My remediation this week is based on the devices seen through IoT and that are used within the ‘smart home’.
The smart home involves:
Environment/ lived space which is constituent of various internet of things objects are connected
Mutually coherent systems – understand each other
Each of the elements – communicate with humans
Comfort of humans
Perspective of network- humans and objects are a range of data streams
“When it is not only “us” but also out “things” that can upload, download, disseminate and stream meaningful and meaning-making stuff, how does the way in which we occupy the physical world become different? – Julian Bleecker
This quote is paramount in questioning the nature of these anticipatory spaces in determining what changes in how we think and act within the physical world. With a reliance on these devices seen in the smart home, it is scary to think that they may know us a little too well. These spaces are continually in a state of presence bleed, leaking information into a data shadow created on humans and is used to act back within the space inhabited by the human.
Since OP1 blog, my project has encountered some important changes and iterations based on user feedback loops and have also had some important learning moments come my way that I didn’t expect.
In OP1 blog, I discussed that in the future I would like to work on framing our content to have our faces more involved with the page so it would seem more relatable and genuine. We wanted to do this because we believe it is important to create a ‘voice’ or persona for the page. We have successfully been able to frame authenticity in a way that users may feel more connected to us and our page through group photos which have been better received than individual or photos of just two of us.
We have also been trying to implement more relatable captions by being playing around with some smaller and larger captions, some serious and some more relaxed to see what is better received. “What you say in a user experience matters. How you say it matters equally” (Yocco, 2014) describes how we want to leave a mark on our users by being relatable and creating associative chains through existing schema so our audience feels like they are a part of us. Framing authenticity is important to us as it will help our audience find meaning in our content whilst following a ‘story line’ that we put out for our users to perceive as reality.
Prototyping
Prototyping is a key element of making media as all other stages are verified by the experience with reality provoked by this stage of the process. Prototyping is iterative by nature and it is important to note that the online nature of prototyping can be leveraged by speeding up feedback loops of the iterative process.
As Cerejo (2010) describes rapid prototyping as quickly mocking up how a design or project development should look and behave. “Doing this rapidly and iteratively generates feedback early and often in the process, improving the final design and reducing the need for changes during development,” (Cerejo, 2010).
I have used paper prototyping to mock up some designs for future Instagram posts and stories to gain an understanding of how a design will look and how to use the post as a way to get my users involved with the content. The below paper prototype that I mocked up was a concept I wanted to try on our stories called ‘day on a plate’ where we share what we eat in a day with our users. After mocking up the design, I created a short version on my stories and users were excited to see more of that content. Without the paper prototype, I believe it would have worked out the same but it helped getting all the ideas I had for my DA out of my head and onto paper. It also helped me communicate this idea better to the other girls involved with this project by showing them how they could do it in the future.
Mind my crazy good drawing😂 #bcm114 but trying to work my ideas with pen and paper to visually see what it might look like. I must say it helped to actually see it and get it down rather than the idea just floating around in my brain with everything else. pic.twitter.com/Gjubg71sw6
Testing is the stage in the developmental process where prototypes are tested with users and assumptions are corrected based on user feedback. Testing allows prototypes to be valuable by allowing the medium of production to correct assumptions through testing with users.
Testing gives you another opportunity to evaluate prototypes and understand your users – it is the natural beginning and endpoint of an iterative cycle. If prototypes reveal that assumptions were wrong, iterate and try again – don’t stop the process.
“If you make something and don’t share it, was it made?” – Mark Hatch, 2014
The testing has allowed me to identify what content is liked by users and what needs improving. Testing my prototypes, such as the ‘day on a plate’ concept allowed me to realise that users want to see more than just recipes every now and then, they wanted to know more about our whole lifestyles. Testing recipes as well as other types of content (workouts, pictures of us) allowed us to identify that our social utility had to change based on the types of user experiences with our content.
Beta blog and video details a lot of testing with users, iterations and feedback loops in the testing stage in the project.
