The idea of utilizing the displays in the public area came from my HCDE 419 final project. After a quarter of research reading HCI related articles and, I came up with this idea that embraces the concept of “ubiquitous computing” and “share economy” into the public space. The outdoor display utilization (ODU) project aims to create a solution that turns any outdoor displays into extension screens of user’s smart phones, allowing them to view customized content without taking their phones out. With ODU enabled displays nearby, users can better enjoy their lives with less distractions.
With ODU, users can access information an a more convenient way. On the other hand, the owners of the displays can also benefit from increased attention on their commercial contents.
The original research can be found here.
Based on my original project, me and Owen Hu teamed up to push the project forward building multiple prototypes to further develop the idea.
Part 1: Paper Prototype
The first prototype is on paper. We brainstormed several possible content that can be displayed on a display in the public area. As the result, we sketched two ways an outdoor display works:
- When idle, the display automatically shows useful information other than just advertisements, such as bus schedule or a map;
- When connected with user’s smartphone, the display receives information from the smartphone and displays what the user set it to display, such as workout data.
To use the outdoor displays, users need to enable this feature in supported Apps. This is for protecting their privacy so that they can turn this feature off. In our prototype, we used Nike+ Run Club as an example.
PART 2: WIREFRAME
The second phase of our prototype is to digitize the sketch, allowing better user testing results. Following is our interactive prototype created with Sketch:
On the display end, we created multiple screens for both vertical and horizontal displays. Here are two selected screens:
Part 3: Physical Prototype
In each phase, we built upon previous prototypes and further increase the fidelity of our prototype. After creating wireframe prototype for the mobile end, we made a physical prototype to demonstrate the outdoor display with cardboard and paper. The following video demonstrates how our physical prototype works:
PART 4: Video Prototype
Finally, we concluded our project with a beautiful promotional video. We filmed this video at the University Village.
A typical day with ODU:
Feedback
During the final exhibit, we received helpful feedback from our peers, instructors, and visitors.
Likes
- Very interesting concept. People like how they can access more screens in the public area;
- People think this idea is especially good for runners because they don’t want to take out their phones when running;
- Beautiful video at night.
Need Improvement
- A visitor asked what happens if more than one user is nearby a display. Our current solution is to display one person’s content for a while and switch to another person’s, but there is certainly room for a better solution, such as split screens;
- One person mentioned about privacy issue . Although we explained that the system is going to be completely local so that their smart phone will only connect to the display instead of the Internet, people were still concerned about letting other people to see their information. We would like to allow users to choose what information they feel comfortable displaying on a public screen, but certainly we need more assurance to address their privacy concerns;
- One problem that we came of by ourselves is how to implement the system. We supposed that installing such system to enough displays to make a difference is going to be difficult. Moreover, there also needs to be sufficient amount of supported Apps for users to choose in order to actually have effect.