MFA Thesis in Interaction Design
This individual and independent project was completed in spring 2023 at Umeå Institute of Design.
Nectar
In the context of music platforms, playlists result from personal curation or machine learning algorithms.
Nectar breaks out of the screen and envisions the urban environment as a spatial browser for music discovery.
Background
Topic: Enhancement of memories
Writing a diary entry, taking a photo or shazaming a song are ways of capturing a moment and enhancing a memory. Traditionally, we enhance memories explicitly, with our conscious attention to a thing or interface:
Picking up our diary, finding the right words and guiding the pen, finding the view and pushing the camera’s shutter or opening the Shazam app and pushing the button in the right moment.
What do a camera, Shazam and diary have in common? They are explicit means of enhancing memories
Opportunity: Implicit Interaction
Implicit interaction seems to happen without further attention. What if an app caught songs wherever you go? What if your diary wrote itself, based on the places you visit and the people you meet?
Implicit interaction requires neither conscious attention, nor a dedicated action: Unlocking my MacBook through the proximity of the smartwatch as second factor authentication.
Browsing photo memories based on location data: Apple Photos app.
Combining music recognition with location data: ‘Data Visualisation with 1 Billion Shazam Music Recognitions’ by Umar Hansa
Process Part 1 – Exploration
Insights from Interviews
Nectar responds to the challenge to harmoniously integrate mediated interaction and navigation into the embodied activity of exploring a busy city by bike. For this project I interviewed citizens from Amsterdam, London and Copenhagen on how they relate to their city and how they interact through mobile and wearable devices.
The relation to a city changes depending our mindset, whether we are in a tight working flow or drifting, open to explore.
Dense cities, like London, offer a panopticon of possibilities. Within a range of less than 15 min. we can reach a diversity of places and people. We can meet our future partner, get inspired at a vernissage or share life stories with our friends in their community garden.
The emotional compass emerged as a reference and key visual from semi-structured interviews.
Scenario
Nectar enhances memories while the explorer fully immerses into real life: An experience that is guided by serendipity, rather than knowing a destination.
Exploring the scenario in a playful way. The sketch model helps to explore the form, composition and behaviour of components.
– I imagine to provide people with a glanceable and intuitive map.
– I imagine memories can be enhanced by collecting virtual pollen: By visiting vibrant places and meeting people.
Process Part 2 – Refinement
Layout: Compass x Vibrance Map
‘Compass’ maps social gatherings in real-time. I design the app for a smartwatch, a wearable device that does not need to be taken out of a pocket. This makes the map snappy and glanceable.
Combining the concept of a compass with a map
Type of interaction: implicit & embodied
The app does without a search query. Instead, it displays what is happening right now in direct reach. Without touch gestures, such as zooming or swiping, the interface is more robust for outside application on the go. With Google Maps the destination is the goal, navigating as efficiently as possible. With Compass the journey is the goal, finding value without searching.
Google Maps is based on manual search at global scale. Compass pre-filters based on personal taste-profile and constrains the display to the range of immediate reach.
Responsiveness: Scaling
In a less vibrant town, the view zooms out to a 15 min. range, in order to still provide options. In a more vibrant town, the view zooms in to a range of 3 min.
The scale of the map adjusts to the density of gatherings.
Feel: SwiftUI Prototype
I treat SwiftUI as a design tool, in order to get a feel for the panning gesture and evaluate the interaction model. The real-time sensor data from the device and low latency makes it feel second to nature.
SwiftUI requires me to think through the layout and behaviour of the interaction model.
Result
Moment 1: Teaser
Similar to a sonar, the interface features a finder, which plays a teaser of nearby sound scapes. Compass maps out social gatherings in real time and displays them as sound scapes. They represent the particular music taste of a group.
Moment 2: Exposure
When the explorer joins a gathering, Nectar collects songs in a playlist from the current taste profile of the group.
Moment 3: Relive & Share
At the end of the day the explorer can revisit playlists in the Journal and share their memories.
Discussion
Explicit vs. implicit discovery
