Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
harder using this technique. The evaluation of a
second awareness application called Connecto
attempted to address these difficulties through the
creation of a more dynamic diary tool.
Connecto was a mobile phone application that
displayed contextual information about friends
and contacts. Building on from the previous usage
diaries, a new tool called FlexiFill was designed
to make daily enquires about system use via a
more dynamic web-based interface. Within this
diary-style interface, information logged during
the trial was shown to the participant, as a reminder
of who they had communicated with. This helped
to prevent users forgetting interesting events, and
acted as a prompt for them to recall their motiva-
tion and actions around the communication. In
each day's entry, users were asked about a single,
randomly selected phone call and text message
sent that day. Since all information about loca-
tion and communication was logged and sent to
a central server via GPRS, it was simple to use
this information in the questions. From previous
experiences, we were aware that participants are
reluctant to write thorough diaries by hand, espe-
cially if they have to do it daily and the questions
are repetitive. The diary was therefore designed
to be flexible; participants could fill it in at a time
and place that suited them. In order to help give
incentives for answering questions posed in the
diary, players were presented with the FlexiFill
interface before they could gain access to the
game's website. Since the trial of Connecto lasted
two weeks, we also conducted interviews both at
the midway point and end of the trial. In prepara-
tion for these interviews we were able to use the
participants' FlexiFill answers in order to tailor the
interview questions to that particular participant.
captured aspects of the player's everyday life that
could be used to present a profile tailored to the
interest of the audience viewing the profile. The
aim of the game is to boost one's 'ego' by being
seen as the most 'popular', 'well-travelled' and
'coolest' person. To achieve this, players could
gain points in three different ways: (1) when the
players' phones detected proximal Bluetooth
devices they earned 'popularity' points; (2) when
the phones detected wireless access points play-
ers gained 'well-travelled' points; (3) each day
players were asked to vote for co-players who
had done the most interesting things the previ-
ous day, gaining the three most voted-for players
more 'coolness' points. This logged information
was then streamed to the server via GPRS, slowly
developing the profiles of the players.
The game was trialled over a month with two
groups of five, where each player knew everyone
else in his or her group. During play, relationships
evolved between individuals belonging to different
groups as well as between those in the same group.
An example of this involved a conflict between
two players who fell out over comments made
to a mutual friend (one of the group's lecturers,
with whom the group were friendly and socialised
with, but who was not part of the game). When
one player criticised this lecturer, another player
was offended, and supported the lecturer. The
offended player then used Ego to express this
feeling, through continuously taking points from
the other player. This type of retribution is seen
in the “he said she said” encounters discussed in
(Goodwin, 1980).
During the trial each player was interviewed
halfway through the game and then again at the
end of the month. However, the design of the
Ego system also enabled the evaluators to unob-
trusively examine player profiles on the website
throughout the month and thereby observe what
was happening in the game. This continual and
ongoing awareness enabled the evaluators to
identify when players were having technical prob-
lems or when interesting interactions took place,
AWARENESS, ORCHESTRATION
AND EVALUTATION
Ego was a system that made use of both mobile
and online play. During mobile play, the system
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