Today we are expecting visits from our partners and stakeholders who will be encouraged to play with the devices, explore the content, read the blog and watch some the participant interviews from the Public Trial. We will then be asking for feedback, suggestions and ideas based on their UT experience.
The trial has finally ended – nine long days with exactly 100 participants. You can read their feedback attached as comments to each day's evaluation post, and see all of the posts in the Trial Evaluation category.
Tomorrow we begin the process of looking back over what has taken place, understanding what we can learn from this experience – not just technically, but also in terms of social and cultural implications arising from what participants have begun to author using the system.
We'll be drawing some conclusions about key themes and issues that emerge from the trial and creating a discussion space here for people interested in Urban Tapestries, public authoring and pervasive communications etc. We welcome contributions to this discussion from everyone, no matter what your interest or reason for taking part.
As we plan and develop the next stage of UT we'll continue to use this blog as part of our ongoing commitment to the open discussion and sharing of ideas, concepts and methods.
Another fifteen people are set to play with the system today.
In order to better understand the experience of using Urban Tapestries we are interested in finding out more about some of the areas listed below and ask users when they finish a two hour session to add their thoughts on them.
What was difficult or easy about making a thread or pocket?
Did you find it easy to access the pockets that you created?
Did you follow a thread? What was the experience like?
What did you think of the map? Could you find your way around?
How did you feel using this technology on the street?
What kind of threads did you create?
What type of threads would you have liked to create that you didn’t do today and why?
What was your experience of reading pockets/content created by other people?
Did any of these influence your own ideas for public authoring?
Over the last seven days participants have authored and uploaded hundreds of new threads and pockets of content to the system. Here is a sample of some of them;
The joggers challenge - street directions for adventurous running
Now you can see me (NYCSM) - a hide and seek game
Banks to pilfer - a security audit and plan of attack
A day in the life of an urban knitter
Lookalikes - urban spotting of celebrity lookalikes
Chocolate with that - a fictional journey
Clothes - what people are wearing
Strange shops - what they sell and the people that run them
Cool cafes and camera shops - a guide to the best macchiatos and digital deals
Fifteen people are set to play with the system today.
When participants return their devices we ask them to tell us what their experience was like. This is part of our particpatory evaluation process which is designed to be open and transparent and allow people who are interested in the project to get an immediate sense of how people are responding to the aims of the trial. The participants' feedback and response to our questions (noted above) are attached as comments to this post...
The P800 has finally arrived for the trial, but remains unfinished as the XMLRPC problems were not able to be resolved in time.
Never-the-less we have an exciting and functioning application that works on a mobile phone and contains nearly all of the desired functionality we wished for at this stage of the project. Combined with the iPAQ it is a really exciting step forward for public authoring in the future. Thanks to the team at France Telecom R&D who have made a great effort to develop this application.
Each two hour trial session features a 30-45minute intro to the project and training on the device. Then depending on the weather participants either wander around the streets authoring their own threads or stay and play in the UT HQ on the system. Then at the end of the session we ask what the experience was like.
Here are some pictures of people training and contributing to the blog. As we have so much technology that needs charging we have to prioritise it over the heaters - which explains why everyone looks so rugged up indoors.
And on the seventh day.... we are running the trial again. We have twelve sessions booked in for today.
When participants return their devices we ask them to tell us what their experience was like. This is part of our particpatory evaluation process which is designed to be open and transparent and allow people who are interested in the project to get an immediate sense of how people are responding to the aims of the trial. The participants' feedback and response to our questions (noted above) are attached as comments to this post...
It's the sixth day of the trial and (though we are not obsessed by it) the weather seems worse for outside activities, given it is raining today. We have 15 sessions booked in for today.
When participants return their devices we ask them to tell us what their experience was like. This is part of our particpatory evaluation process which is designed to be open and transparent and allow people who are interested in the project to get an immediate sense of how people are responding to the aims of the trial. The participants' feedback and response to our questions (noted above) are attached as comments to this post...
Today was the fifth day of the trial and the weather was slightly better for outdoor activites. Eleven participants took part and when they returned their devices we asked them to tell us what their experience was like.
This is part of our particpatory evaluation process which is designed to be open and transparent and allow people who are interested in the project to get an immediate sense of how people are responding to the aims of the trial. The participants' feedback and response to our questions (noted above) are attached as comments to this post...
Today was the fourth day of the trial and ten participants took part in the trial. When people return their devices we ask them to tell us what their experience was like.
This is part of our particpatory evaluation process which is designed to be open and transparent and allow people who are interested in the project to get an immediate sense of how people are responding to the aims of the trial. The participants' feedback and response to our questions (noted above) are attached as comments to this post...
I'm stuck up here in Glasgow while the trial is underway :-(
Despite this its great to see the new pockets aggregating on the map, in much the same way as the post-it notes built up on the bodystorimng vinyl map.
I'm also really enoying the users' blogs, much of the comment is highlighting problems we anticipated, and have ideas for solving, but it is so much more real when its real people saying things after having tried it out, than just a conclusion reached at the end of a long meeting. I'm glad that we're managing to engage peoples' imaginations. It is the imagination of the users that will define the "texture" of the experience after all.
Anyway I want to say Thanks and Respect, to the trialists for taking the time and making this such a fun thing to view from afar, and I'm just sorry that we didn't have time to make a more elaborate piece of software.
d.
15 sessions are booked in today.
This blog is part of our particpatory evaluation process which is designed to be open and transparent and allow people who are interested in the project to get an immediate sense of how people are responding to the aims of the trial. The participants' feedback and response to our questions (noted above) are attached as comments to this post...
Two days in and we've had 19 devices borrowed and used by participants. Its been a bitterly cold weekend – not ideal weather conditions for an outdoor tech trial – but in some ways good in itself as we've really had to contend with the daily reality of using pervasive mobile devices in the real world.
Having had to postpone the arrival of the P800 mobile phone version due to a bug in its XMLRPC library, we are now hoping that a recently provided fix will mean its trial debut mid-week. Meanwhile the iPAQs have taken the brunt of the testing and have been put through their paces. As expected we've noted a number of bugs and issues, as well as hearing wish list functionality from trial participants that we've already planned in, but had to leave out of this prototype version. A quick bug fix has much improved the speed of the software on the iPAQ, and we hope to resolve further bugs and issues in the software over the next week.
Our mesh has also had its tribulations, as three network outages dropped the number of active nodes and reduced the extent of wifi coverage. Hopefully we will manage to reconnect these nodes to each other during the week – allowing trial participants to spend more time out in the freezing cold!
Today is the second day of the trial, with 12 sessions booked in. When people return their devices we ask them to tell us what their experience was like.
This is part of our particpatory evaluation process which is designed to be open and transparent and allow people who are interested in the project to get an immediate sense of how people are responding to the aims of the trial. The participants' feedback and response to our questions (noted above) are attached as comments to this post...
All the setup is done and the trial of the Urban Tapestries prototype starts today and we have seven sessions booked in. When people return their devices we ask them to tell us what their experience was like.
This is part of our particpatory evaluation process which is designed to be open and transparent – allowing people who are interested in the project to get an immediate sense of how people are responding to the aims of the trial.
We've had over 80 bookings for the trial so far, and around 65 places remain available for booking until the 6th December. From then on bookings can only be made one day in advance, and participants will be able to book a second place should they wish to take part again.
To book your place click here.