Breaking
The breaking stage is where the project and assumptions have been corrected by users and that iterations have to keep being made through the media making process. This stage was a little confusing to me, as I expected that once I had a project that worked with users, that I would just keep producing the same content and that would be it. However, I soon realised that this wasn’t the case – user groups, their interests and attention habits change over time. As Brandt and Eagleman (2017) explain, “happiness would wear off because of repetition suppression. As a result, we continually alter what is already working.” Breaking is where “somethings exposed that maybe you weren’t quite prepared for it to be exposed,” and that ‘breaking’ or this exposure may be better than the first ideas or concept that you had before.
“Humankind constantly renews itself by breaking good: rotary phones turn into push button phones, which turn into brick-like cellphones, then flip-phones, then smartphones. Televisions get larger and thinner—and wireless and curved and in 3D. Even as innovations enter the cultural bloodstream, our thirst for the new is never quenched.” (Brandt and Eagleman 2017)
For example, in my project we had a post that was called ‘lunchbox’ that we did once a week where one of us would share our lunchbox for the day to give inspiration to our users on how to pack a healthy lunch.
Using the breaking methodology, I broke the lunchbox posts into elements.
Recipe/ main lunch
Snack
Fruit
Product
I did this because some posts were getting really good engagement with users and other posts weren’t, so I wanted to identify why. After breaking these posts into elements and analysing them, I realised that the posts with products tagged in them gained more engagement than those without.
“When things go out of whack we can see something new and strange; and that is when we learn something.” – Franklin Spinney
Remaking
Remaking is a stage that goes hand-in-hand with the breaking stage as it forms an ongoing cycle with analysis and synthesis and this is were the value of FEFO and FIST is discovered.
Pulling things apart (analysis) is only half the movement, you have to put them back together (synthesis) in a new way.
After my realisation in the breaking stage of lunchbox posts being more popular when a product was tagged in them, I decided to recreate this concept. We replaced the lunchbox post with a product review post where we singled out the product element from our lunchbox post during the breaking stage, and gave it a review based on taste and healthiness.
In short, we removed the elements that weren’t being noticed and used the element that was.
“Keeping blindly to a formula that worked in the past leads to inertia and crisis.” (Mitew, T 2020)
Learning moments (since OP1)
Since OP1, the most important learning moments I have encountered is the difficulty with group work. It has its benefits but it can also be challenging.
Challenges:
Difficulty coordinating a team that is unaware of the requirements for BCM DA’s.
We all have different stages of being unmotivated
Trying to get them motivated and excited about content creation can be difficult
Me doing a lot behind the scenes that they are unaware of (planning content, schedules, aesthetics, analysing audiences and metrics, responding to users)
Because of our new content schedule, if one person misses their day to post, it puts everyone else behind due to the aesthetic that I am trying to create and upkeep – if it were just me, this wouldn’t be an issue because I could just pick up and go from where I left off.
Sometimes it is hard to rely on them for aesthetic purposes that I want to achieve (if it were just me, the pictures would be more coherent and all have a similar style). I could ask them to do a certain thing but I also don’t want to be too controlling because they will lose interest
Benefits:
Sharing the load of content – enables us to post a wide variety of posts regularly to stay relevant to our users
We all enjoy creating content and sharing our ideas around – it is fun!
Easier to bounce idea off one another
Makes the feedback loop easier to maintain (more people to reply to our users)
Easier to figure out solutions to problems we might have
My remediation this week is based on my immediate reaction when thinking of cybercrime and cyberwarfare. I believe the perception of cyberwarfare widely is that the tactics are exclusive to ‘cybercriminals’ sitting behind a screen however, governments are using these tactics against citizens around the globe. This is done through botnets, false personas, exploits and sock puppets among other tactics.
“Many states are not only conducting cyber espionage, cyber reconnaissance and probing missions; they are creating offensive cyberwar capabilities, developing national strategies, and engaging in cyber attacks with alarming frequency.” – Schreier (2015)
We have to presume that all governments with means are engaging with cyberwarfare which is described as a systemic approach. It takes advantage by manipulating consensus and poisoning through false persona botnets.
This is a threat to the public as there are non-governmental organisations that already possess software and the ability to leverage these kinds of resources (botnets) in order to sway public opinion at will.
