#case study research

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Case Study 3:

Case study 3:

Malmö central station virtual window/Elsewhere

Overview

Elsewhere is amulti-projection video art work which seeks to transform the reinforced concrete landscape of the Malmö C underground station into a wide open space. Through a projection device that evokes the perceptual experience from the train, the viewers will be invited to lose themselves in images during their wait. The projections acting as windows, the station itself becomes a train that loses its spatial and temporal rails, itinerant across the earth.

Project challenge:

The video landscapes on display on the platform walls. The train platform was a great location for this as a small but somehow silently beautiful nod to this historical conjunction between technologies of transport and technologies of vision. At the Malmö train station platform a projection that imitates the windows of a screen is a nod towards the train passenger’s view as cinematic glimpse into landscapes, people, things passing by, as well as a form of cinematic spectatorship where the projection wall could be seen as stabilized frames – a frozen film, or actually where the frames are frozen but the image magically carries on.

Audience: Tourists, passengers

Impact:

Most visitors arrived early to catch their train from Malmo to Gothenburg in tow decided to wait on the platform for the train.  And Malmö central station virtual window caught these passengers’ attention. Waiting time is very long and there was no train at the platform, but instead people saw a series of moving landscapes on the wall. At first, it seemed a bit strange. It was almost like I was sitting in a train watching the landscape pass by through the window except people were not on a train and yet had this visual illusion. In fact, after overcoming their slightly confused state, they started recognizing some of the world landmarks on display. To some extent, video installation intended to show waiting passengers’ visuals that they would see on train journeys around the world. It is actually a very creative work of art which draws in the viewer, engages them and puts them in a frame of mind to enjoy their train journey. To some extent, the installation opens up thoughts about our relationship to the distant past and to the invisible world, which surrounds us.

Craft:

The starting point for this work is the power movement and rhythm that is constantly generated by and in a railway station. The work focuses on energy from both a physical and existential perspective. The functions of the installation are symbiotically linked to the technical construction of the station building and City tunnel. Tracks of LED lights have been built into the wall of the station. They are in turn triggered and controlled by the arrivals and departures of the trains. The movements of the lights have been programmed to imitate the flocking behavior of small insects that come into the station when a train has left the platform and flee for the darkness of the tunnel again when a new train arrives.

Through a projection device that evokes the perceptual experience from the train, the viewers will be invited to lose themselves in images during their wait. The projections acting as windows, the station itself becomes a train that loses its spatial and temporal rails, itinerant across the earth. This virtual window system like a lost river flows continually into an underground passage. It is said that one never steps in the same river twice; comparably, the installation is elaborated in such a way that it is unlikely that a viewer on a fixed schedule will see the same image time and again. In terms of tempo, the visual window system is conceived as a release for the individual viewer. The recorded images are slowed down, in contrast with the speed of everyday urban life, in order to ease the experiential flow of time. In symbolic terms, this artwork highlights the importance of the Central Station as a node; in its primary sense, as a crucial railway link, but also metaphorically as a connection between the city and the entire world.

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Case study 2:

Circular+

Overview:

Circular+ is a new twist on photo editing. Turn your photos into amazing circular images with Circular+. Circular+ is a fun app with powerful new features never seen before in this type of app. You can easily zoom in and out of your circular image to get it just right. Once you're happy with your image, add professional effects such as lens flares and sky.

 The design challenge:

Give it a twist with Circular and users’ photo takes on a whole different look. Even landscape photos can be viewed from a different perspective with this application. Some of their photos could quickly go from ordinary to extraordinary in seconds with Circular. Turn the photos into amazing circular images with Circular+. Circular+ is a fun app with powerful new features never seen before in this type of app. Users can easily zoom in and out of their circular image to get it just right. Once they are happy with their images, add professional effects such as lens flares and sky objects like the sun, moon, planets, and birds. Another really cool feature is a collection of “center” objects. These include spheres, planets, and geometric shapes to place at the center of your image circle. This turns your image into a mini world.

 Technology/tools:

It requires iOS 6.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. This app is optimized for iPhone 5.

 Interface Designs:

 Super fast and responsive editing

 Adjust image zoom, rotation, invert-mode, and repeats

 Professional effects: lens flares, sky objects, and centers. The lens flares are the same as the pro desktop app, LensFlare Studio

 Filters and Lens Textures

 Fun sample images to get your started

 Check out the print option in Circular under the “Share Menu”. Use code    CIRC14 at checkout.

 Max image size: 2048×2048 pixels

User Engagement:

The app brings a cool new twist to photo editing by turning them circular images. To start things off, people can choose between picking an image from your Camera Roll or taking a new snap of whatever it is they find fascinating. Circular will transform their photo in an instant and the users can pick things up from there. There are several tabs you can work in. For instance, editing the image allows you to zoom in and out of the focus object. Users can also rotate it by using another slider and repeat the image as many times they want. Instead of focusing the image in the centre, there’s also the option of inverting everything and putting the items in the surrounding area in the middle of the image. Then, users can play around with various effects. These are divided by category, including lens flares, sky objects, centres and circles. Otherwise, there’s also a panel allowing you to edit various effects that you added to the image, including by adding a color effect and controlling the brightness. Afterward, Images can be saved to the device, copied or shared over text message, email, Twitter, Facebook and so on. 

