JVE proposal
From S E B A S T I E N G O Y
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| - | Facebook and Twitter, among others, seized in very few years a consequent territory in social interactions. These services colonized the digital habitus. As any colonial enterprise, they aim at profit by expropriation — the raw materials being here the users’ personal information. The repeated breaches of privacy lead to naïve recriminations against profit-driven providers of cost-free services, with little effect. | + | Facebook and Twitter, among others, seized in very few years a consequent territory in social interactions. These services colonized the digital habitus. As any colonial enterprise, they aim at profit by expropriation — the raw materials being here the users’ personal information. The repeated breaches of privacy lead to naïve recriminations against profit-driven providers of cost-free services, with little effect. Naturally, the tools provided by these services reflect this conception and enforce their strategy, by adopting telling models of human-computer interactions. |
| - | + | As any mass medium relying on advertisement revenues, these services actively seek to retain users’ attention. Their user experience must therefore be immersive: Facebook embeds images and videos, to avoid visiting another website, and includes chat, email and calendar tools, to avoid switching to another application, at the cost of providing poor functionalities. To avoid losing user interest, their content is constantly updated: the screen real estate of Facebook puts great emphasis on the “newsfeed”. This leads to a news-centered approach to interaction design, instead of the expected person-centered approach. From this point of view, if these services look like email, they are television in disguise. | |
For instance, centralization of data toward the “metropolitan state” is essential to their business model, so these services turned to client-server architectures. This architecture structures completely the user experience of these services: Facebook still depends on the archaic server query/response model, where a user must “submit” manually a change and wait for an update from the server. The obvious vulnerability of this architecture (offering a “single point of failure” which blocks the entire system) is well-known to the users of Twitter, whose servers often saturate under the increasing load. | For instance, centralization of data toward the “metropolitan state” is essential to their business model, so these services turned to client-server architectures. This architecture structures completely the user experience of these services: Facebook still depends on the archaic server query/response model, where a user must “submit” manually a change and wait for an update from the server. The obvious vulnerability of this architecture (offering a “single point of failure” which blocks the entire system) is well-known to the users of Twitter, whose servers often saturate under the increasing load. | ||
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If the previous critique could prove satisfying as a denunciation, it does little to change the current state of affair in digital interactions. This project therefore envisions a non-profit social networking service, named Entre Nous. The actual implementation of this service is however considered out of scope of the stay at the Jan van Eyck Academie. This project thus aims essentially at challenging the assumptions of the current services by turning to an alternative premise and by elaborating new forms of user interactions. This project belongs therefore to the field of design research. | If the previous critique could prove satisfying as a denunciation, it does little to change the current state of affair in digital interactions. This project therefore envisions a non-profit social networking service, named Entre Nous. The actual implementation of this service is however considered out of scope of the stay at the Jan van Eyck Academie. This project thus aims essentially at challenging the assumptions of the current services by turning to an alternative premise and by elaborating new forms of user interactions. This project belongs therefore to the field of design research. | ||
| - | Three objectives are foreseen, which | + | Three objectives are foreseen, which lead to three project phases. Yet these phases will not be completed sequentially, but iteratively — the refinement of one leading to the refinement of another. |
| - | The first objective is to | + | The first objective is to deconstruct the concepts associated with the current platforms, and to conduct a reflection on “post-colonialist” social networking services. In particular, the relationship between centre and periphery is to be renewed and the users, empowered. A promising direction to achieve the latter is to design for emergence: by allowing users to combine elementary tools at their disposal, they can create their own interaction idioms and develop new social practices. A good, if involuntary, example is to be found in Facebook: the functionality to identify friends on photos has been used to associate a person with a word, character or situation depicted in the image or to draw attention to the image. The conscious decision to design for emergence eases appropriation, détournement and innovative use of these tools. |
| - | + | The second objective of this project is to specify the requirements of Entre Nous. Adopting a user-centered methodology developed in interaction design, fictional users (or personas) will be derived from interviews with potential users, be they satisfied or disappointed by the current services or simply ignorant of them. The personas distill qualitative research about a group of individuals in recurring behavior patterns and goals. The fictional use of Entre Nous by these personas to reach their goals will be then recorded in scenarios. These scenarios constitute the design problem to be addressed by the project. | |
| - | The last objective of this project | + | Using these scenarios, interaction models can be designed and assessed via prototypes and test sessions. The design of these interactions models is the last objective of this project. Converging to a useful form requires an iterative process with frequent assessments. For faster iterations, low-cost prototypes will be used: an interaction model can be tested in a session by having an operator simply draw the visual elements on paper and simulate the behavior of the system. A more sophisticated prototype can use a real computer to display an interface, remotely operated by a “Wizard of Oz”. |
III | III | ||
| - | Designing for emergence means creating tools for designers, a meta-design which is difficult to assess. In particular, it requires for the test sessions participants who have an inherent drive for playful experimentation. This naturally designates artists, such as the researchers at the Jan Van Eyke Academy. Beyond this aspect, the community at the Academy will nurture, by the variety of their profile, a dialogue which is deemed essential for this interdisciplinary | + | This ambitious project is indeed the first occasion for me to establish a solid bridge between my artistic practice and my work as engineer, which existed previously independently. Developing Entre Nous within the institutional context of the Jan Van Eyk Academy inherently structures and qualifies this project; exploring this new, intermediary space through this project will be guided by critical exchanges with tutors. The advisors and guests are subsequently expected to turn the search for alternatives into a rigorous process. Designing for emergence means creating tools for designers, a meta-design which is difficult to assess. In particular, it requires for the test sessions participants who have an inherent drive for playful experimentation. This naturally designates artists, such as the researchers at the Jan Van Eyke Academy. Beyond this aspect, the community at the Academy will nurture, by the variety of their profile, a dialogue which is deemed essential for this interdisciplinary project. |
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Latest revision as of 16:52, 15 November 2012
Entre Nous
Due to their profit-oriented nature, current social networking services use a narrow notion of social interaction and offer consequently limited human-computer interactions. This project seeks, by removing the requirement of profitability, to broaden this notion and to design new interaction models for an alternative social networking service.
