The team has been hard at work refining our idea and planning out exactly what it is we need to do and why.
We began by exploring the different types of ads that we could incorporate into the social media. We explored the different effect that each type of ad has on people and how that relates to the type of message we want to convey at each point.
We decided to steer clear of the pop-up and really obnoxious ads as we want to keep people interested in the installation instead of being immediately put off by in-your-face advertising. Also, keeping it as close to real social media as possible where the ads are incorporated in between the content so it seems like a natural part of the experience.
While there’s only one person using the social media we decided to allow the user to type normally until they post. At this point the text turns into another ad. We were debating whether to make it so that the processing sketch would convert whatever the user was typing into ads in real time. This we were afraid would create the impression that the project was just an ad generator and people would create conclusions about the piece before it had gotten to the second (multiple people) state.
We really want our social media to be a connection point between people so the interaction between both parties is extremely important. So what we get people to write about should stimulate conversation outside of the social media itself. A few of the questions that we created were “What article of clothing do you like best on your friend?”, “What is your friend planning on doing for the rest of the evening?”. It’s questions like these that require interaction between parties that we think will communicate our message strongest.
Yesterday the troupe went on a field trip to the Auckland City Art Gallery to see how reputable artists set up installations. This experience was useful for us to see how we need to consider every accessory to the installation to fit the intended theme. A few of the things we identified that we need to take into consideration was the desk that we would use, the seating (which we decided would create a more authentic social media setting), and the lighting. Something else that I observed in the exhibitions was that they customized their accessories to match the aesthetic of the piece. For example, there was a pair of headphones that were roughly spray-painted brown to match the grunge aesthetic of the piece.
Sketching out some possible UI designs, the team discussed pros and cons to each one. Wanting to keep it original and interesting but still clearly inspired by the Facebook style. We’ve decided to go ahead with the layout left center.
