Entry #10

Tenth entry. The final entry. And before I start discussing how I feel about that and other things, I wanted to give thanks to my group. Our consultation with Tania yesterday was the first opportunity that I had had to see how the essay had developed since our study session last week, and I was so impressed. More than that I was so delighted that I had been absorbed into this group. When Jess, Steph and Anja took the initiative and approached me about completing their group of four, I gratiously accepted. I had just started the course, I didn’t know anyone, and in retrospect, the possibility that I could have ended up being assigned to a group of misfits and cast-offs was probably very real. That I was instead able to join in a circle of friends that consisted of truly talented and conscientious people is something for which I am very grateful.

As I posited in the give-yourself-a-grade-for-participation session last week, the work that my team mates have done in the past month is really extraordinary. Not just for it’s quality, but also for the selfless spirit in which it was done. The initiative that Steph took in taking responsibility for the wiki and the wireframes, and the time and care that Jess put into developing the website prototype and essay layout should really earn them high marks. It did actually, with a little prompting, in what was a interesting grading process. 

As for my contribution, I still feel like I did during the session. Knowing what I am capable of and how I’ve been engaging with the subject outside of class, I couldn’t honestly award myself anything more than a credit. I did though. Averaging that view with the views of my team mates, resulted in a low distinction. Part of this about-face was influenced by the comparatively lenient self-assessment that the rest of the class were subjecting themselves to, but the final decision was determined by the encouragement of my team mates and the value in which they held my contribution.

Jess made two interesting comments in relation to this after yesterday’s consultation. In receiving my appreciation for the work he had done on the essay layout, he played the achievement down by saying that it really wasn’t that difficult for him to do. And then when I provided the bibliography for the essay he was just as effusive in his gratitude as I had been because it was something he would have dreaded doing. I found this interesting because of what it says about the virtues of group work. I may consider the writing of a bibliography to be insignificant when compared to creating an essay layout, but for someone less scholarly the reverse may be just as true. And in a project such as this one, that perceived hierarchy of the importance of tasks becomes welcomely worthless. Each person’s talent for a particular task becomes a virtue for the group, and without each individual contribution the project could not advance. So, despite my dissatisfaction with my efforts of late, my contribution of ideas and enthusiasm at the beginning, and my experience with filmmaking, were vital to the group’s progress at different stages. Of course the degree to which a group benefits from this process of working depends entirely on each member’s reliabilty and diligence, which to repeat myself, is why I’m so grateful to be have been involved with Jess, Steph and Anja.

With that out of the way I’d like to return the focus to my summary of the last twelve weeks, starting with the blog. I believe its been more than a month since my last entry, and if memory serves, even that was a sincere attempt at making amends for a similar lapse in maintenance, so there isn’t much sense in making excuses. I didn’t do this part of the project particularly well. I may have been able to write a thousand hopefully relevant words when I felt inspired –or pressured– to, but that doesn’t satisfy the purpose of keeping the diary, which was to engage in regular reflection on the project, and the course as a whole. 

The example of Stefan Sagmeister’s diary really brought this point home for me. Here was a insight into the processes of a designer that managed to be both pithy and very enlightening. I can only say that difficulties I had with keeping the blog were psychological. I’ve never been one to keep diaries; I find maintaining written correspondence with friends interstate and overseas hard. I suspect that this is because I have very high expectations for the quality of the thoughts and emotions I’m trying to express. I want to write well, which requires a great deal of consideration and effort, and if I don’t feel like I can adequately express what it is that I’m trying to say, I won’t bother. That certainly makes an exercise like keeping a blog difficult. As does the fact that I exist almost entirely in a state of self-awareness, which no doubt influences my indifference to actually committing the process of reflection to paper. But I wouldn’t underestimate the benefits of keeping a blog to the creative process of others. And in terms of making the results of a group’s progress more quantifiable, the Better Thinking group’s ‘Perfect T-Shirt’ blog is an excellent example of what the exercise can achieve.

As for what has happened since I last wrote, post-video progress report the project was characterized by a fading momentum. Not just in our group, but seemingly across the year group. The intrusion of AGideas week certainly contributed to this, as did I fairly prevalent case of mid-year malaise. I know that at about this time I personally hit a wall in terms of my enthusiasm for the program as a result of some experiences with other courses. If anything though, this really consolidated the group’s effort’s. With a deadline looming, we were all forced to acknowledge the advantages of delegation in a way that our self-consciousness regarding equality had probably prevented us from doing earlier. Some of this came about inadvertently as a result of the solitary initiatives, but there was also a deliberate division of tasks towards the end based on what each group member felt they could offer. Consequently, its difficult for me to provide the exact details of what everybody did beyond the attributions that I made above. When it came to writing the essay though we were all allocated sections relative to our progressive contributions, which were then combined into a larger body of text that I took responsibility for editing together. This was a very effective way or working, and in some ways it acts as metaphor for the how successfully the group was able to collaborate. 

