Born on the Web

Click the images for original size. My great guest blogger Frits is finishing his master thesis, normally Frits would have finished his year together with me, but he decided getting drunk and scoring girls was more important at the moment. :-) So here he is working for school in summer time. He asked me to give some feedback on the project he's working on. I'll do it on the blog, so you guys can give your opinion too. Don't hesitate to criticize him in the comments. For once it's ok. His project involved a research he did in the use of a metaphor in the design of a website. Now he is making a personal portfolio using a metaphor.

After the preloader this pretty huuge corkboard shows. People can move their mouse around to discover what the different sections are. If they mouse over a section you'll see more info about it. (black boxes popping up) People expect to be able to move the elements on a corkboard, therefore the project thumbnails are dragable. I like the idea of using a cork board, it's dead simple, everybody knows it and recognizes it. The link to an offline cork board is very tangent and for a portfolio a good match. So I think the metaphor is pretty well taught out. I'm only a bit worried about the usability. I'm not sure were to find the navigation, I guess it is the post it note in the right top corner. Maybe a clever animation can make this clear. People visiting the site should feel some structure, now it seems very chaotic.

Pictures straight from Flickr. You can browse through them on the site by clicking the left or right picture. I love how he integrates his social profiles into his portfolio (del.icio.us, flickr). This can makes the relatively static portfolio more lively. I would however make the text on the board more "in your face". Not only the design has to be compliant with the metaphor also the text on the board. I would try to give some attention to that part of the project. For example change the pretty boring "view on flickr" link to something like "Lickr my Flickr". This makes exploring the cork board a bit more challenging, I know that's in contrary with my usability remark. But I guess you should try to find a good balance between reasonable usability and fun in exploring the board.

Leave some dymo messages on the wall. I'm not sure people got the idea of the dymo. A simple animation is enough to make this clear, again I would do this in a very direct way. For example an animation of the dymo typing a message: "This animation is specially made for all the stupid morons who can't understand this is the button leave a message." Maybe I'm going to far in this, but you get the idea.

When a project thumbnail is clicked the project details slide on the screen and the background becomes blurry. The project view contains a slideshow of screenshots of the site and production documents. Frits has to realize the projects are the most important part of his site. Potential employers or customers are interested in seeing what you're experience is, what your good at. If they like your projects, the next thing they will like to see is what kind of person you are. Are you on top of new technologies? proof: updated blog/del.icio.us feed. Are you a social person? proof: Flickr feed. What was your latest project? proof: a very good updated project section. If they all like that, the only thing they want is to find your contact information. Make it easy for your visitors to find your email address. Don't use a web form, maybe the person visiting the site isn't responsible for contacting you, but he can recommend you to someone else. Make your email copy/pastable. You're going to have spam anyway so... I like the overall idea and it looks pretty cool. Try to make the animations as smooth as possible so people can really experience your portfolio playground. Don't forget the purpose of a good portfolio. Carry on ...

Last week thursday and friday my classmates, including Jesse, presented their final master thesis and final thesis projects. It was a very big day for all of them, marking the end of their four year academic journey at C-MD. During those years everyone has developed their own personal area's of interest in the wide environment of Communication & Multimedia Design and this reflects in the choice of subjects. They can broadly be placed in four research categories: social media, experience design, interactive story telling & media access. Yesterday we received the news that all of them have passed. Way to go guys! Enjoy your holliday. Here's an overview of all the thesises: Experience design Online Decoreren Ricardo Gonzalez Gallego Pdf Artist Branding Jelle Vanderlee Pdf Site: www.ebrandedartist.be Interactive Music David Lenaerts Pdf Ik ben, ik draag en ik beleef - Mobiele communicatie als Brand Experience tool Hoi-Yan Leung thesis download Social media Aggregating the web Jesse Wynants Pdf Dialoog stimuleren binnen de meningsvorming (gesitueerd in een context van politieke duidingsprogramma's) Lev Detrez Pdf: download Url: http://www.dialogeren.be Interactieve televisie & veranderend kijkgedrag Johan Van Hove Pdf Site: http://www.idtv-platform.be/ Interactive Story Telling Generative story-telling David Roose Word file Project The Exquisite Comic! Jeroen Cornelissen Pdf Url: www.exquisitecomic.be Blog: blog.exquisitecomic.be Media access eID Wat is het? Hoe werkt het? Wat zijn de mogelijkheden? Alexander Goossens Pdf Ritmeonderwijs door middel van een lespakket aangevuld met educatieve computertoepassing. Kan een lespakket en ondersteunende toepassing een meerwaarde bieden aan het muziekonderwijs in de lagere school? Michaël Liekens & Veerle Paulissen Thesis pdf Bijlagen Electronic Program Guide Usability Steven Van Tendeloo thesis download

Well I'm a bit embarrassed I didn't really got a decent "thank you" in my paper. I should have noted my friends explicitly. But the only thing I could think about was getting the damn paper printed. When browsing to the papers of my friends Johan and Lev I found following lines in the acknowledgments:

• Alle bewoners van Berebroek studentenhome met in het bijzonder de heer Van Hove en de heer Wynants.
• Lev en Jesse voor hun vriendschap, optimisme, humor, werklust, spontaniteit en de zotte stoten,…