My remediation this week is based upon the similarities that hacker subculture has to meme warfare swarms in terms of characteristics. The hacking subculture has been around since the beginning of the first personal computers and will continue as long as the internet exists.
Hacking subculture prioritises anonymity, often working behind a pseudonym. It is global by nature with no centralised identity or oversight and its operations are anarchic. It operates with knowledge being the primary value and where social capital is based on the sharing and reciprocity of information.
Meme warfare swarms have replicated the key characteristics of hacker subcultures most notably through leveraging anonymity and making decisions through memetic replication. Other characteristics that have been replicated include:
Using social media for mobilisation, coordination and dissemination of information and warfare ‘events’
Scale up fast because anyone can contribute in any capacity to the network
Operate in an open process with fast feedback loops
Develop fast long tails around successful attack vectors
In addition to the points discussed in the Beta video above, we have and are in the process of making iterations based on our feedback loop with users. Both directly and indirectly our users have given us insight into how we can improve our project.
We have just started to include more pictures of us regularly for our users to relate to us better. These posts have gained good engagement, with the group photos getting the best engagement over the ones that have only two of us in them. We use these posts to present a curated authenticity frame to our users and to date we’ve promoted recipes, R U OK Day, goals and other important announcements through these posts.
Group pictures at the top of engagement insights
Our users have given us indirect feedback through insights of our lunchbox post, that we were posting once a week, to indicate that this content is not very well engaged with. These posts are at the bottom of our engagement insights, creating a pattern and indication that our users don’t want to see this type of content. Based on this we’ve decided to discontinue this type of content and start a product review in its place. We haven’t yet started this.
Lunchbox posts at the bottom of engagement insights
We’ve been working on an aesthetic of our feed to look more professional and relate to our authenticity frame. We carefully planned this so that our posts would be coherent but still look well-presented.
Before planning (left) and after planning (right)
In terms of what types of recipes our users engage with most, our insights revealed that a mixture of recipes are at the top of our engagement and through a poll (in video) our users wanted to see more balanced recipes. At the top of our engagement, there are healthy recipes, balanced recipes, desserts, snacks and main meals, indicating that our users enjoy a variety of recipes.
M= Main meal, D= Dessert, S= Snack, B= Breakfast
Our concept did change based on this feedback from users. Our original goal was to just share our recipes but due to user feedback from poll results this changed to more balanced recipes and workouts included. Users have allowed us to integrate lunchbox posts (now changing), workouts and balanced recipes. We’ve also realised that users want to see us at the forefront of the page.
In addition to the iterations discussed in the beta video, there are some other iterations and content that we’ve created that are important to the project:
We hosted a giveaway where we were gave our users the chance to win their choice of 3 of our recipes made by us and delivered to them. This made the giveaway only available to people in our area which is something we will try to improve on our next giveaway to be inclusive to all our followers. Our giveaway gave us a follower growth of almost 80 people and was a really good way of gaining new users.
We’ve also integrated pictures of us on the page because we wanted to our users to relate to our page to our faces and feel like they’re connected to us. It also helps to relate a frame of authenticity. We post a picture from a photo shoot we did together (so the pictures are ready to go in advance) and we use this post to engage with users. Up to today, we’ve promoted previous recipes, discussed goals, promoted R U OK Day among others through these posts. When we started these, we were just going to post them every few rows or so but they gained really good insights and engagement from users (just as good as recipes, some better) so we iterated this process to once a week.
Our content schedule now suits our time management better and also looks more aesthetically pleasing and works well with our goal of authenticity framing.
After planning content (left) before planning content (right)
On the left (most recent feed) you can see its planned with lunchbox and workouts in one row, quotes and recipes in another and personal pics and recipes in the other creating a pattern.
Our concept did change based on some feedback from users. We changed from being just healthy recipes to more balanced recipes and lifestyle with workouts included rather than just recipes. Our original goal was to just share our recipes but due to user feedback from poll results this changed. Users have allowed us to integrate lunchbox posts, workouts and balanced recipes.
chats with chels 