I have to confess that I’m a bit lost at this point. What else is there to say? I don’t know if I can really comment on the success on the project because it is, and will only ever be, a prototype. Whether or not it is an effective solution to the problems we identified will remain unknown, though I still believe it would be a popular alternative… I know Tania requested that we discuss aspects of the course –what we liked and didn’t like– so perhaps I’ll continue with that.

What I liked most about this subject was the theoretical background. It has been one of my main criticisms of the program that I feel as if I haven’t learnt anything this semester. Which is to say, have not been taught anything in the traditional sense about craft and philosophy and such. That cannot be said of this course. I really appreciated the education that the lectures and readings aimed to provide us with, not only in interaction design, but design in general. I’d really like to see that emphasis maintained.

As for what I didn’t like, that’s much more difficult to identify. I think there are some problems but the extent to which these are just subjective, like my issues with the blog are, I’m not quite sure. I guess I had questions on how the assignment was really related to the topic. Because it was independently determined it seemed like many of the projects were only nominally concerned with interaction design. Perhaps I’ve misinterpreted the intention of the course though, because upon consulting the course guide the objectives seem to be much more about introducing us to the research processes and multimedia applications of communication design, which the course did very effectively. Does that mean that interaction design is just a MacGuffin? Perhaps, if I’m not wrong, my recommendation would be that the relevance of different aspects of the course be made more apparent.

Have I neglected to mention anything? I’ve touched on how proud I am of the group’s efforts, the blog, the course… Being the final entry it feels like there’s a pressure to write something of much greater authority. But I don’t know what else to say. Besides, I’ve written my thousand words.

Entry #9

Ninth entry. Another retrospective entry. Just before I publish the final entry I wanted to post the persona that I wrote for the project. I didn’t do this at the time that we discussed it in class, but later on in process when we were consolidating our research. I actually had quite a bit of difficulty writing it. However, I don’t think I fully understood its purpose. I wrote it in consultation with a friend of mine, only to get the impression afterwards from some of the readings, that it should have hypothetical.

This raises some moral questions for me. I understand the benefit that thinking about your audience can provide, but how accurate can the conclusions be? I realize that they would/should only be made after extensive research, but even so, there’s a level of subjectivity at play here that I find self-serving and problematic.

“James is 34 year old artist and student in the Masters of Fine Art program at RMIT. Originally from Melbourne, James spent the last five years in living in Adelaide developing his art practice. He returned to Melbourne in 2007 but still divides much of his time between the two cities for professional and personal reasons. This year he has also travelled to Vienna, Darwin and Cyprus for symposiums and exhibitions related to his work, and has a residency in Quebec in October/November, which will be followed by an exhibition in Los Angeles.

When he is in Melbourne, James divides his time between the RMIT city campus and his studio in Footscray. Typically he will attend uni when required, but the majority of his time is consumed with creating new work in the studio. It is not unusual for James to work all through the night, and in the periods leading up to exhibitions he rarely leaves the studio. During 2007 this was also where James lived, which helped facilitate this lifestyle.

Since that live-in arrangement ended he has been staying with friends and family when in Melbourne, and has been searching for a new place to live when his schedule allows. Being a student and an artist James can only afford to live in share accommodation. He is honest about his commitments and the extent to which they will keep him away from the home, but is prepared to pay rent just like any member of the household would, even when not in Melbourne.

So far James has been using the Readings notice board to search for vacancies. Because of his rigorous schedule it is often inconvenient for him to attend interviews, and his reluctance is exacerbated by the trend of attending only to immediately discover that the space isn’t appropriate for his requirements. James has also found it difficult to find housemates who are accepting of his inability to be a more stable, contributing housemate.

If micasa were a reality James would be able to circumvent these frustrations by identifying situations that were appropriate for both he and the other party before committing to interviews and inspections. And because he can access the service wherever there is web connectivity, James could continue to apply for, and monitor his applications, when he is in interstate and overseas.”

Entry #8

Eighth entry. A retrospective entry for the video progress report. It has now been shot, edited, screened and graded. Not a good reflection on my wish to reform my writing habits, but writing in summary may give me perspective and brevity; the absence of which may have made writing such an unwelcome task in the last month.

At the storyboard stage the group had two ideas. Both grew out of the visual metaphor we concocted out of the Guess Who? board game. The first idea was to focus on a young girl who parts ways with an undesirable housemate, and then goes about finding a new one through much trial and error. It was intended to be a straight forward narrative piece presented with much humour. I imagined it resembling the music video for The Beastie Boys ‘(You Gotta Fight) For Your Right (To Party)’, with a sparsely-furnished studio substituting for all the interiors, a small cast playing multiple roles in ridiculous costumes, and lots of hamming it up. I think the group had other ideas though. It was conceived to be shot on location for one.

