Dan W

Arrivals for Foursquare

2011-11-23T20:03:00+00:00

Arrivals is a simple list of where your foursquare friends currently are. It is intended to be displayed on a spare second screen such as a tablet or phone without intrusively drawing attention.

Where’s Dad?

Arrivals is based on a concept by Toby Barnes. Where’s Dad is a small glanceable display built for Toby’s son for use on a spare old iPhone. Whilst Toby is travelling his son asks him during phone calls where he currently is. This display constantly shows his current location, city and country based on his foursquare checkins. A simple piece of situated software with an user base of one person. See Toby’s blog for more details of his thinking behind it.

Arrivals is a generalised version of this, using the same style but showing your friends locations instead.

Broadcast

There are many different ways to use foursquare. I check-in mainly to keep a personal log of where I’ve been. I rarely use it to view where my friends are. I find the iPhone push notifications too intrusive whilst I only launch the app to check in.

This leaves my usage unbalanced, friends are broadcasting but I’m not listening. I’m more likely to notice a friend is nearby from twitter or instagram than from foursquare.

Arrivals fixes this by making a screen unobtrusive enough to be left open. The screen only updates when a location changes. The animated flicker in the corner of the eye draws the attention but does not interrupt. As a result it gives a constant awareness of location and daily rhythms, with a cascade of checkins at lunchtime and after work.

Public/Private

One difficulty in creating Arrivals is the balance between a public display on a second screen visible to all showing information that is private and only intended for foursquare friends.

I’ve tried to solve this by showing the minimum amount of information on the screen. No timestamp, no city or country of venue and no name of the person checking in. To view any of this information one must use the foursquare website or mobile app. As a compromise the profile picture of the person checking in is shown on the display, as otherwise one needs to open foursquare far too frequently just to see who is where. The lack of a timestamp allows deniability in the case of recognition.

Animation

Animation is provided using CSS3 transforms and only happens when a location changes. An unintended effect of this is that some new users sit and intently watch the Arrivals display waiting for a checkin as they wish to see the flip animation.

Restraint

The hardest part of designing a glanceable is restraint. It’s technically very easy to add extra information and features to the display. Adding the airport code of the nearest city to a checkin, colour coding the text with the Dopplr city colour, clicking a checking to flip it over and show details. Each feature addition would detract from the purpose, to do less than the existing sites & apps.

Perhaps next time I should make a physical display device instead. It’s easier to resist scope creep in atoms than in bits.

Anyway, feel free to try Arrivals, read Toby’s write up or let me know what you think.

What is the best Disney animated film that most people haven’t seen?

2011-11-15T12:00:00+00:00

On Quara someone asked ”What is the best Disney animated film that most people haven’t seen?”. I answered Victory Through Air Power (1943):

It’s the most bizarre Disney film I’ve watched. Made during WWII, it is an adaptation of a book by Alexander P. de Seversky advocating the use of long range aircraft in warfare. The film begins with a humorous animated history of flight before alternating between lecture sequences from Seversky and animated depictions of his warfare plans.

It was understandably not a huge success when released to theatres. Churchill is claimed to have made Roosevelt watch the film, changing Americas approach to the war. After the war the film was rarely shown until released on DVD in 2004. There are occasional screenings at places like the Walt Disney Family Museum.

Probably not the most family friendly or entertaining of Disney animated films, but certainly one most people haven’t seen

Awkward Shopping

2011-11-07T01:35:00+00:00

Sam Machin showed me the Pizza Express app. It’s like most retail apps. Vouchers and a store locator, clumsily implemented. But it also allows paying the restaurant bill with PayPal.

Type in a code printed at the bottom of the receipt, apply any vouchers and then log in to paypal. The trouble is the next step is uncertain. The bill is paid, but the waiting staff don’t know this. Do you just walk out? Or do you first explain what you’ve done? You’ve not placed a card or money on the table either, so the staff don’t walk up to your table to help.

Likewise, Apple are rumoured to be launching the ability to pay for in store purchases through an iPhone app:

The other major feature coming in Apple’s new app? Customer self check-out at retail stores. This is a huge deal and Apple is the first to be able to put it together. Here is how this will work: after you find the item you want to buy, like an accessory, you launch the Apple Store app on your iOS device and there will be an option to buy a product in the store. You scan the product with the camera on your device in the app, click purchase, and it will charge whatever credit card is associated to your Apple ID. You then just walk out of the store. Yes, we have been told that Apple will not be checking purchases which seems hard to believe, but this self check-out option will launch Thursday worldwide at all Apple retail stores

RFID credit cards are similar. You produce your credit card to pay and then have to explain you don’t want to use the usual chip and pin machine but to do the wavey thing that has no colloquial name yet. Using chip & pin would be quicker than having the conversation.

We lack the necessary vocabulary and rituals for these new forms of payment.

Retreat Into The Future

2011-11-06T12:00:00+00:00

A few weeks ago Justin Pickard linked me to Jonathan Meades’ Remember The Future. I’ve just gotten around to watching it.

It’s a sort of spoken essay about the techno-utopian vision of the future from the 60s & 70s. An appropriate companion to Playful 2011 which was full of men raised in the 60s & 70s disappointed that their promised future didn’t happen.

Which reminds me of John Gruber’s complaints about technology concept videos:

I’m not arguing that making concept videos directly leads to a lack of traction in the current market. I’m arguing that making concept videos is a sign of a company that has a lack of institutional focus on the present and near-present. Can you imagine a sports team in the midst of a present-day losing season that makes a video imagining a future championship 10 years out?

More Retreat Into The Future than Occupy The Future