Monday, April 28, 2008

Social Textterflys - A Shared Screen Design

I've seen quite a few calls for proposals with Urban Screens - or social screen designs. So the other day I had an idea for a shared screen where static web content from each persons profile seems to "come to life". In essence the idea is to transform what we perceive as static social content into dynamic and contextual content in a social space.

Using technology in social networking - or semi-public spaces where people are trying to get to know each other - is a delicate balance of public/private - gimmicky interest matching - and often interrupts the natural flow of conversation...

I would like to make a playful, large touchscreen for a wall where people go up and scan their RFID nametags - and a weblike profile comes up (which they prepare when registering for the event). THEN it slowly comes to life, your interests turn into birds and fish which
fly and swim over to other people's animated words. The whole profile disintegrates and all the elements either drift off or join an ecology of abstract connections between people. I imagine people could walk up and playfully interact with the birds, nudging them to fly or find other connections.





Here is a 3 minute video outline of the idea. I thought I would try this format as an experiment in place of doing image layout.


Writing the code is outlined above. My Proposal is to have a prototype of the concept for the final in this class. Something that brings up image profiles, and then proceeds to break them into image maps that have behaviors.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I've been reading "The Wisdom of the Crowds" - a book about
how large groups of people often make better decisions (the average of
the crowd) than experts or individuals by themselves.

So I'm thinking - what if the participants in an event answer a short
survey before the event with questions that require a quantitative
answer or a political choice.

Essentially I was thinking that you could use animation techniques to
create a transition between an individual and group decision. The
viewer scans their RFID nametag and their answers would fly into a
visualization of the aggregate.