With social networks such as Facebook now having over one billion users globally, we truly live in the connected age. But with these social networks having such a massive reach, does it affect our lives for the better? Everything what once was, from advertising a brand to sending a simple message to a loved one, has changed and brought consequences along with it; New found dangers for the digital age.

Facebook: Side Effects my vary

Facebook has received a lot of criticisim over the last few years for making people feel unhappy or jealous of there online ‘friends’. This is due to them being constantly bombarded with the ‘how perfect my friends life it’ style stories, caused by the fact that most users only upload the highlights of their lives in the form of posts, comments and photographs, choosing to portray a very utopian lifestyle. Coined by the media, ‘Facebook Envy’ or ‘Facebook Depression’ is a recognised condition, and can have symptoms including severe depressing, self-loathing, rage, pessimism and even in extreme cases, it has been seen to lead to suicidal tendencies.

A recent paper published by a German university found that one in three people who had been recorded visiting the social network, felt less satisfied when they left. They also noted that people become convulsively competitive, striving to get more likes on their posts, the most friends in their social groups or even a greater amount of birthday wishes than their closest peers. However, out of all types of data posted on the social network, it was found that Holiday Photographs caused the biggest source of resentment and jealousy towards a users friends.

Unplugged

Another recent study carried out by students in an American University found that it wasn’t just social networks that people couldn’t live without, but also other social technologies such as text, instant messaging and photo sharing. The survey studies 200 american students, asking them to go without any access to technology for a period of 24 hours. Results concluded that:

• Students described characteristics of addiction when explaining their dependence on the technology
• Students couldn’t live with out it, as being away from any technology left them feeling secluded and uninvolved
• Students could live without newspapers and TV, but not without connected devices such as phones and tablets

One of the students from the survey responded, “Texting and IM-ing my friends gives me a constant feeling of comfort. When I did not have those two luxuries, I felt quite alone and secluded from my life. Although I go to a school with thousands of students, the fact that I was not able to communicate with anyone via technology was almost unbearable.”

Sharing is Caring?

Through social media, people have the unprecedented opportunity to share anything with everyone. This includes their thoughts, opinions, friends, photographs and even their current location. Information like this can be incredibly useful to be able to share, but not also very dangerous.

By giving people the power to share, we’re making the world more transparent.

The quote there from billionaire social tycoon Mark Zuckerberg may indeed be true, however in terms of personal security, sharing everything may not always be the safest thing to do.

The website ‘ICanStalkU’ was created to show internet users how much extra information a single picture posted to twitter contained. The site explains that people who post pictures on Twitter “are allowing their movements to be recorded and analyzed by anyone: from a government to a nosy neighbour  If a cyberstalker wanted to, he or she could analyze your life after analyzing your photos. A stalker could discover where you live, how you commute, where and with whom you go to lunch, and even ‘why you and your attractive co-worker really like to visit a certain nice restaurant on a regular basis.’”

The other me

The sharing of any photograph could however be considered dangerous. All social networks have encountered problems where their users have fallen victim to identity theft. With a vast quantity of personal information being easily available  whole fake profiles have been created using real users names, contact details and photographs. Many of these profiles have been linked to pornographic sites, with fake user profiles being created to aid complex online scams. The owners of these pages are well hidden, and removing your data can prove to be difficult.

To conclude, the internet has become the ideal place for an individual to achieve freedom of speech. But in todays social society, sharing any kind of data comes at a price. Data is a new world commodity, and protecting your individual identity should be a conscious priority when you are online. The ‘always on’ age has come at a price, and the generation that are growing up not knowing any different will have further problems to solve in their future. For our generation, being able to see what has changed, you can see a worrying trend where needing to be connected can now be considered an addiction. Feeling the desire to be ‘liked’ is now an obsession. We need to find a way to allow this open transfer of information with friends, and balance that with protecting ourselves and staying healthy.

While having taken a negative stance on the social role of technology in our current world, it is vitally important that these issues, along with several others are recognised fully, and explained to others. The social nature of todays technology is a vastly important tool to shaping our future, and something that will help advance tomorrows technology. This is an exciting time to be involved with this field of work, and we should all be engaged and excited with where this will eventually lead. Stay safe.