The second idea was conceived with the stresses of shooting a short film in mind. Assuming that we had access to a studio as well as a video camera, I created a scenario for two people set in a substitute environment similar to the one in the Beastie Boys video I described above. One person in a red shirt and one person in a blue shirt (perhaps with text identifying the room mate-seeker and the room mate-wanter respectively) approach a table set with the Guess Who? games. They take a seat and go through the interrogation process wordlessly, with the questions they are asking displayed in varying fonts across the screen. And with Sparks’ “How are you getting Home?” as the soundtrack.

Both ideas had their merits, and both had their drawbacks. Tania’s consultation only compounded the indecision, but her suggestions did incite a brief, manic period where the second idea threatened to become an amateur-film epic in the style of Michel Gondry. Eventually the decisions were made out of necessity. With the packaging assignment deadline coming and going, and the type assignment due the day before the video presentations, the group’s efforts were determined by how much time everyone could spare.

The video equipment was loaned for a single day and all of the shooting was plammed to occur on that same day. Knowing that by this stage neither idea would be possible I sketched a pared down storyboard for shooting. This storyboard was intended to serve as an introduction to the main content. One problem that we had identified with both of the original ideas was that they were designed more like short TV or online advertisements than the video progress reports that were expected. Steph was pivotal in reminding us all of this and in re-orientating the objective of the video so that it satisfied all of the brief requirements. Although we were all unsure of what form the video would take when we came together on the Thursday, we did know what information we needed to provide and any interviewees we required had been arranged.

The storyboard intended to show somebody looking for a room in the existing fashions (Readings window, websites) and then following through with the process of phone calls, refidex checking, travelling, inspecting, talking, rejecting, etc. All of this was supposed to be shot in fast motion, both for the sake of running time and as an attempt to communicate the frustrations of such an experience. It was used as a starting point, but the shoot quickly deviated from it as the realities of filmmaking became apparent to everyone. The Readings shoot was a success and due consideration was given to all of the possible problems that may occur in editing. Footage was also garnered of tram trip from a subjective POV for possible use in structuring the narrative later.

But scheduled interview times required us to return to the production offices (ie-Jess’ House). Whilst waiting for our subjects to turn up the footage of each group member giving a short presentation to camera was taken. And then we waited. And waited. And waited. The people we intended to interview were running late, so a surrogate interviewee was roped in and shots of building facades in the surrounding streets were taken.

As time passed and group members were required to leave it was decided that we should begin editing  what we had. Barring some temporary problems with the DV deck this turned out to be an inspired decision. Although we hadn’t shot a great deal of what we intended to, what we had shot was sufficiently informative. Each group member’s presentation to camera ran for approximately one minute, and there was a three minute maximum running time for the entire project, so the four individual presentations were hacked up and then pieced together so that it appeared like one continuous idea was being spoken by four people. These presentations were introduced by a short titles sequence constructed from the Readings footage and substantiated by our surrogate interviewee.

By this time the original interviewees were still yet to arrive. The day was almost over. And the prospect of doing it all again was distinctly unappealing. So me decided to go with what we had. We found an appropriate song for the soundtrack, we refined the audio and visual effects and we exported the finished product before dinner time. It was quite an achievement, and though I wasn’t sure how our video would compare to others, I could honesty say that I didn’t think it was bad. It certainly fulfilled most of the criteria and communicated the basic idea of what micasa represented.

This assessment was verified on the day of presentation. Although the very impressive production values of the first video probably made us all feel a little insecure, I think the micasa video compared well. We took a much more conventional approach, but our message was communicated clearly. We received generally good peer appraisals and the marks from Blair and Tania were very welcome.

That certainly does seem like an abridged version, but it gives a good overview of the video phase of the project. What’s next? 

Entry #7

Seventh entry. Personal confession. I have neglected this project. If not in thought, then certainly in deed. You need only look at the date of the last entry to realise that. Why is it this way? If I was to offer some excuses I would say it was the disruption of the Easter break; the short trip to Brisbane; last Wednesday’s storm devastating our home broadband connection (ongoing); the stress of other assignments. All valid, but unimpressive, ordinary problems. If I were more determined I would have found resolutions.

I think in some ways its the nature of the assignment. Its group-centricity for certain. Not to cast dispersions on anyone in my group. I don’t have a bad word to say about one of them. But the business of working as a group itself. No one person has control over the direction of the project. Or rather, I don’t feel like I have control over the project. And I don’t. And that makes it very difficult to engage with. Partly because I don’t wish to take responsibility for doing more than my share; partly because I don’t want to be percieved as taking responsibility for more than my share. And as such, I feel removed from… unable to affect the locomotion of the project in a way that I can when I work individually. That’s terrible phrasing, but its a difficult feeling to articulate.

