chunyu huang

Windows Live Spaces is Microsoft’s blogging and social networking platform that I joined earlier this fall to share my photos and keep friends up to date on what is going on in my life. I decided to use it because it was easy to set up and connected to my msn messenger. Another good aspect about it was that it was multi-language friendly.

Features promoting triangulation

Integrated with MSN Messenger 

 
MSN has a icon that leads directly to Live Space, making it convenient and visible.

Updates Features

 Updates are shown next to names on messenger by a yellow star

Contact cards:  shows thumbnails of recent photos and updates of their recent blog entries 

Updates are also shown in the home page of the space

Invite friends

On own space: searches by their email or space and connects to their space with a placeholder icon of their profile image under Friends List.

  

There is also a Friends link at the top of the menu are for quick reference.

 On others’ spaces: invite as a friend feature is also present on their profile information. In case you don’t have permission to view their space you can also request permission as well.

 Search Feature

allows for advance search of people on Windows Live Spaces using categories such as age, interests, and so on
 

Create an Event Feature

It also appears on the homepage for quick access

What is nice about all the features above are that they were designed very visibly in the space, appearing several times in different areas.

Our group chose to observe the periodical and café section at Barnes & Noble as public space instruction sets for strangers. The behaviors we observes were that people typically isolate themselves in their own bubble and are not aware of people around them and the space they occupy. This prompted our design of pointing out “thoughtless acts” of people in this environment. Our final prototype, aiming to make people more aware of their own and other’s behaviors in the public space was a letter-sized comic sheet that contained images of general behaviors of people browsing in the periodical section.

1. Strengths
(What could be done to improve the design?) 

The strength to our final prototype was that it was easy to reproduce and make. It set up process called for taping our one sheet prototype to the tables of Barnes & Noble café along with a pen for people to write.

The instruction set for how to engage with it was fairly obvious. People for the most part knew that they were supposed to write with the pen provided. The design of the prototype was made in a comic style layout with thought and talk bubbles so people can easily understand to fill out the blank spaces. 

Some prototypes were printed in black and white and some in color to attract the attention of the café users. Furthermore, the images chosen for the comic sheets were relevant to the space we had chosen. We had picked pictures of people browsing and reading at Barnes & Nobles to increase people’s awareness of the environment that surrounded them. When people engage with it in writing they are responding to the behaviors of people around the space in Barnes & Noble, and in a way it is also a reflection of commenting on their own behavior. 

The prototype drew people from focusing on their own activities and being in their own space to increasing their engagement with the space. People notice our prototypes intruding a space that they are accustomed, question it, and respond to it, even if that meant choosing not to interact with it.

2. Weaknesses
(what could be done to improve the design?)

The design of the prototype is flat and people can ignore it. It was easy for people to put their books and belongs over the flat sheet of paper and carry on with their other activities. People can also easily remove it and put it aside to make more space for themselves. The images used on the prototype can also be improved by adding pictures of people sitting and reading at the café, making the prototype even more relevant and relatable to the café users who are our audience.

The prototypes placed on empty tables were also an obvious intrusion to the space, especially to manager and people who are frequent customers to Barnes & Noble café.

3. The design process
(What were some of the key moments/decisions during the process? What were trouble spots? How did the collaboration play out? Who took on what roles and how were decisions made or conflicts resolved?

For our prototype we had to go through the process of making several necessary iteration and changes. Our initial prototype was a booklet made of pages of “thoughtless act” images that people could flip through and write down their reflections and opinions. The design for the booklet aimed to emulate the forms of magazines and books that people are familiar with in the bookstore. It was done in color to try to attract people’s attention.

However, the first iteration of this form failed. After receiving feedback from our classmates we learned that the look and feel of our prototype was too high quality and pretty that people would be reluctant to write in it. From our observation there we also realized that our execution of handing the booklet prototype to the people there attracted to much attention to ourselves and made our audience self-conscious, leading to lack of interaction.    

For our second prototype we modified it by providing a pen and taping down singled sheets of the same thoughtless acts with comic bubbles instead of handing out booklets. We also went when Barnes & Noble opened in the morning so that we can set up our prototype before people got there.  The visibility of the prototype and ease of engaging with it (rather than having to open the booklet up) invited more feedback and response.  Our last modification to the prototype was to have it look even more like a comic strip by having multiple frames of different pictures and in black and white. This improved the content of the prototype and increased the amount of spaces and things people can reflect and comment on.

Another problem we encountered was with the manager who asked us to remove it when he saw it since our prototype was very visible. If we had to do more iterations, I think disguising our prototype by making it smaller and having it corners of table would help. Another way could be placing it on newspaper and placing newspapers on tables may have been more inconspicuous.