References

We planned to give the visitor a walkthrough of how the experience works, starting with them having arrived in the gallery and been issued with the glasses. They then start earning experience points as they view the exhibits. This allows the glasses to search and find another visitor with similar interests. When the two visitors start interacting, they exchange experience points. In the video the newly created pair accompany each other around the remainder of the gallery, before leaving arm in arm.

To film this, we took lots of stock footage of the MacManus, filming the empty galleries, and views down the hallways. We then used to course mates to act as the two visitors in the above description.

To make the experience more lifelike (since this is only a prototype), we used Adobe AfterEffects to overlay the augmented reality that the glasses would show to the user.

The final video will be attached soon.

• What is your name and can you tell me what you do here? (it’s a good place to start)
• Can you tell me what you know about Augmented Reality?
• Have you any experience of the game ‘The Sims’?
• As a visitor, would you say the MacManus provides a social experience, and how so?
• Tell me about a time you spoke to a stranger (as a visitor) in the MacManus…
• Would you feel open to talking to other visitors and sharing any stories or opinions?
• How would this technology enhance your visit to the MacManus?
• In your experience, would age pose a problem to the adoption of this technology?

From these questions, we learnt a great deal about how visitors may approach our concept. We were warned that age differences may pose a problem, with elder generations being less willing to adopt the technology until they could see its benefits.

On a whole, the staff were engaged and interested by our concept, and intrigued to learn more. The information we gathered has been insightful and useful, and will be taken onboard for developing the prototypes further.

Through these storyboards, we managed to finesse how certain interactions would play out. For example, we decided that the experience points would be displayed as a plumbbob (ala. the sims) above the visitors head. It will fill with colour which represents (by volume) what the visitor has spent the most time viewing in the museum, and (by colour) what exhibits the visitor has been viewing.

From this stage, we went on to create a very rough paper prototype that we could use to demo the experience. We created a cardboard set of augmented reality glasses, along with a cardboard plumbbob which we could use to suspend about the visitors head.

Having the paper prototypes allowed us to experiment with the size (about 40cm), shape (Hexagonal bipyramid) and position (above the users head) of the plumbbob.

In a session with Graham, he suggested that we take our concept, and attempt to create the same experience imagining the date was 1900. To achieve this we talked about using flasks of coloured sand to represent the colours represented by the plumbbob. This led us to an interesting interaction between visitors who start to interact with each other. To show that users were interacting, we suggested that they exchanged sand with each other. Moving back to the current concept, we created a storyboard that showed how users would exchange experience points for starting conversations with like minded people (as suggested by the glasses). We also considered giving the visitors incentives to do this, such as a free coffee in the cafe for the most active visitors.

Round 1 (Interaction with technology & Storytelling)

• Storytelling hologram
• Touchscreen glass cube for writing stories
• Couple memory exchange
• Story display wall
• Interactive mannequin
• Painting editor
• Memory wall
• Interactive story telling waterfall
• ‘Camera Obscura’ style interactive table
• Hand projections

From this first selection we decided to home in on the ‘couple memory exchange’. We created an interaction where visitors could each record a memory, and in return, would be shown somebody else’s memory in return. Stories from locals and stories from tourists could be mixed up, so all visitor get a unique and inspiring story.

Round 2 (Social Awkwardness & Pairing)

• Route sharing maps built into cafe tables
• Open communication points to link to a visitor at a different part of the museum
• Sims2 inspired social game
• Heat maps to show busy spots live on the floor
• Social treasure hunt

From this selection we decided to develop the ‘sims2 inspired social game’. We created an experience where users would wear augmented reality glasses, to see projected status meters about other visitors head which displayed their interests. This would be determined by how long they had views certain exhibits. The glasses could notify you of like minded people nearby and encourage you to start a conversation with them.

At the end of this session, after sharing all the concepts with the rest of the class, we decided which concepts we wanted to pursue further. Leo & I have decided to continue developing the ‘sims2 inspired social game’ and will work on creating storyboards to explain the interaction with the visitors.

• Couples walking in silence
• People sweeping around the rooms, taking little time to pause at exhibits
• No socialising between different visiting groups
• Technology is outdated
• Information on exhibits inaccessible to visitors in wheelchairs

From all of our observations, we created three categories, which can comfortably contain our findings. These categories were:

• Social Awkwardness
• Integrated Technology
• Information Accessibility

These are the three areas I find most interesting, and would like to observe further. In particular I would like to investigate a way to combat the awkward atmosphere common to many galleries and museums. The idea of making these environments more social is particularly appealing.