For instance, in the weeks proceeding the Easter break the group as delegated themselves and performed perhaps the minimum amount of work required to satisfy requirements. I’m not being critical of that. I’ve been absolutely complicit. And I haven’t been procrastinating. The same obsessive drive that results in journal entries that appear like novellas to others has simply been directed at other studio assignments. Ones that are more tactile. Where a sense of achievement can be more readily gained. When we have come together in class we have continued to produce some really interesting content. But there hasn’t been a really concentrated effort towards a specific goal. We are all doing the same tasks, coming to the same conclusions, making the same mistakes.

I need to be critical of myself before the group though. There’s a convenient segue-way here into what we’ve been asked to write in response to the last two lesson’s worth of readings. The notion of the ‘genius’ designer. That resonated loudly in me. I’ve certainly been guilty of it in this assignment. I identified a problem based on my bad experiences finding a house and suggested a solution that would satisfy my expectations. The selling point of the entire project is that it provides people with a forum to say more about themselves, but in nearly every example we can see on similar sites, users seem to be content to enter as little information as possible. Might that not be a flaw in the service provided, but a characteristic of the user demographic? I honestly wouldn’t like to think so, but then I’m only me.

I do think we have an excellent idea. I still believe that a site that combines social networking qualities with share house finding facilities could be very successful… But I only have to think of our model, couchsurfing.com and when the last time was that I used it. When I was travelling. More than two years ago. I’m still an active member, but only because I believe its a service I might use again at some point. We have to recognize this. If something like micasa already existed I would only have used it at two times in the last two years.  At each of those times I would have used the site frequently, almost compulsively for at least a fortnight. But then it would have been dormant to me in between. I suppose other people will experiencing the same thing though. There is a constant need to be fulfilled, but perhaps an in frequent one. And does that diminish its importance?

I’m not suggesting that we abandon the idea… Where is all this solipsism leading? To a resolution. We need to redirect our research focus from competing sites and models and direct it towards the users. And not just to determine the content like we have done, but also the structure. And we really need to align our activities with the subjects of the course. Research methods, personas, etc. That hasn’t always seemed relevant to our purposes, but it certainly could help us refine the final outcome.

From a personal perspective too, it has seemed at times like: this is the course content on interaction design. And this is the project. And things like the readings appear to be a distraction from the latter. And perhaps occasionally they aren’t relevant.  But we in the group are not genius designers. I am not a genius designer. I am being reminded of that every hour of every day. The frustrations I have with software aside, it is occurring more and more frequently as my other assignments go on, as they get closer and closer to completion, that some fundamental flaw appears, something that was not considered in the initial stages, and it now threatens to render all efforts completely useless. You can mark it down to inexperience, and this is where the commencing student reasoning comes in, but if more research was down at the start, or if less enthusiasm was committed to conceptualizing an idea that might not be appropriate, or even if that enthusiasm was scrutinized with research, then I would probably be wasting less time.

My packaging assignment is a good example. I came up with a wonderful theoretical solution. I felt at the time that it was patent-worthy. But it looked terrible when constructed as a mock-up. It might have been able to be improved but not with the time and resources available to me. So I compromised and made a alternative out of paper that used the same principles. Again, a theoretical triumph. Possibly a minor aesthetic one too. But exorbitantly expensive to produce. Unrealistic, even for a high-end producer. And unnecessarily wasteful. The project will still be executed. And it still might be quite effective. But it is a failure. So: research.

I think thats enough blood-letting. If it serves no other purpose let us hope that it gets me back in the routine of writing more regularly. I did the readings on research but it was at the end of week 3, so I don’t feel like I have anything constructive to further add to that subject. Next time: reflection on readings and updates on video.

Entry #6

Sixth Entry. Documentation of ideas and conversations had during class yesterday. The first being a new group name. It seems our default group name was not recognized. Spurred on by the generic “sharehouseaccom” reference used in its place I began thinking of alternatives and was fortunate to come up with something quite quickly: micasa. As in “mi casa, su casa”; spanish for “my home is your home”. I’m not sure if that is the correct spelling. I’ve spelt it phonetically and I like that it reads the way it should be pronounced, but is also a beautiful, sonorous little name in its own right.

On discussion there were some variations suggested: mikasa, mycasa, mykasa. These suggestions were prompted by the possibility that the micasa domain name may not be available. I think mikasa is a suitable alternative, for the same reasons I like micasa. mycasa or mykasa I am wary of. Its cute, but by mixing two languages I’m afraid that the meaning of the original phrase would be lost. I also don’t like the idea of parodying myspace. Could we call ourselves micasa, even if another corporation has the rights to the name?

Next, inspired by couchsurfing.com, some questions we may wish to propose to users for answering:

• Age?
• Gender?
• micasa Member Since?
• Profile Views?
• Occupation?
• Education?
• Associations/Memberships/Subscriptions?
• Personal Description
• Sharehouse History?
• Interests?
• Philosophy?
• Favourite Music/Films/Books/Art/Other?
• Types Of People You Would Like To Live With?
• What Will Bring To The House (Possessions)?
• What Will You Bring To The House (Skills)?
• Are You A Communal Eater?
• Would You Be Prepared To Contribute To Groceries/Essentials?
• Are You Willing To Contribute To The Cleaning?
• Preferred Budget?
• Broadband Required?
• In A Relationship?
• Will Your Lover Be Spending Much Time In The House?
• Do You Have Pets?
• Do You Watch TV?
• What Is Your Routine/Schedule Like?
• Do You Work?
• Describe A Typical Sunday Morning.

