Workshop on Location-Based Mobile Experience Design (@ Digital Media Lab, NUIG)

DAH Workshops on Location-Based Mobile Experience Design

This workshop looks at the dissemination of research using smartphones. In particular, it looks at the creation of experiences whereby the user accesses research as they walk around a particular location. It does not look at how you code apps - instead it looks at how research needs to be structured (as text, image, video, audio) etc. and ordered (as a narrative, etc.) in order for it to be presented as a location-based experience. It also looks at the many ways in which the experience of mobile computing differs from static (desktop) computing, and what this means for how we design information and experiences that will be accessed via smartphones.

A web and smartphone-based publishing tool that allows you to 'drop' media (audio, video & images) at specific points on a googlemap. The user can then access this map on their smartphone (via a specific app), and follow the route you have planned, accessing the media at specific points along the way. For instance, you could design a 'Poems of Galway' trail where the user hears a poem about a location recited as they stand in that location.

Workshop Outline:

The workshop will be a day-long (7 hour, with one hour for lunch) workshop and will cover:

Theory and methodologies: How mobile computing differs from static computing; What this means for how we present research; How we incorporate the real world, and the user's journey through it, into the experience Practical considerations: user safety, immersion, critical awareness; participants will sketch out the possibilities and challenges of presenting their research on a mobile, location-based platform

Design of media: Designing media for mobile consumption; Programmes for design; Media formats and limitations; Tools for mobile experience design; Participants will develop and design media based on their research and will create a scratch mobile experience

Testing: Prototyping mobile experiences; Gathering feedback; Participants will try each others' mobile experiences and offer feedback. Participants will use this feedback to design the next iteration of the experience.

Software packages used: Gimp, Reaper.

Facilitator: Máiréad Ní Chróinín (maireadnichroinin@gmail.com)

This is currently only available to DAH students and staff.