of the limited space.”

This again reiterates the constraints of mobile phone screen sizes and their lack of standard aspect ratio compared to TV’s and Monitors.

“Don't let the resolution of the device fool you; it is actually pretty decent. However, each pixel is smaller than on your desktop monitor, because the dots-per-inch (DPI) ratio is higher. You can easily verify that by holding the phone next to a Flash movie of the same size on your desktop monitor. Depending on your monitor, the phone display will have only some 70% of the screen real estate.”

Background Research > Aspect Ratios

“For many artists, however, aspect ratio is, and in their view, should be, determined not by the constraints of the technology or medium, but by the content or the story. Indeed, as long ago as the early 20th century, film directors such as D.W. Griffith, one of the early giants in film, would sometimes change the picture aspect ratio within the film. In "Intolerance", for example, a single shot where a character falls from a high wall has the sides of the vista greatly cropped to enhance the dramatic height of the fall. Today, Directors of Photography often compose the shot to keep the essential subjects in the sweet spot of the frame, regardless of final view aspect ratio. And, sometimes, frame a shot with foreground objects obscuring frame edges to, in effect, change the screen aspect ratio using in-shot mattes.”

This is a very interesting extract on aspect ratios from Wikipedia. The first lines mention that artists feel that rather than designing for a certain aspect ratios, that aspect ratios should be adaptable to fit the constraints of the work. Mobile phones however will contradict this to a high extent, altering aspect ratios and work to fit the constraints of their varying screen sizes. Surely designers should break free from the concept that design Is purely a monitor based medium, in today’s multimedia world with increasing platforms for browsing, designers must think of the big picture, with more and more users using alternate means to access web content.

Design for Digital Devices (Portsmouth University)

Happy Talk: Welcome to my blog. Its primary purpose is to document the research and development of the Design for Digital Devices Unit at Portsmouth University, run by Richard Adams, and Chris Golya respectively. I shall attempt to disclose everything from background research, to the final resolution, based around the idea of demonstrating how digital devices could be used to promote an event. Small digital devices are changing the way in which we view the web, not just visually, but just terms of accessibility. No longer are we confined to our computer monitors, wherever we go Media is been pulled in by us and pushed out by company's. No longer is the user happy to have content dictated to them by publishers, the new age is one of user defined experiences, we watch, read and surf when we want, not when corporate big guns like the BBC tell us to. This trend is set to change the nature of the content we access and how and when we do it, forever.