And some ideas for the site format:

- Post-registration we have all of these questions (and more) available on a profile creation page. The user can choose which ones to answer and in doing so, what information will be displayed on their profile. Its entirely up to them, but the onus is there to include as much about yourself as possible. To, like with couchsurfing, market yourself as enticingly as you can. People will be more interested in someone who offers a lot of themself, over someone who appears reluctant, lazy or clandestine. Or maybe those are the qualities that appeal to them. It works both ways.

- Questions in the profile creation page should be both orientated to the individual and anticipate the expectations/possible realities of sharehousing. That is to say, give the user  the opportunity to present themselves how they wish and allow the viewer to get a sense of whether that user would be appropriate for the sharehousehold.

- And what of the house itself? Would advertising it require a different format? Essentially this site should provide people with a place to create a personal profile for themselves, and to search for vacant rooms/apartments. The people creating the profiles for the house are likely to be the existing housemates, perhaps even landlords or real estate agents. In the case of existing housemates it would be in the interests of the person searching for a place to live to be able to see profiles of the people they will be living with. But can we get them to create profiles? Is there incentive for someone NOT looking for a place to live to be bothered? Will the responsibility fall to one housemate? I suppose all you can do is provide people with that option. Its up to them whether or not they use it. Besides, most people currently in a sharehouse will inevitably be looking for another at some time (I wonder if there are any statistics on that? I imagine the average to be something like people under the age of thirty renting/sharing must move at least once a year). So it will be in their interest to have a profile. We want to make it be in everyone’s interest to have a profile; for the site to be as unnecessarily indispensable as myspace or facebook are. To be constantly updated. To encourage long-term interaction.

In our group discussion we broached the subject of the video. Jess suggested that this would be a facet of the project where we could really stress the idea of connectivity. It was also his opinion that a successful video would also be vital to the branding of the website and for setting up a context to put the website in. A discussion over the purpose of the site ensued; as did some brainstorming on the reasons why myspace/facebook are so popular, and what we need to provide/present for micasa to obtain similar popularity. In an attempt to translate the qualities of convenience, enjoyablity, ease-of-use and effectiveness that those sites have into an aesthetic, models like flipbooks, children’s card games where an illustration of a character is split into three panels and the child has to match them up, and the boardgame ‘Guess Who?’ were suggested. ‘Guess Who?’ in particular, was very enthusiastically touted as a visual metaphor for a video to use.

Our consultation with Tania at the conclusion of class produced brief but very positive feedback: “Great! You’re on the right track”.

Entry #5

Fifth entry. A brief reflection on the research I was assigned to do before the next class. Inspect 3 websites — www.2share.com.au; www.housemates.com.au; www.yourestate.com.au — and report my findings.

I undertook a fairly substantial documentation of the sites (yourestate.com not included for technical reasons) and their features in my exercise book, but I wont repeat it here. Reading it would probably be as tedious as writing it was. I’ll just relate my general impressions.

www.2share.com.au

-Unispiring homepage

- Gives users option of searching between Sydney and Melborne

- After choosing your city, the next page provides you with a suburb search. One search engine for “ads from housemates looking for a room” and another for “ads from flatmates offering a room”.

- After selecting a suburb (from the housemates looking for a room section), the next page provides listings of people advertising themselves and their needs.

- Some categories in the profile do not allow you to personalize your response. Age, gender, who you are looking to share with (male/female/either/hetero/gay/couple/age range) have to be chosen from pre-generated drop down menus.

- Contact details for advertisers are not presented to the public. To contact advertisers you need to become a registered member. Standard membership is free and allows you limited use of the site for one month. Premium membership costs $15/2 months; provides you with unlimited access to other advertisers and allows you to include a phone number with your own advertisement.

- The majority of the advertisements on 2share.com.au are perfunctory and uninformative. They list the name, age, gender, rent budget, housemate preferences, email contact and a personal description. The content of the personal description s determined by the author, and with one exception, never extended beyond a three or four sentence form advertorial.

- The single innovation, or idea worth stealing from 2share.com.au was a list of laundrettes in Melbourne listed alphabetically by suburb.

Neither housemates.com.au or 2share.com.au struck me as being very effective services or good examples of interaction design. Both maintained a very generic, poorly-designed aesthetic. Their formats were limited and interchangeable with any other competing site. housemate.com.au in particular was a frustrating site to navigate. Not because there were too many options; rather there were too few, but because they belied this lack of content by desperately giving most of their features multiple identities. The same categories were listed in the sidebar, the toolbar, and given an illustrated position on the home page.2share.com.au’s only innovation was to feature a list of laundrettes in Melbourne

www.housemates.com.au

- Similarly uninspired design. Could substitute for a domain name site or a variety of common spam advertisements.

