1. Analysis of three social activities
Our first task was to select three social activities and analyse them based on the aspects they consist of.
The three activities I picked were: book club, art class, and political demonstration. Here is an overview of my research on these activities.
ACTIVITY # 1: BOOK CLUB
General
Why is this activity there?
A book club is a group of people who meet to discuss a book or books they have read and to express their opinions, likes, dislikes, etc. A book club brings people into a community and helps them make new friends. It's an activity that can help reduce stress and gain new perspectives. It could also act as a motivation to finish reading a book. According to some studies, a book club also facilitates teamwork.
What distinguishes this activity?
A book club offers an opportunity to find like-minded people, exchange opinions and discuss what was read. A book club develops love for reading. Club members can be people of any age, including people with disabilities.
What happens before the activity?
A book / author / topic is selected by the club leader prior to the activity. Some clubs take turns on who chooses the reading material. Many clubs have lists of discussion questions that are perfect for starting conversations. Participants find or order a book to read. A group sets up a meeting.
What happens after the activity?
After the activity, people go home or leave to another place.
What are key micro-interactions that take place during the activity?
Important micro-interactions that occur during the activity are dialogue and discussion, eye contact, gestures, facial expressions and expression of emotions.
What cannot be represented digitally?
Tactile contact cannot be represented digitally.
What unwritten rules or social norms does the activity offer?
Social norms during this activity include being in a quiet place and having food and drinks available. Participants should not interrupt one another.
Communication
How does the communication take place before the activity? (Planning)
The next activity can be planned during the meeting. There may also be a digital tool that can be used to schedule the activity (group on social media / email / app etc.)
How do people get together for the activity?
People usually come alone or in small groups to a scheduled time.
How does the communication take place during the activity? In the whole group? Partly in subgroups / one-on-one discussions?
Communication usually takes place in the whole group.
What happens verbally and non-verbally?
Expression of one's own thoughts, participating in a dialogue and discussion happens verbally. Expression of emotions and thoughts through the body happens non-verbally.
Does someone moderate and/ or direct the activity?
Usually there is a moderator.
Context
Where does the activity take place?
Book clubs can happen in private homes, libraries, bookstores, pubs, cafes or restaurants, online forums.
When does the activity take place?
The activity can take place at any agreed time between the moderator and participants.
Does the activity take place regularly? If so, how often?
The activity usually takes place every month or every other month. This is done to give the participants time to read a book.
How many people are involved in the activity?
Book clubs are usually made up of small groups (10-12 participants).
Do all participants in the activity know each other?
The participants do not know each other, but they can introduce themselves to each other as the communication proceeds.
Who can watch the activity? Is it open to the public or closed?
This is a publicly closed activity.
Aspects
Based on the research, I identified the following social aspects of this activity: discussion, exchange of views, expression and exchange of emotions, reading together.
ACTIVITY # 2: ART CLASS
General
Why is this activity there?
Art class is an activity that helps to develop various practical skills. It provides an opportunity to immerse yourself into art, express creativity and take a look at the world from a different perspective. It also reduces stress, improves physical and mental health. Additionally, it's a great way to meet new people with common interests.
What distinguishes this activity?
Art class is an opportunity to create something visually appealing and potentially powerful. It helps to develop the right hemisphere of the brain, which is responsible for spatial orientation, holistic perception, three-dimensional perception, imagination, dreams, rhythm and color.
What happens before the activity?
Before the activity participants come to a place where the class will be held and prepare themselves (choose a place, materials, etc.).
What happens after the activity?
After the activity, participants clean after themselves and leave.
What are key micro-interactions that take place during the activity?
Important micro-interactions that occur during the activity are instructions from a teacher, feedback (including physical micro-interactions), dialogue, expression of emotions.
What cannot be represented digitally?
Physical micro-interactions cannot be represented digitally.
What unwritten rules or social norms does the activity offer?
Social norms during this activity include being on time, not sitting too close and not invading someone's personal space, not being loud, cleaning up after yourself.
Communication
How does the communication take place before the activity? (Planning)
The next activity can be planned during a meeting. There may also be a digital tool that can be used to schedule the activity (social media group / email / app etc).
How do people get together for the activity?
People usually come alone or in small groups at the scheduled time.
How does the communication take place during the activity? In the whole group? Partly in subgroups / in one-on-one discussions?
Communication can take place in the entire group, in subgroups and in the one-on-one discussions.
What happens verbally and non-verbally?
Instructions, discussions and feedback are given verbally. Facial expressions and gestures are a non-verbal addition to what is happening verbally.