I
Facebook and Twitter, among others, seized in very few years a consequent territory in social interactions. These services colonized the digital habitus. As any colonial enterprise, they aim at profit by expropriation — the raw materials being here the users’ personal information. The repeated breaches of privacy lead to naïve recriminations against profit-driven providers of cost-free services, with little effect. Naturally, the tools provided by these services reflect this conception and enforce their strategy, by adopting telling models of human-computer interactions.
As any mass medium relying on advertisement revenues, these services actively seek to retain users’ attention. Their user experience must therefore be immersive: Facebook embeds images and videos, to avoid visiting another website, and includes chat, email and calendar tools, to avoid switching to another application, at the cost of providing poor functionalities. To avoid losing user interest, their content is constantly updated: the screen real estate of Facebook puts great emphasis on the “newsfeed”. This leads to a news-centered approach to interaction design, instead of the expected person-centered approach. From this point of view, if these services look like email, they are television in disguise.
For instance, centralization of data toward the “metropolitan state” is essential to their business model, so these services turned to client-server architectures. This architecture structures completely the user experience of these services: Facebook still depends on the archaic server query/response model, where a user must “submit” manually a change and wait for an update from the server. The obvious vulnerability of this architecture (offering a “single point of failure” which blocks the entire system) is well-known to the users of Twitter, whose servers often saturate under the increasing load.
II
If the previous critique could prove satisfying as a denunciation, it does little to change the current state of affair in digital interactions. This project therefore envisions a non-profit social networking service, named Entre Nous. The actual implementation of this service is however considered out of scope of the stay at the Jan van Eyck Academie. This project thus aims essentially at challenging the assumptions of the current services by turning to an alternative premise and by elaborating new forms of user interactions. This project belongs therefore to the field of design research.
Three objectives are foreseen, which lead to three project phases. Yet these phases will not be completed sequentially, but iteratively — the refinement of one leading to the refinement of another.
The first objective is to deconstruct the concepts associated with the current platforms, and to conduct a reflection on “post-colonialist” social networking services. In particular, the relationship between centre and periphery is to be renewed and the users, empowered. A promising direction to achieve the latter is to design for emergence: by allowing users to combine elementary tools at their disposal, they can create their own interaction idioms and develop new social practices. A good, if involuntary, example is to be found in Facebook: the functionality to identify friends on photos has been used to associate a person with a word, character or situation depicted in the image or to draw attention to the image. The conscious decision to design for emergence eases appropriation, détournement and innovative use of these tools.
The second objective of this project is to specify the requirements of Entre Nous. Adopting a user-centered methodology developed in interaction design, fictional users (or personas) will be derived from interviews with potential users, be they satisfied or disappointed by the current services or simply ignorant of them. The personas distill qualitative research about a group of individuals in recurring behavior patterns and goals. The fictional use of Entre Nous by these personas to reach their goals will be then recorded in scenarios. These scenarios constitute the design problem to be addressed by the project.
Using these scenarios, interaction models can be designed and assessed via prototypes and test sessions. The design of these interactions models is the last objective of this project. Converging to a useful form requires an iterative process with frequent assessments. For faster iterations, low-cost prototypes will be used: an interaction model can be tested in a session by having an operator simply draw the visual elements on paper and simulate the behavior of the system. A more sophisticated prototype can use a real computer to display an interface, remotely operated by a “Wizard of Oz”.
III
This ambitious project is indeed the first occasion for me to establish a solid bridge between my artistic practice and my work as engineer, which existed previously independently. Developing Entre Nous within the institutional context of the Jan Van Eyk Academy inherently structures and qualifies this project; exploring this new, intermediary space through this project will be guided by critical exchanges with tutors. The advisors and guests are subsequently expected to turn the search for alternatives into a rigorous process. Designing for emergence means creating tools for designers, a meta-design which is difficult to assess. In particular, it requires for the test sessions participants who have an inherent drive for playful experimentation. This naturally designates artists, such as the researchers at the Jan Van Eyke Academy. Beyond this aspect, the community at the Academy will nurture, by the variety of their profile, a dialogue which is deemed essential for this interdisciplinary project.