- Homepage displays a number of features grouped in categories (some apparently repeated) and a search-by-postcode search engine or a search-by-map-of-Australia search engine.

- Results for the chosen suburb/state are listed either by Availability/State/Recent Listing.

-Each listing has the suburb and price in the heading; a title, location, availability, description and the option to view more houses in the same suburb. You can open these listings to view a longer description, a summary of the features of the house, a map and images. For the user there are buttons which allow you to receive email alerts about the property, save it to your favourites, tell a friend, ask a question or print the ad.

Feature worth stealing from housemates.com.au: “Housemates From Hell” – a message board formatted section where users relate horror stories from past sharehouse experiences. I don’t know if I would make this a feature of our site, but as a novelty it might have some value.Both of these sites suffer from the problem we identified with the majority of rental resources currently available: they aren’t sensual. That wasn’t a definition that I think has been made before but it seems so appropriate after my experience navigating these two sites. All text, no texture!

For comparison I suggested that everybody inspect the website www.couchsurfing.com. CouchSurfing is, according to Wikipedia, a free international Internet-based hospitality service, and currently the largest hospitality exchange network. I used it regularly when I was in Europe in 2005. Users create a profile on the couchsurfing site; by doing so they are also inviting other couchsurfers to impose on them. Then when they need accommodation in a foreign city they can search the site for users who can house them for an unspecified period and contact them via a messaging application. The local user then checks the profile of the travelling user and decides whether or not to invite them into their home, for how long, under what conditions, etc. It sounds fraught with danger for both users but I never had anything but positive experiences couchsurfing and managed to save 3/4 of my accommodation budget in the process.

I wasn’t conscious of the couchsurfing model when I suggested this idea for the group project. That grew quite organically out of the frustration that I documented below. But upon reviewing the website it quickly firms as an obvious prototype for our service. If only because it privileges the individuality of the user over the features of the accommodation.

A standard couchsurfing profile provides information on the user’s: percentage of requests replied to; their online presence; last log-in; period of membership; number of profile views; age; gender; membername; occupation; education; languages spoken; groups they belong to; friends; personal description; life philosophy; favourite movies/books/music; couchsurfing experiences; interests; types of people they enjoy; things they have to teach/learn/share; opinions on the couchsurfing project; locations travelled; references.

Imagine what you could learn about the suitabilty of a potential housemate if you could be privy to all of this information before you even meet them. Or not meet them if that is the case. This is the direction I imagine we need to take. CouchSurfing is my model.

Entry #4

After devoting considerable time and thought to this blog in the week after the first class, such focus has had to be distributed among other classes. This will be my first update in perhaps a week. And maybe that’s not a bad thing. I believe the stipulation was that we spend half an hour each week on the blog, and I was certainly doing more than that on individual entries. So, a more intermittent reflection may be more appropriate.

I actually started this entry last Friday morning. The intention was to document some of the results of the previous Wednesday’s class whilst they were still relatively fresh. As the passing of time has further deteriorated my recollection of exactly how the group’s discussion progressed I will submit the points as drafted on Friday morning:

- It was agreed upon by all that the idea needed more definition.

- Was the problem we were trying to resolve with our idea that “its difficult for students to find housing”?

- Or are there an abundance of resources but all of them are too general (ineffectual?)

- Is the current Melbourne rental crisis a factor in our project. Does it affect students? The majority of those living out of home do so in share accommodation. How?

- Can we/should we restrict the subject to students? Share houses?

- What about people in similar financial circumstances? Many share houses are comprised of people in different occupations: full-time work, part-time work, student, volunteer, artist.

- How will the site be financed? Can you charge a membership fee? Will advertising content generate income? If it was a strictly student service, and this is perhaps the only argument for it being so, would we be eligible for a university grant?

- Unanimous agreement that the site has to be different to everything currently available. What will we provide that is unique? Why will people want to use this service?

- Content: quirky. Personalized. Questions like, “What do you like on your toast?” How do we encourage people to interact generously with the site? How can we utilize the sites potential to present distinctive profiles? Does the provision of a greater number of categories result in a better representation of the individual? What is the information that is most valuable for seekers to advertise and leasers to know? What do we not want: “facebook applications”?

- It might be worth researching the most common questions asked in share house interviews? What can make or break an interview? (I used the example of my friend James who almost had his own key cut when he discovered that his frequent absence from home — attending residencies overseas, working interstate — would not be so desirable for his new housemates who wanted someone that was around more).

- Another way of distinguishing the site might be to incorporate Google Earth, whereis.com, or some other map provider or direction-giving service. We could give users a preconception of where there potential new home is located. How far it is from public transport, shopping centres, university campuses, cultural precincts? And for users attending more than one interview in a day we could provide them with an itinerary and demonstrate the most effective routes to take in between appointments.