Does someone moderate and / or direct the activity?
There is a moderator of the activity.
Context
Where does the activity take place?
The activity usually takes place in an art studio or any location that is equipped with the necessary materials and which may accommodate the required number of participants.
When does the activity take place?
The activity can take place at any time agreed between a moderator and participants.
Does the activity take place regularly? If so, how often?
The activity takes place regularly. Usually every week.
How many people are involved in the activity?
Art classes usually consist of small groups (10-12 participants).
Do all participants in the activity know each other?
No, but they can introduce themselves to each other in the course of further communication.
Who can watch the activity? Is it open to the public or closed?
This is a publicly closed activity.
Aspects
Based on the research, I identified the following social aspects of this activity: dialogue, giving and receiving instructions, creating together.
ACTIVITY # 3: POLITICAL DEMONSTRATION
General
Why is this activity there?
Political demonstration is an activity that aims to promote a point of view (positive or negative) on a public issue and thereby influence public opinion or governmental policy. Most of the organisers seek media coverage for the demonstration to raise awareness.
What distinguishes this activity?
Political demonstration connects like-minded people. It offers a combination of physical activity and intense emotion to the highest degree.
What happens before the activity?
Before the activity coordinators set a plan for the activity. The date and location are selected for the demonstration. Public awareness is guided.
What happens after the activity?
After the activity participants leave. Activists and governments make decisions and formulate strategies that will influence the next phase of the possible reform process.
What are key micro-interactions that take place during the activity?
Important micro-interactions that take place during the activity are speeches, slogans, appeals, facial expressions, gestures, movement, holding banners.
What cannot be represented digitally?
The physical group movement and the attraction of public attention cannot be represented digitally.
What unwritten rules or social norms does the activity offer?
Social norms during this activity include no deaths, arrests, injuries or property damage.
Communication
How does the communication take place before the activity? (Planning)
Before the activity, a coordinator and a group of organisers establish a clear structure for the demonstration. They decide on the place, day and time and discuss use of the space in advance with the authorities in order to obtain appropriate permits. They also cooperate with other organisations, coalitions, etc., and encourage them to support the initiative and participate in the demonstration. Methods include flyers, posters, phone calls, mailings, newspaper ads, public announcements on local radio and television, etc.
How do people get together for the activity?
People usually come to the activity alone or in small groups.
How does the communication take place during the activity? In the whole group? Partly in subgroups / one-on-one discussions?
Communication can take place in the entire group, in subgroups and in one-on-one discussions.
What happens verbally and non-verbally?
Spoken and written words (speeches, slogans, appeals, banners) happen verbally. The demonstrators' facial expressions, gestures, tone of voice, movement, clothing happen non-verbally.
Does someone moderate and / or direct the activity?
The demonstration must have a coordinator and a group of organisers who work together before, during and after the event to plan and conduct it.
Context
Where does the activity take place?
Political demonstrations can take place in any area that accommodates the intended number of protesters and allows them to maintain their safety while attracting other people's attention as much as possible.
When does the activity take place?
Usually the activity takes place during the day, which does not violate the routine of other people's lives.
Does the activity take place regularly? If so, how often?
The regularity of the activity depends on the relevance of the problem.
How many people are involved in the activity?
A political demonstration is an activity that usually involves a large number of people. The number can reach hundreds of thousands.
Do all participants in the activity know each other?
No, but they can introduce themselves to each other in the course of further communication.
Who can watch the activity? Is it open to the public or closed?
This is a publicly visible activity.
Aspects
Based on the research I identified the following social aspects of this activity: bringing people together on a relevant topic, marching together, expressing opinions, manipulation through the attention of as many people as possible.
2. Prototype Your Activities
The next task was to investigate how we can transfer the three chosen activities and their aspects into the remote world.
We should have examined existing tools, techniques, processes, etc., evaluate these tools based on how good they highlight the social aspects of the chosen activity, consider how to better highlight those aspects and identify the missing aspects for which we have not found a remote solution.
ACTIVITY # 1: BOOK CLUB
There is a variety of tools which allow to remotely realise a book club including social networks (building a group on Facebook etc.), various mobile apps (Bookclubz, Book Club, Goodreads etc), digital organizers (Evernote, Google Docs , Trello etc.), video conferencing tools (Zoom, Skype etc.) for a live chat. The tools make it possible to start your own book club as well as join an existing book club, read and rate books online, write reviews, organise upcoming events, and have (usually monthly) discussions per online chat or video call.