Our team approached this public space project by first observing the space individually and then discussing and sharing our findings so that we may bring different perspectives or reinforce things that each other observed. We went through the process of brainstorming our prototypes and what we want to do together. Once we knew what we wanted to do, half the group gravitated towards the making and designing the prototype while the other half gravitated towards implementing it in the space. We then all spent time observing and noting things that happened. 

We spent time together in class brainstorming and working our ideas out so there was little confusion as what we were going to make and increased our productivity. We paired up if we couldn’t all meet and execute as a group so that there were adequate support and feedback in what we were doing.

4. New media public space instruction sets that are related to your project.
Critique these projects in relation to your own:
how are they similar or different? What can be learned from these projects if you were to evolve your design further? Include visual examples of the projects described, as well as information on who produced them, when, where, and why.

One public space project is No Shirts done in Abercrombie and Fitch Oct 17, 2007.
In Abercrombie and Fitch, 111 men of all shapes and sizes shopped shirtless in the store on 5th Avenue here in New York. It was a humors demonstration reacting to the perfect-sized body image of the Abercrombie brand image.

The Church of Stop Shopping Reverend Billy (http://www.revbilly.com/) also has a lot of demonstrations that takes place in stores and in presence of consumers, promoting awareness of consumerism and shopping behaviors.

What is similar with the above projects to ours is that it takes place in a semi-public space owned business. The difference with their project was it was a very public demonstration/ performance where as ours used small object prototype and required blending in to gain success rather than standing out.

Contribute a Memory by ERIC LIFTIN 

(http://www.creativetime.org/programs/archive/2002/TimeToConsider/timetoconsider/index2.html)

This poster design are images are video stills from eric’s neighborhood of downtown Manhattan on 9/11 and 9/12.Passers-by who encounter the poster may reconnect with their experiences of September 11 and spontaneously write and contribute memories and recollections in the bubbles. 

His project closely resembles our “thoughtless act” project. People on the street comment write their recollections in bubbles and our audience at barnes and noble write their comments on the thoughtless acts of barnes and noble visitors in thought and talk bubbles. His project was different in that it takes place in the street, which is an open public space and there is a stronger emotional conncection to it.

5. What can you conclude both from your experiments and the ones that you studied? What are open questions remaining to be answered?

6. Can your project be applied to other public spaces? Does it travel well?

The design of the prototype is simple enough that it can be applied to other places, but changes would probably have to be made so that it can fit and be more relevant in the space.

7. Would your project make a good exhibition piece? Where would it be seen? If appropriate, submit your project to venues where it can be appreciated by other groups of people.

I think it would make a good exhibition if all the writings of people where put together into one big poster. I think when people see that their writing is part of something bigger they would be more prone to participate and give feedback.

It would be seen on the walls out side of Barnes & Noble or on the internet. It could also be placed on websites with projects that try to get interaction in consumer public spaces like http://www.improveverywhere.com/

1. ACCESS  is an installation where an electronic spotlight would track and follow unsuspecting persons in a public space. The system was first tested in Eyebeem in Chelsea, NYC, and went on to show in Los Angeles, CA, and Linz, Austria

(Work by Jeff Han and Marie Sester)
For more footage visit Jeff’s website at http://cs.nyu.edu/~jhan/tracking/index.html

2. Music Fountain Show

Oct. 5, 2007 shows the laser musical fountain beside the Jinji Lake of Suzhou, east China’s Jiangsu Province. Friday evening, the big fountain show attracted thousands of residents and tourists.

[ source: http://www.chinaview.cn/photos/china.htm ]

3.Guerilla Lighting London

 Cued by an air-horn, designers, architects, and manufacturers spread their love of light, armed with high-powered torches, projectors and hundreds of gels and filters in London. The light installation not up for long.

characters

cam interaction

Tree Umbrella

Dorm Umbrella

1] Umbrella with more transparent material -> waterproof?

  outer covering -> wet

   underneath -> still dry

 2] Good portability

3] weight
Most are around 1-2 pounds 

4] Usage

5] Durability and Stregnth of rib

 stronger

 weaker

6] Points of Contact

Usually points of contact on the umbrella are usually the handle, the bottom and top spring, and the runner which controls the stretcher that opens and closes the umbrella.

7] Directional Usage

Depending on the direction the rain is falling down due to the wind, manipulating and turning the umbrella to face the direction the rain is necessary to prevent wetness. 

8] Sun Protection Umbrella

Usually reflective outer surfaces of the umbrella covering are treated with special silver coatings and UV treatments into the polyester fabric. 