Well they should be thanked properly, so here is the official thank you specially for my friends at C-MD: Bedankt beste bazekes, Zonder een partijtje voetbal tussendoor, een kook - drinkpartij of gewoon wat vettige praat verkopen (in de 4 jaar op kot is mijn nederlandse woordenschat kennis sterk gestegen), had ik nooit de motivatie gevonden te werken aan mijn project of thesis. Zelfs al interesseerde het jullie soms totaal niet, toch mocht ik af en toe severen tegen jullie. Ik weet zeker dat we elkaar nog regelmatig gaan terugzien ook al gaat iedereen een beetje zijn eigen weg uit. Bij deze wens ik jullie allemaal veel succes in het vinden van die eigen weg en weet dat er in mijn mailbox altijd plaats zal zijn voor een mailtje van jullie. Bedankt!!

Well, my paper is finished, after almost a year of brainstorming, discussing, choosing and writing. I can say: "enough!". I needed to keep my feed reader closed this week because I kept on putting new stuff in the paper. But finally it has come to an end. I am pretty happy with the result. It was a very interesting experience and I hope to use the theory later on in other projects. This is what I find the most interesting and I would really love to work further in this area after my graduation. Anyway like I always promised, here is the pdf of the full paper. Feel free to look into it. I'm going to print it tomorrow(06-06-06:)) morning so if you find a mistake, please do mail me on jesse at f4l dot be . Other remarks and suggestion also always welcome. Download the paper (pdf, right click - save as...) Now a little thank you, to all the people that helped me out:

• First of all, my promoters and lecturers: Niels Hendriks and Kris Aerts.
• Arun Rattan & my mom for reviewing the text. I couldn't have done it without those two guardian angels ;) .
• All my test users of the project, who provided me with valuable feedback.
• The people who attended my presentation at Barcamp and gave me feedback.
• Of course my colleague students for their view on my subject.
• Everyone else, with whom I talked about my ideas.

Well what's next, actually not that much (WOOHOO!!) . I need to present my paper in front of the jury the 22th of June. I'll post the presentation. I still have some projects running that urgently need to be finished. I'm not sure yet, what to do with the blog. I'll probably keep on posting my findings on the "world live web". As a bonus, here is the contents of the paper. Have fun with it and let me know what you think. Introduction 1 Abstract 2 Contents 3 1. The shift from WEB 1.0 to WEB 2.0 5 1.1 Introduction 6 1.2 What is the WEB 2.0? What is the difference with WEB 1.0? 6 1.3 WEB 2.0: a buzzword, marketing term or useful evolution of the web? 6 1.3.1 Usability 8 1.3.2 Economy 9 1.3.3 Design 9 1.3.4 Standardisation 10 1.3.5 Remixability 11 1.3.6 Convergence 1.3.7 Participation 12 1.4 Online content in a WEB 2.0 environment 13 2. Online content 14 2.1 Introduction 15 2.2 Evolution of the web 2.2.1 The static web 15 2.2.2 The world live web 16 2.3 Importance of online content 16 2.4 Contributing online content 17 2.5 Creating content no longer for the elite early adopters 17 2.6 Interacting with online content 18 2.7 The upward spiral of syndicated content 19 2.8 Content interaction models 21 2.8.1 CIM 1: Content is the same as User Interface. 21 2.8.2 CIM 2: Content lives in the database. 22 2.8.3 CIM 3: User generated content 22 2.8.4 CIM 4: Syndication 23 2.8.5 CIM 5: Web service 24 2.9 Use of new Content interaction Models 27 2.9.1 Amazon S3 27 2.9.2 Ning.com 27 2.9.3 Flickr.com to Amazon S3 27 2.10 Consequences of WEB 2.0 Content Interaction Models 27 3. Network of services 29 3.1 Introduction 30 3.2 Network effect of services 30 3.2.1 What is a network effect? 30 3.2.2 Network effect of services 30 3.3 Consequences of network effect 31 3.3.1 Accelerating innovation 31 3.3.2 Increasing competitive services 31 3.3.3 Increasingly specialized services 31 3.3.4 User empowerment 31 3.3.5 Standardisation 32 3.4 Advantages for the service provider 32 3.4.1 Value of content increases 3.4.2 Drive people to your stuff 32 3.4.3 Less central development 33 3.4.4 Advertising 33 3.4.5 Pay-for service 33 3.4.6 Partnerships 33 4. Project: Metathings.com 34 4.1 Introduction 35 4.2 The theory behind Metathings 35 4.2.1 Remixability 4.2.2 Content Interaction model: Syndication 4.2.3 Participation 36 4.3 Testing phase 36 4.4 How did I come to Metathings concept? 36 4.5 How did I come to my conclusions? 37 4.5.1 During the test period 37 4.5.2 After the test period 37 4.6 The conclusions 37 4.7 The future of Metathings 38 Conclusion 39 Bibliography 40 Webliography 40 Acknowledgments 42

We'll present our project for the module experimental media there. It's not really an ITV specific project, more a cross media game for kids. If you like to know more about it, check out the site. You're invited ...