INTERACTIVITY

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FUZZY FRONT END

FIGURE 2. The above graph is based on Sanders and Stappers “fuzzy front end”
of co-designing, which illustrates the necessary ambiguous and chaotic beginning

explorations of design.

CHANGING THE EXPERIENCE. Moving through this fuzzy end, my
reformed concept ended up embodying many of the same features of
my design process: | opened up the platform to contributions, aimed to
foster a creative environment, and let the users inform the final content
of the space. The result is a website that highlights and encourages inter-
actions between artists, events planners, and audiences. This format
takes advantage of the commutative and expressive tools of the internet,
while also placing the activity into a user’s own community. The site
invites everyone to actively browse, discover and participate, both digi-
tally and physically. Not just an online site, nor a digital mirror that only
reflects real world events, this project is an interactive space that can
help people understand and contribute to their culture.

By inviting users to shape the site with their own content, I’m drawing
on Sanders and Stappers’ emphasis on co-creation and participatory
design. They have noted that “over the last 10 years... people increas-
ingly want a balance between passive consumption and the ability to
actively choose what kinds of more creative experiences to engage in
and how.” [6] For example, the Danish interactive iFloor project was
designed to bring interaction back to the library, back being the key
word. While “information technology may have dramatically improved
our access to information... it has also taken something crucial away
from the library experience — social interaction.” [2] The iFloor focused
on how physical space could be used to bring this interaction back —an
emphasis which | took as inspiration for my own project. | was interest-
ed in discovering a way to use the convenience and usability of the inter-
net to bring interaction back into local culture. Both projects emphasize
the role of the user in creating this meaningful experience. Urbanist Jane
Jacobs stated that “cities have the capability of providing something for
everyone, only because, and only when, they are created by everyone.”
[3] Equally true for design, co-creative design products can transform
our relationship to consumption and our environments. [6]

FUNCTION. Choosing a website format opened up many interactive
possibilities, but | also sought to counter the isolating nature of the
internet. In a culture overwhelmed with communication opportuni-
ties, our “web of connections has grown broader but shallower.” [1]
When used properly, however, these technologies can “lead to more
integration, rather than more isolation.” [1] Many online communities
have formed around microblogging formats like Tumblr, which enable
open, informal, fast and spontaneous contributions and interactions.

[4] | choose to utilize a highly visual layout to encourage easy brows-
ing, as well as a tagging system that would let the user sort through
and customize the communities’ uploaded content. This lets the user
move through the different “moodboards” of Vancouver’s music scene
and gives them an immediate invitation to dig deeper. | also wanted
to make distinctions between three types of content — events, artist
content and audience content — so there would be an understanding
of the relationship between these cultural elements. My hope is that
by providing a microblogging space that users can upload to and that
focuses on the users’ physical community, a greater connection to their
culture will grow.

PROTOTYPING. Storyboarding was an important tool in creating the
page architecture of the site (Figure 4). Envisioning my own scenarios of
what | would hope to encounter on the site and asking peers for their
personalized situations helped me define the end goals of my site. By
always ending or starting a scenario in a physical cultural space, like a
local concert, | forced myself to think of the reasons and motivations a
user would have to use my site. | then took those needs and designed
my prototype to fulfill them. The resulting site lets the user browse
deep into the Vancouver music scene and personalize their experience,
while still being part of a larger community. Leveraging popular and
established online tools like tags and profiles, the interactive prototype
testing went smoothly because the format was designed to be intuitive.

GETTING THAT LOOK. Throughout this process, | took inspiration from
ways cultural was displayed in the environment around me. Inspired by
posters, posts and boards, | wanted to recreate the spontaneous, dem-
ocratic and visual quality of these public forums. | named my project
Bulletin, and decided that the most of the visual content would come
from user-uploaded images, photo albums, gifs, videos and playlists. The
overall effect would be a like a street bulletin board: messy, organic and
intriguing. The consistent elements of the site, logo, menu, background
and information type treatments needed to be engaging enough to

FIGURE 3. Using the classroom environment to ideate and collaborate with peers

helped elevate the design work and move it in a more fulfilling direction.