Facebook Suggestions

So here’s some of the ideas and hardships we had to endure while redesigning the video app of Facebook (at least a paper prototype version of the app). First, we had to reverse engineer most of Facebook to try to get at the Information Architecture. It was also hard to try to figure out the parts of Facebook which were universal pieces of information, and how they were interconnected. Once this was done, the next task for us was to interpret the pieces of information and then regroup them.

Once this was completed, we were faced with the navigation issues of Facebook. With some differences in the actual pages one is directed with when using the video app, coupled with the “ajaxastic” (our prof’s word) nature of Facebook, made for a tough experience to get a hold of. This also was further complicated by the customizable nature of Facebook, in addition to the on-the-fly reconfiguration of the pages, as dictated by the implementation. In short, we had the task of trying to pin down a dynamic website into a static form, which led to an interesting activity. When we thought of changing the unit of analysis to apps, instead of pieces of information, the task became a little easier, as one could think of Facebook as a holder of modules of information, which is easier to handle.

Awesome Suggestions from Our Class

*Make a video show on Facebook, and have users vote for the best videos to show together on Facebook.

*Use clips from the videos users upload to use as a profile picture

*Have each user be a reporter and report what they are doing with video status updates

*Have different emoticons for each user by importing different clips of our faces

*Integrate the fun of greenscreens with the videos users import into Facebook

*Use comments in video akin to VH1′s Pop Up Video

*Make the error messages more useful, as many of us couldn’t create videos easily onto Facebook

Update On Our Final

We get to make a video prototype of a museum exhibit. This is going to be pretty awesome, as we get to work in groups and get to choose our own exhibit content. Any ideas from in the world on something you would like to see? We also get to have the stipulation that the design itself has to be universally accessible, and we have to simulate through bodystorming what it means to be have a disability. We get to chronicle this into a portfolio of work, including the video. Look here for some fun, as it will be posted!

The Importance of Experience Prototyping

The authors of this piece, Buchenau and Suri, define prototypes as a representation of a design before the final artifact exists. They also define in 3 parts: the concrete sensory experience, the functionality of an artifact relevant to a person, and the contextual factors contributing to the experience.

The introduction to this paper was also brought to us with two great quotes:

“By the term “Experience Prototype” we mean to emphasize the experiential aspect of whatever representations are needed to successfully (re)live or convey an experience with a product, space or system”

“We can say an Experience Prototype is any kind of representation, in any medium, that is designed to understand, explore or communicate what it might be like to engage with the product, space or system we are designing.”

The other last piece of information we were introduced with this paper was that prototypes are demonstrated usually to passive audiences, and experience prototypes are meant to bridge this gap. We also got to experience this as well, as we got to see how animators of Spirited Away drew a dragon, by looking at the natural behavior of eels and golden retrievers.

Stay tuned for more!