As a continuation after the talk with Mattias last week and starting new approaches to mapping, this week I got myself
some moleskine notebooks, one to serve as the project notebook and some from the cities series that offer some nice
features for travellers. One of them, in the first pages is a quote from Aldus Huxley:
"For every traveller who has any taste of his own,
the only useful guidebook will be the one
which he himself has written."
A.H.
I think the moleskine concept has many intersections with the mapping experiences, and its character as the ultimate
notebook is very interesting. So, I hope to absorb this character by living with them and experiencing them for a while.
One of the city notebooks is fulfilling its role and has been sent on a mission with Jasjit Singh in New York city. I intend
to see how he will fill up and use the notebook, find the flaws and insights from its use to incorporate in the personal
map design.
Notifications
The next step was to start sketching the notifications that users might receive from the system when they approach
an experience point. The main issue to consider is that it should not be annoying. From the sketches I started to
design a quick prototype in flash to run on the device and iterate with people.
On the same topic I wante to verify if people would respond to an anonymous invitation posted in the space. So I created
the Tsuru Report project. Some origami cranes were placed at the design school inviting users to report their journeys
from home to school / work on that particular day. All they had to do was login to a Twitter account that was created and
type. The invitation provided the login and password to the account. The invitations were not accepted I guess.
The locations may have been mistaken, not so visible and also maybe it was too much work, or too unconventional to be
perceived as an invitation. Lessons learned. Soon the 2.0 version will be released.
On Thursday I had my brainstorm session with some classmates (thank you again, guys!) and we discussed two topics
that are giving me a hard time: the filters with which to navigate the experiences and the notifications. The first item was
not so obviously explained and it required some time to get into the flow. The second was more direct and constrained
and quickly generated some interesting discussions on whether people like to be notified or not. We agreed that the
control over the notification frequency and reason gives the user a better perception of them.
And finally I continue in my series of What if... was a cartographer. This week I was searching inspiration on Henri Matisse
(misspelled in the image - my fault) and George Gershwin. Both artists in their own way have mapped situations in their
works, I think. I find it particularly inspiring the use Matisse gives to the irregularly cut, flat colored shapes. Gershwin on
the other hand portrays journeys in his songs, such as Rhapsody in Blue and An American in Paris. Close your eyes and
listen... it's a good experience!
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