Liselott Brunnberg continued the theme for the day and discussed context in a mobile sense.
This project always interested us because it addressed a different market. While it focuses on the “highway experience,” their user is not the driver, but the passenger and especially children. This allowed them to build a more immersive device, that can actually distract users. Context is used in a very direct, but also an as yet unique manner. The users can get fictional information about the road, about buildings you pass by and so on, and stories and games are built around this.
One of the more interesting bits about this, which I didn’t totally internalize after reading our interview with her from a few months ago was that passengers in a car are exposed to a fixed narrative flow. Their ability to influence the world is more limited than we often conceive of users working in a contextually-intelligent system. She even showed us a video of some of the test kids actually using it; as with almost any test, actually watching people using devices is really interesting, and encouraging.
Our mini-theme of academics was wrapped up with Lee Humphreys from Cornell University on her findings from a study she did of mobile social networks. Specifically, she wanted to see them as actually used, not by some beta testers for a short time, and in multiple locations.
If you want to know more about running international studies, feel free to ask her. She has lots of tips and horror stories.
Her research sought to find:
- How might mobile social networks help to bring people together in public space?
- What is the nature of interactions that develop around mobile social networks?
- How might these interactions change the way users experience public space?
And her findings, in summary, are that they encourage:
- Social Molecularization – “I learn about new places through other people’s behavior”
- Parochialization; contextual neighborhood familiarity – “It’s helpful walking int a place and having a sense of who’s already around there”
- 3 Spaces; itinerant, not home, not work places – “Makes the social scene a little smaller and a little closer”
Jacob Lyng Wieland is a researcher for the Danish Broadcasting Corporation. If you are wondering, his first slide is “what is the Danish Broadcasting Corporation doing here?” They have the most visited media website in Denmark, and generally are strongly pursuing all sorts of media distribution.
He’s been looking into a mobile app they launched (as a prototype or beta I guess) that lets users participate with broadcast TV shows. This is an enhancement to SMS voting interaction systems that have already been used, but they wanted to make sure it got rid of all those difficulties. They also could not use SMS for children’s programming, due to the cost issues (both morally and legally, as they are a public service broadcaster), so built this first application for a popular (59% share of target audience) show targeting school-age children, which I cannot pronounce or spell.
Something like 80% of Danish children between 8 and 11 do indeed have mobile phones. Over 11 it’s over 100% (multiple devices). I can’t think of a reason the U.S. is not moving this way.
The test was fairly open, so several thousand apps were downloaded, but they also observed several children directly.
- Mobile competency was very high, including understanding of billing and data connections
- When bored with the show, they’d just play with the devices, and do things like customize the wallpaper by transferring one from their own
- They did find it fun to interact with the TV show
- They did claim it was easier than SMSing votes, but there’s no solid data on how much children do that
- There was some fear that the app download would be charged to them (or their parents, but they are aware of the consequences of high bills on their phones)
- The requirement for a network connection (and the permission interceptor) hung up those with less mobile competency, who could not pass it without assistance
- Some issues with only presenting items that related to what is on the TV at the time
- Skilled readers disregarded intro text, much as adults; those with lower reading skills agonized and could not always tell if it was important
- Participants had issues correlating a spoken name to a printed name in a list; the recommendation now is to use photographs when possible
- The value-add of real-time voting results reduced viewing of the TV broadcast
And, except for one last night on the town, we wrapped up with a round table I hosted, on the future of app stores. It was going to be a panel, but since almost everyone in the room was asking questions of other speakers, it seemed best to just involve everyone anyway.
Sadly, we didn’t have an actual round table. The points I threw out there to start the conversation were:
I didn’t have a chance to take notes during it, and now I’m tired so if anyone wants to comment on their participation, please do so.