Our consultation with Blair at the conclusion of the class produced a favourable response. His only concern was with security issues. To borrow his equasion: Photos of rooms + Maps/Directions to people’s homes = Invitiation to steal. It was a very reasonable point and one which none of us had considered. Nor had we the real-world potential of the project, but Blair also encouraged us to think about presenting the finished assignment to RMIT as a proposal for a student grant. Which is one reason, perhaps the only one, that I can think of tailoring the project to students.

Am I wrong?

Entry #3

Third Entry, different from the first! Jackie is a punk, Judy is a runt,….Of course, the third verse sounded very similar to the first. If you weren’t familiar with the lyrics you could easily mistake them as being interchangeable. But, technically it was different. And this entry, whilst being a reflection on my reading, may also be a critique of my previous writings. Here’s hoping I just don’t get trapped in my own Ramones analogy.

So, now, what is Interaction Design? It seems to be about how we as designers can create the means for the owners and users of digital technologies and services to utilize those systems more effectively.This definition does counter my previous objections, but after reading the more detailed descriptions of Crampton-Smith and Moggridge, I don’t fear for the obsolescence of the communication designer that I had anticipated. Invoking the book, the cup and the pencil was a way of defending products and tools traditionally in the domain of the communication designer, or I suppose really the industrial designer; arguing for recognition of their continued value. Moggridge’s example of the wineglass and how a designer would consider a drinker’s interaction with it in his creation of the product, and how this same approach to interactions enabled by digital technology is the concern of interaction designers, put the idea in perspective for me. Made it inclusive. Actually rather excited me. Because in answering people’s questions about what I intend to do with graphic design, I have to concede that I don’t know. My interest and practice has been in print design, but I have to acknowledge the opportunities in areas like web design and multimedia; and the definitions of interaction design contained within the readings give me a better idea about how a communication designer can make significant contributions to those areas.  

As for my criticism of Crampton-Smith, I retract my statements. Although I still find her writing less edifying than I would expect, it was a mistake to interpret her reference to “digital artefacts” as simply being the products of industrial designers working in computer and communications industries. And her, and Moggridge’s, allusions to the responsibility designers have to keep almost spiritual aspirations in mind when designing were particularly inspiring.  

And how do these readings affect my opinion of the idea proposed for the group report? They reinforce it. Although the site is not an example of designers improving an existing digital technology or service, I believe that by utilizing features unique to web-based programs, we could create a digital service that better facilitates the introduction of room-seekers with room-leasers. Isn’t that effective interaction design?      

Entry #2.1

I know I wrote that I intended to do two posts today but this is not what I had in mind when for the secondary entry (that’s a response to the reading I fully intend to do later this evening). This is just a link to an entry I came across when reading the blog of Momus, aka Nick Currie, a Scottish musician, journalist and artist, and which I thought was related, however tangentially, to what I just wrote below. In this entry from dated March 7 2008 he asks his regular readers to post photographs of themselves, so that he “can see names he knows becoming faces”.

http://imomus.livejournal.com/357593.html?thread=14020313#t14020313

Entry #2

Second Entry. The first of two projected parts. Yesterday I spoke with the other members of my group regarding ideas for the group report. I offered the best of my limited ideas for consideration. It is one that I had conceived earlier, and was reminded of by the Urbanseed (?) dating example that Tania showed in the first class. It is essentially a similar web-based community service provider, but in this case the community is those looking for a room/house to rent/share, or those with a room/house to rent/share.

The inspiration for this came in January when I was looking for a new share house to move into. My two main sources of advertisements for vacancies were the Readings bookstore noticeboard in Carlton, and the website http://melbourne.gumtree.com.au. I had used Readings before with success, and found that this time again it provided me with some very promising accommodation opportunities. The reasons for this are many.

First of all, a description. Readings reserves one large window behind the front counter which looks out onto an alley for the posting of accommodation notices. For a gold coin donation anyone offering or seeking accommodation can post a notice in the window. The only restriction Readings places on these notices is that they not exceed a certain size, perhaps half the size of a postcard. So, the appearance and content of the notices in entirely up to the poster. As a consequence, there is absolute freedom for expression, and many of the notices indicate a great deal about the personality of the poster. A discerning viewer can easily eliminate half of the offerings, or choose to focus on only a handful. It may be the handwriting, an illustration, the aesthetic, the humour, an attitude, a description. Any of these things can aid the viewer by suggesting some affinity between them and the poster. Conversely, it can also screen, or filter out applications that may be unwanted.