 User reviews:

1. Outstanding App With Just A Few Issues By Paul in NJ

This app is better than I ever expected it to be and I have created true works of art from it. A couple of ideas for the developers: 1) I would add a Go Back option to let you return one step so that you don't have to start all over if you do something you wish you had not; 2) I wish when you go to access your photos that it returned to the last folder opened (or at least had an option to do that); and 3) I wish there were an option to save this to my dropbox. Despite that I still highly recommend this app and encourage people to explore its possibilities.

2. Great App!  By Schwabbyjax I have been having a great time creating some amazing pieces, from my original artwork. They are going straight to my online store! I only wish there were two things - first a way to save it in the native format so if I want to go back and tweak or change a design I could. Now you can save it but then the original is gone forever when you start a new one. Second directions somewhere, it is a pretty simple program to learn to use and I have had fun playing around to learn it but I have a feeling there is more I could do with a few simple suggestions of how to..... Great app, definitely worth spending your money on! 

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Case Study 1

Case Study 1:

Google+

Overview:

Google+ is a social network and social layer for Google services that is owned and operated by Google Inc. Google+ launched in June 2011 as a social network. Features included the ability to post photos and status updates to the stream or interest based communities, group different types of relationships (rather than simply "friends") into Circles, a multi-person instant messaging, text and video chat called Hangouts, events, location tagging, and the ability to edit and upload photos to private cloud-based albums. Approximately 540 million monthly active users make use of the social layer by interacting with Google+'s enhanced properties and 300 million monthly active users participate in the social network, interacting with the Google+ social networking stream.

 The design challenge:

The average time that user spent on the site was a small fraction of that on comparable social media services although the number of active users on Google+ grew significantly between 2011 and 2012. After that, Google+ growth stats are difficult to evaluate because Google first defined the service as a social network, then later as "a social layer across all of Google's services", allowing them to share a user's identity and interests. It is worth noting that The Google+ iPhone app became the most popular free application in the Apple App Store in July 2011.

  Technology and tools:

Google+ is a typical Google web application: it uses Java Servest for the server code and JavaScript for the browser-side of the UI, largely built with Google's Closure framework, including the JavaScript compiler and the template system. They use the HTML5 History API to maintain good-looking URLs in modern browsers despite the AJAX app. To achieve fast response times Google often renders the Closure templates on the server side before any JavaScript is loaded; then the JavaScript finds the right DOM nodes, hooks up event handlers, etc. The back ends are built mostly on top of BigTable and Colossus/GFS, and other common Google technologies.

 Interface Designs:

l  +1 Button

Google+ has a "+1 button" to allow people to recommend sites and parts of sites, similar in use to Facebook's Like button

l  Google+ Pages

Google+ Pages to all users. It allows entities that are not individuals (such as organizations, companies, and publications) to set up profiles, or "pages", for the posting and syndication of posts. It is similar to Facebook Pages.

l  Google+ Badges

Google+ Badges are sidebar widgets that embed “Add to Circles” buttons and drop-down lists into off-site websites and blogs, similar to Facebook's Like Box widgets.

l  Google+ Communities

Google+ Communities can also be created and managed under Google+ Page accounts.

l  Google+ Events

Google+ Events allows users to add events, invite people, and then share photos and media in real-time from the event. The program is integrated with Google Calendar, and is posed as a direct competitor to similar features offered by Facebook.

l  "What's hot" Stream

It is a stream showing what Google+ users have commented, shared and interacted with the most. It is similar to "Trending Topics" On Twitter.

l  Huddle

Huddle is a feature available to Android, iPhone, and SMS devices for communicating through instant messaging within Circles. Additionally, users can share photos in Messenger between their Circles.

 User Engagement:

Approximately 540 million monthly active users make use of the social layer by interacting with Google+'s enhanced properties. However, user engagement has been relatively low, averaging around 7 minutes per user per month. However, user engagement did not keep pace. ComScore estimated that users averaged just 3.3 minutes on the site in January 2012, versus 7.5 hours for Facebook. The New York Times described Google+ as a ghost town, citing Google stats of 540 million "monthly active users", but noting that almost half don't visit the site. The company replied that the significance of Google+ was less as a Facebook competitor than as a means of gathering and connecting user information from Google's various services.