9] Manual

 springs for manually opening the umbrella

10] Automatic

11] Visibility inside Umbrella
If umbrella is made of thicker material, visibility throught the umbrella covering is 0. If it is made of thinner material, there is transparency of light and some shades and color does come through, but visibility in terms of being able to see where you are goin through the material of the umbrella is lacking. Plasic umbrella allows for visibility through the material of the umbrella, but heaving rain on top of plastic tends to distort images, making it decipher things.  

12] Degrees of Transparency

13] Broken Parts

14] Umbrella Standing
traditional umbrella’s ability to stand upright with no support  => 0

15] Umb in stored state

16] Umb Handle

17] Umbrella Structure

   from wikipedia

18] Origami Umbrella – how to

19] Popular colors

 
Colors are often neutral, dark, primary or bright pastel colors, depending on the user. 
Children often prefer bright colors with fun patterns and cartoon characters while adults prefer darker, primary, and sofisticated check patters.

20] In a crowd
- When walking through a crowd, holding the umbrella high ablove everyone else’s head and umbrella is necessary in order to manuver through the space. The umberlla’s design is questioned since there is an inconvenience while using it.

- The 2 state design of the umbrella is limiting. The umbrella is either opened or closed with no in shade/covering in between. Manually adjusting and holding the shape of the umbrella close to the body is necessary when moving through a tight crowded space, not wanting to get sprayed by water from other’s umbrella.

21] At Night
Most umbrella are not designed for safe night usage. Umbrellas are usually finished with dark covering, which hinders visibility of pedestrians carrying umbrellas.

~For Whom It Wasn’t Designed

22] Children:
Small children can’t effectively hold on to the umbrella because of muscle strength and weather condition which makes it harder.

23] Bicyclist:
Sometimes with good balance, people can hold the umbrella with one hand and umbrella in the other, but safety is a concern. People on motocycles hower don’t have that luxury.

24] Blind people:
There is an added complication for people who can’t see to hold on to the umbrella and a can or dog and try to get around to places.

25] Animals:
Umbrella was not designed for nonhumans for shelter from the rain or sun

value-fiction-2.pdf

object: umbrella
assignment: tech and cultural history

Technical History

Origins of the basic umbrella dates back three, four thousand years ago, indicated by ancient art and artifacts of Egypt, Greece, and China. It is believed that the beginnings of umbrellas stemmed from assembled leaves that sheltered the head of rain or the sun’s rays. It could also have been an adaptation of a portable tent.

The collapsible umbrella is said to have been invented in ancient China roughly 1,700 years ago, and fittingly the Chinese character for umbrella (傘) is a pictograph resembling the design of modern umbrella. In ancient times, the frames of the umbrellas were made of mulberry bark or bamboo. The Chinese decorated paper parasols with hand-paintings and waxed and lacquered the paper surface with oil to repel water. Then, via the Silk Road, the Chinese design of umbrella was able to spread to Persia and the West.

When umbrellas became widely used during 1700’s in Europe, they were fashioned out of heavy woods and oilcloth. Women popularized parasols, decorative sunshades in the 1800’s to 1920’s that was made with whalebone or metal frames with fine silk, lace, and fringe attached.

Today’s umbrellas come in a variety of styles and innovative modifications from expansion with the push of a button to one that tells weather forecast. Most are made of metal or plastic frames with fabric or clear plastic. Many have been designed to fold for convenience and portability.

Cultural History

Besides its functionality, umbrellas have worked their way into different cultures. For example, as an expression of their love, the Japanese writes their names under an umbrella as would Americans carving their love and name on the trunk of a tree.

Furthermore, in addition to providing protection from the sun and rain, umbrellas also served as a symbol of status and rank, props and works of art, and can also be altered into a weapon. For instance, fair skin was a sign of nobility in Egypt around 1200 BC, where royalty used parasols to prevent tanning, and it also symbolize the vault of heaven opening over a king. The parasol is still regarded as emblem of rank in Africa.
In Europe, until mid 18th Century, umbrellas were considered a woman’s accessory and men seen using one suggested that he could not afford or hire a carriage. However, a servant holding an umbrella over a gentleman between the carriage and the door was an indication of respect.

Moreover, umbrellas can be works of art, especially those crafted by the Chinese, which are covered with thin silk printed with landscapes and fixed onto a bamboo frame. Also, it serves as props for stage performances from traditional Chinese umbrella dance to Rihanna’s Umbrella music video.

Finally, umbrellas also have made their way into espionage in works of fiction and nonfiction. For instance, the 1981 James Bond film For Your Eyes Only depicts an umbrella with clawlike spikes that protrude from the tips of the canopy. In reality, in 1978, Georgi Markov, Bulgarian dissident writer, was assassinated by a suspected secret Bulgarian agent with an altered umbrella, which shot a poisonous pellet into the victim’s leg.