Since one of the main reasons for a reader to join a book club is a will to experience a book with someone, I thought that the discussion aspect could be developed further. Instead of participating in a discussion once a month, a reader could as well have an opportunity to have spontaneous conversations with people who have read the same amount of a book right the moment when he is reading a book.
Another idea was to convey an atmosphere of the place where participants of the activity might meet by providing a set of thematic interfaces that could be applied to an online meeting. Communication in a bar can be different from communication in a library, for instance. A series of thematic interfaces could give participants more opportunities to communicate quickly and constructively with each other, and allow them to get closer to the real-life experience.
ACTIVITY # 2: ART CLASS
Online art courses usually take place through educational websites (Coursera, Masterclass, etc.), blogs, and social media (YouTube, Instagram, etc.). These tools provide information on a wide variety of art topics, tutorials, recommendations on other sources and artists, inspiration, and a certain level of communication and feedback.
Since it is important to develop and improve your own skills while taking part in an art class, feedback plays an essential role in this activity. Many online tools offer limited feedback, most of which happens via comment, or there is no feedback at all. Especially important here is a moment of micro-interaction, when a tutor comes to a student in real life and corrects a student´s work with his own hands.
I tried to find options that would improve feedback within an online art class. A student could potentially have a list of options with a specific need. If a work needs to be corrected, it could be uploaded and then corrected by a tutor in a special graphic editor. The student could follow the changes and later apply them to his work in real life. The communication possibilities between a student and a tutor could be developed further which would allow it to happen both synchronously and asynchronously.
ACTIVITY # 3: POLITICAL DEMONSTRATION
Internet activism allows political action to be carried out online using electronic communication technologies such as websites, blogs, social media, emails and podcasts. Online activism today helps to raise funds, lobby, attract the attention of media and decision-makers, raise awareness and build an active community around the topic, express empathy and support, encrypt sensitive data, etc.
With my sketches, I tried to illustrate an idea that offers an opportunity to gather in a virtual space and march together. With the help of sound, image and action libraries, participants could simulate the real-life experience of being together and expressing their emotions to the highest degree.
3. Pattern for Remocial™ Life
The next task was to create a design pattern. We should have thought of solutions related to some aspect of a selected social activity.
I decided to keep working on the idea of spontaneous exchange of views while reading a book and created a pattern for interactive reading. Interactive reading provides an opportunity to have a spontaneous live conversation with other readers. While reading a book, a reader can participate in a live discussion, add his highlights, notes, comments and emotional reactions, and discover highlights, notes, comments and emotional reactions of others.
Interactive reading
Problem:
- The user wants to interact with other people or groups within the system.
- The user wants to follow other users and their experiences.
Use:
- Can be used to allow users to interact with each other.
- Can be used to allow users to share information with each other.
- Can be used to allow users to find each other.
Solution:
- Users can interact with each other through a live discussion and / or comments.
- Users can highlight content and display it to one another.
Reason:
Interactive reading enables the process of spontaneous communication, interaction and exchange of views. By combining social interaction with content sharing, new insights can be gained and other perspectives considered which creates a deeper and more meaningful reading experience.
4. The App
Quarantine Bookclub
Quarantine Bookclub is an app concept for remote book clubs and social reading. Key features include:
Discovering and joining thematic book clubs;
Tools for managing and scheduling remote book clubs;
Interactive reading and listening experience;
Integrated video conferencing;
Games.
5. Case Study
Context
A book club is a social activity that brings people together based on their interest and love for reading. The pandemic and restrictions on social contacts, the inability to carry out this and other activities in real life, have necessitated the development of online tools that will help to continue these processes.
Current possibilities for realising a remote book club include the use of multiple platforms and tools which limits the potential of a remote book club community and doesn’t enhance enough of social interaction.
The typical algorithm is: a reader joins a thematic book club group on social media or downloads an app which works as a main tool for coordination —> a reader finds a book which he later on reads by his own until an upcoming event of a book club —> a reader visits a virtual meeting on a video platform once per month.
Quarantine Bookclub is aimed to combine all those experiences on one platform, strengthen the sense of community and provide more possibilities for an exchange.
Concept
After analysing the activity of a book club, I identified the following aspects that shall be present inside the app:
A possibility for joining a book club;
A possibility for reading a book;
A possibility to connect with other readers, have a discussion and exchange of views;
A possibility to express emotions and show empathy;
A possibility of sharing content.
Research
My initial research was based solely on the tools for reading experience. Later, I expanded my research and analysed also social media platforms, platforms for finding and building local communities, tools for video conferencing, live audio streaming and mobile games.