 User Engagement

Date

Time spent/mouth

January 2012

3.3 minutes

March 2013

6.8 minutes

 User review:

Advantages:

1.       Better Privacy

Google+ uses a diaspora -like way of sharing content with users by utilizing circles. In fact, this format is very appealing to many users who are working to balance their professional and personal life.  Moreover, Google+ makes it much easier to target content to your individual circles. It can be tricky because the proper circles must be added for each message. Facebook is often critiqued for their dubious privacy changes, and Google seems to be catering to those unhappy users with easy to use privacy options in one location. Besides, deleting an account is straightforward, so is deleting social features. This may appeal to some disgruntled Facebookers, drawing them to use Google+.

2.       About Huddle

Google+ ‘Huddle’ is a non-SMS group chat application for mobile phones. This competes directly with other downloadable apps like Beluga,TextPlus, Kik, and GroupMe. There has not been any run away app in this space, but a Google product like Huddles should help boost it to the forefront.

3.       About Gmail Notification

It is also worth noting that Notifications can be some of the most annoying and confusing elements of social sites, but if people are using Google+ and Gmail, it won’t be. Profile pictures are seamlessly tied in and you almost feel you are on a website instead of in your inbox.

4.       Compared with before

Google+ looks great in comparison to previous Google products. Google+ is very slick and has a ton of visual eye candy inside. Images look awesome when posted. The black ‘Google One Bar’ is very appealing, and some of the JavaScript elements are jaw dropping.

Disadvantages:

1.     About Complexity

As soon as you log-in, you can tell that some brilliant people created this site. However, the UI is too complicated for the average social user.  There are too many options and different features for someone who is trying to simply post up information. This is something that Facebook and Twitter excel at – making hard things simple. To make a post a user must find connections to add to circles, add suggestions and friends to circles, and update content to specific people by choosing circles (which can include ‘your circles,’ or ‘extended circles’). Actually, there are just a lot of options for people and it will take a good deal of getting used to for the non tech-savvy user.

2.     About designed product Name & element Name

The name Google+ is not great. The naming convention inside the service isn’t much better either.  Instead of a ‘like’, users give a post a +1.  The number of +1’s is listed with each post in the form of +#. The users feel confused sometimes. Other element names are also confusing. Google talk is shown under the chat on the left navigation, but ‘hangouts’ aren’t near the chat section of the navigation – and ‘huddles’ is nowhere to be found on the web.

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How much we know about "WINDOW"?

I had a great day: the high point was staring out of the window’.

Why i think staring out the window is an important thing for everyone? We can gain more ideas and answers from following information.

The point of staring out of a window is an exercise in discovering the contents of our own minds. It’s easy to imagine we know what we think, what we feel and what’s going on in our heads. But we rarely do entirely. There’s a huge amount of what makes us who we are that circulates unexplored and unused. Its potential lies untapped. It is shy and doesn’t emerge under the pressure of direct questioning. If we do it right, staring out the window offers a way for us to listen out for the quieter suggestions and perspectives of our deeper selves.

Accurately, Staring out the window offers such an opportunity. We see the world going on: a patch of weeds is holding its own against the wind; a grey tower block looms through the drizzle. But we don’t need to respond; we have no overarching intentions, and so the more tentative parts of ourselves have a chance to be heard, like the sound of church bells in the city once the traffic has died down at night.

Looking out the window is an easy methor to help people improve their work efficiency and thinking ability. For instance, when you allow yourself to just look out the window for 10 minutes – and ponder – your brain will start working in a more creative way. It will grasp ideas from unexpected places.  It’s this very sort of unconscious creativity that leads to great thinking. When you’re driving or showering, you’re letting your mind wander because you don’t have to focus on anything in particular. If you do carve out some time for unobstructed thinking, be sure to free yourself from any specific intent.

Therefore, I will use "Window" as a main element in my project and I also find that the concept of "Window" could be presented differeouch differently through colour screens, a touch interface, and so on.

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Inspiration For My Project

This is a Chinese poem.  Title: Part of Article

Author: Bian Zhilin 你站在桥上看风景，           As you are enjoying the scenery on a bridge 看风景的人在楼上看你。    Upstairs on a tower people are watching you 明月装饰了你的窗子，        The bright moon adorns your window 你装饰了别人的梦。            But you adorn others' dream

In fact, the poet will make people who thought it was the culmination of Dharma! Short excerpts from four compact, easily understood, is not difficult to understand at first glance, but feel fine ponder meaning of infinity. Poet through a few simple objects: people, moon, window, dream, expressing things in the world are interrelated, relatively balanced, interdependent philosophy. Therefore, “Window” as an important factor will be appear in my project and it will also be a design element in my final poster.

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So....What i found?

According to some reading, I have found that.....

About theirfree time

l  Sometimesthe crew stays up late together to watch movies—like The Godfather or, aptly, 2001: A Space Odyssey.

l  Someone moistened strands of bamboo and wove them into tiny, Nantucket Lightship Baskets.

l  Because going outside for a stroll is impossible, others read e-books, write emails, and shop online.

l  On Saturdays and Sundays, astronauts can find many of the crewmembers watching movies, reading books, playing cards or using Skype with their loved ones back home. Most international space stations actually have Wifi for the whole station.