You can even extend this process of filtering further and apply it to the location as a whole. Readings is, as Wikipedia puts it, “a hub for literary and musical connoisseurs since the 1970’s”. Being located in Carlton, Readings is also in the centre of Melbourne’s student ghetto, although with increasing gentrification, the opportunity for many students to live in Carlton is rare. Still, it is located at the gate of the city’s inner northern suburbs, home base for a large percentage of students. So you can argue that the majority posters and seekers frequenting the Readings noticeboard are likely to be young, white, middle-class, educated people. This is not to say, that Readings, or the people using its service would discriminate against groups not included in that assessment, in fact most would be at pains to protest the opposite, but generally I believe that to be a fair generalisation. And as such, they can feel safe in the knowledge that advertising through Readings or applying to those advertisements, will likely ensure interactions with those of like-minds or at the least, similar circumstances.

The Melbourne Gumtree website is the local version of a UK website, which is according to their own description, “a local London classified ads and community site, designed to connect people who were either planning to move, or had just arrived in the city, and needed help getting started with accommodation, employment and meeting new people”. Essentially the demographic of people using gumtree.com.au would be similar to those who use Readings (I used both after all), but I also get the impression that gumtree caters for travelers, backpackers and people who are in Australia for other reasons and are familiar with the site from their interactions in other countries.

What differentiates gumtree from Readings is that all notices are generated from a series of text boxes that the poster fills in. The boxes allow the poster to enter a location, price, posting title, posting description, room type/size, posting category, availabilty to couples, date available, contact e-mail address/phone number, and pictures or video. Providing information for any of these sections in up to the discretion of the poster, and most advertisements feature a combination of only a few. So while there is greater freedom for describing the subject of the advertisement, most posters stick to the basics. As a result most gumtree ads appear the same. A few lines, perhaps paragraphs of text, and occasionally a photograph. Looking at advertisements on gumtree quickly becomes a process of simply identifying a couple of relevant factors that correlate with the needs of the viewer: location, price, number of occupants.

This anonymity, or the homogenizing effect the website’s structure creates, also produced one instance where I suspect I became the potential victim of a scam. I answered an advertisement for a room to rent in Carlton, reasonably well priced for its location, fully furnished, all extra requirements like broadband included, with three photographs of a very luxurious room, comfortable living space and tidy kitchen. The reply that I received from the advertiser was positive, but because she was out of the country, attending a wedding in Edinburgh, I would not be allowed to view the property; but I was expected, to pay a bond in advance to secure the room, which should be transfered to the bank account of her stepfather, who resides in South Africa.

The dubious nature of an arrangement like that, and the advertiser’s poor grammar and english expression, would indicate to myself and hopefully most viewers that this was not a deal to be made, but the structure of the website allowed for the situation to occur. The advertisement could have been posted from a computer anywhere in the world, let’s say Africa, and it would still appear to be another accommodation notice posted with that day’s other entries.

So, gumtree suffers from security concerns and an inabilty to convey as much of the personality of the poster as Readings does. Where both fail however is in their approach of presenting a need of the user (a room/a housemate), which is so tactile and intuitive, as text. Most people are familiar with the experience of going to a share house interview and discovering one, or both, of two things. Firstly, that the people that they are meeting for the first time are not people that they would like to live with. And secondly that the room they are being shown, or the house or as a whole, is not a space in which they can imagine themselves happily spending a large proportion of the hours of their days for an indefinite period of their life. Because as great as the feeling of affinity we imagine for the poster of the advertisement at Readings may be, their is no substitute for experience.

Or is there? Or can we create a system that improves the current situation? It occurred to me after my thirteenth interview in two weeks, that there had to be a better solution. Why wasn’t there a website, like gumtree, that allowed users to advertise themselves or their rooms, but personalize, humanize the content so that the interface was much more like socializing websites like mySpace, Facebook or Friendster?

What if someone seeking a room could create a profile for themselves on this hypothetical website. The range of information that could be entered about them is expanded, and because the categories and systemized, the user is encouraged to comply with them. Rather than being unable or unwilling to write that difficult short summary of who they are, they are given the opportunity to enter a series of what the German sociologist Max Weber calls “elective affinities”: their favourite films, books, artists, designers, their political/sexual orientations, their ideas and beliefs, examples of their work, creativity or taste. There are limits to how much you can divine about a person from what they offer to present of themselves to you. But it does provide an improved forum for the user seeking accommodation to present themselves. And it allows the people advertising rooms to learn more about how appropriate someone who applies for the room might be. I attended interviews with some advertisers who were seeing as many as twenty applicants in one afternoon; others that many across weeks but only after preliminary phone interviews.

For the advertiser, it is still difficult to represent the spacial and metaphysical aspects of a living space, but apart from similar individual profiles from which the applicant can use for the same purposes, perhaps a section describing the rules and expectations of the house, and the responsibilities of those people entering it may be helpful.

These ideas are in a very early stage of development, but the idea seemed to be popular with my group, and no doubt, upon further consideration, the possibilities of such a website will be refined and expanded. So we’ll see what comes of it. I still don’t even know how relevant it is to the principles of interaction design because I haven’t done the reading. Yet.