List of the tools that I conducted my research on:
Goodreads, Medium, The New York Times, Meduza, Book Club, Bookclubz; Instagram, VK; Meetup; Zoom; Mixlr, Speaker Live Show; Quiz up.
An overview of the features that I found potentially useful:
Live events with audio and video integration, views, comments and reactions, invitation, content sharing.
Groups with a possibility to start, discover and join a group, have discussion within a group, have group voting.
Books finding, lists of current, finished and want-to-read books, reading experience with reading progress, highlighting, commenting, taking notes and saving bookmarks.
Audiobooks, podcasts and live audios with favourite stations, invitation, integrated chat, external links with useful material.
Cooperative and competitive games.
First ideas and development
The first idea was to provide social interaction through a live chat and an integrated chat while reading a book. I was expanding the possibilities within a live chat by adding features like opinions and reactions, polls, quizzes, content sharing.
Eventually, I rethought the navigation and structure of the app and added two more categories (audio, games) which could potentially contribute to social interaction, also expanded the features for readers within an integrated chat.
Final design
Events
When a user first enters the app he lands on the events page. Inside events he can create and discover events, see an overview of the upcoming events. Via upcoming events he can proceed to a live event. Inside a live event there is an integrated audio and video chat which allows a user to interact with other participants. To facilitate communication and avoid interruption there is a hand button which allows users to queue up when they want to speak up. A user can also access a book related to the event and his collection of highlights and notes. He can share pieces of content with others which will be displayed on the main screen of a live event. Additionally, a user can add emotional reactions which will be displayed on his avatar. A host can add polls and contextual quizzes.
Books
Inside books a user can add and discover books, see an overview of his current, finished and want-to-read books, access collections with highlights and notes. When reading a book a user can track his progress, add bookmarks, notes, save highlights, access event agenda and chat. Book chat works as an individual pattern inside the app. Inside the chat a user can share highlights, books and emotional reactions with others, create polls. Event agenda allows to constructively prepare for an event and collect questions which might be worth discussion during a live event. The questions are divided per categories which contributes to a live event structure. To avoid too many questions, users can vote for the questions that they find the most interesting.
Audio
Audio section allows to access audiobooks and podcasts. Users can invite others for an audio session, either join a live session. Users can access materials related to the event by clicking on a book icon. By clicking on a bookmark icon users can add materials to their want-to-read lists. There is as well an integrated chat where users can share highlights, books and emotional reactions with others, create polls.
Groups
A user can access his groups by going to the other section inside the app. Inside a group a user can find group description, group events, discussions, books and polls. By going inside a poll, a user can vote for the books that he finds the most interesting for the next event.
Games
Inside the app a user can as well access games related to the world of literature. He can either play alone, team up with someone, or compete with an opponent. There is also an integrated audio and video chat to make the communication between participants happen.
Story
Persona: Mary Jane.
Mary Jane is 28 years old. She works and lives in Berlin. She’s talkative, friendly, sociable, enthusiastic and likes to go out. Her main passion is reading. Once a month she visits an event of the book club she is a member of, to discuss recently read books and exchange opinions with others.
Pains: Because of the Coronavirus pandemic outbreak, the book club where Mary Jane is a member, has cancelled all its events for an undetermined period of time. Mary Jane is worried the book club might not reopen soon and she won’t have a chance to discuss recently read books with like-minded people. She doesn’t like the idea of being isolated in the four walls of her Berlin flat.
Gains: Mary Jane is craving to continue reading books and discuss them once in a while with those who share her passion. She wants to keep socialising with people, make new connections. Mary Jane wants to find a digital alternative to her book club.
Mary Jane becomes a member of the Quarantine Bookclub.
Flow 1
Mary Jane is preparing for the upcoming event, she reads a book. When a question pops up in her mind, she goes to chat to ask her co-readers their opinion on the topic. Her group mate suggests to add the question to the event agenda. Mary Jane goes to agenda and adds her question there. She also checks other questions and votes for the ones she finds worth discussion.
Flow 2
Mary Jane goes inside the live event. She is asked to rate a book. When her question pops up on the screen, she takes up the queue as she wants to speak up. She shares a highlight with other readers.
Other
Mary Jane goes to games. She picks a quiz about Russian literature. She wants to team up with someone and invites two of her friends to the game. By audio chat Mary Jane and her friends discuss the quiz.
Experiments and changes
The app has gone through a lot of transformations. The navigation and the structure of the app changed a lot as I was curious about expanding the possibilities for social interaction and reading experience. Also stylistically the app has gone through changes. The original design was black and white, to remind of an e-book experience. However, as the app is very social, it eventually seemed to me that a colourful version would be a better fitting solution.