The year is 2023 and the McManus Gallery, Dundee is reopening after being given a facelift to exploit
the latest developments in display technology. All the outdated rectangular LCD screens have now been
removed and every surface in the building is now capable of behaving like a screen.
Your brief is to design an experience prototype that helps increase engagement across the visitor
experience utilising this new technology. The prototype must function between multiple display scales from small personal devices to large public displays. The design concept should focus on a user group of couples visiting the museum at the same time. The design concept must be grounded in detailed ethnographic observations of the museum context and visitor behaviour.

This looks like a very exciting brief, and I look forward to working towards the final outcome!

Sticky Notes

Our first designs used sticky note to represent the various elements of the site. From this we could move around the elements to see where was the most logical and intuitive place for them to be.

Once we had positioned the elements where we felt they should go, we moved on to create a more solid visual of the site.

Mockingbird

Mockingbird is a free tool online that allows you to create wireframe layouts for your sites. From this site we went on to create more detailed layout designs for our page. We felt that the main page for an issue would be the most important in terms of design, and started piecing it together. This wireframe is the first visual representation we have of your website:

From this design, we have a good insight into how the site will look and function. Now, its onto the more technical details, and time to start coding the site.

Name

We have decided to stick with the name as it, being pronounced ‘social design’ and being styled as follows: socl.dsn. We feel this name describe the broad range of social issues we aim to explore, and how we aim to solve them with the use of design.

Typography

Thinking towards the website and the logotype, we wanted to find a typeface we could use that was simple, clear and could be used online. A search through google webfonts led us to find ‘oxygen’, a typeface we all instantly agreed upon. This type has been selected for each of the headings, formatted as follows to differentiate certain topics. For the main body type, we selected ‘helvetica’, due to its simple form, readability and cross platform support. The hierarchy of types for our brand is as follows:

Colour Scheme

We wanted to use a colour scheme that was simple, modern and clean, along with the motion that it should not distract from the main body content. We had a browse on Adobe’s online service ‘Kuler’ to browse and match some colour pallettes. After some mixing we chose the following set of colours:

These colours are simple and light, and will be used for our logotype and also as the colour scheme for our website.

Logotype

For the logo for our site, we played about with different ways of presenting the name. In our concept logo, we played heavily with black and white photography, with images that show social scenes.

Building on this original concept logo, we have used the new design styles we have explored above to create the following logo for the site.

We feel this new logo is fresh and symbolic towards what the network is trying to achieve. The above style rules will all be used to create the website, following the rules we have set above in terms of colour and typography.

healthshare

healthshare is a social network where designers, and medical professionals can consult to create effective health campaigns through good use of design. The site aims to act as a bridge of resources to help aid both communities.

healthshare acts as a resource center for designers and medical professionals to contribute ideas that may help tackle health problems with design.

Medical professionals upload information about problems which they need help to prevent, and designers reply with either design ideas or complete design solutions. When solutions are created, the design is available for download, allowing medical professionals to care for their design needs in their campaigns, and also for public member to utilize the designs too.

lightup

lightup is a social network where persons interested iin vintage design based around cigarettes can share and discuss designs form the past. The entire world of design based around cigarettes is dying, and this site aims to keep the intriguing design style alive.

lightup acts as a sharing facility for lovers of the vintage design of cigarette branding, packaging and advertising. Users can share images, videos or stories related to the field. Users can then link content to other content, and begin to form ‘clusters’ of designs. These clusters are entirely user grown.

socl.dsn

socl.dsn is a social network comprise of socially consious people who want to tackle, share and discuss current issues in terms of design. You see several cases of socially aware design ont he internet, but with no fixed hub where designers can interact, and this is the niche socl.dsn aims to fill.

socl.dsn focuses around the concept of issues. When an issue is posted, users can submit inspiration in the form of stories, images, quotes and other linked content, relevant to the issue. This allows the designers access to a wealth of credible, honest and poignant information.

The designers then go off and create material based around the issue, and publish it back on the thread. Users can comment and suggest amendments to the designs. Once complete, designs can be freely downloaded and used by the users, making it a great resource for teachers and parents also.

The choice

After some group discussion, we came to the conclusion that socl.dsn would the network we would go on to create. I feel it is a meaningful concept, that can be approached from a variety of different ways. The idea of working with a variety of social and design issues is current and useful, and I look forward to going on to build this site!