RUI LIU: BLOG

7:07 PM

There is a research result surprised me in our Free Space project. We almost interviewed every core members so far, and found that they all preferred being a burned-out short time organizers, even they know most participants and community citizens wanted Free Space keep going on, rather than establishing a long-time organization, like SPCA .

At first, I thought it may because these core members are not so serious about building Free Space. They looks like a bunch of young people getting together to come up a dream land, chasing that process without deep and thorough thinking. Since when we asked about the main plan and some concrete ideas of Free Space, they could not offer satisfied answers. Several core members admitted that they didn't think that far and they only wanted this place to be a one-month plan in the first place.

However, when I get to know them, I realized they are not irresponsible or lack of experience. Some them have already involved into NGO for several years and founded their own organization. What’s more, they went to several countries to view other NGOs. And they keep connect with the other same agencies in San Francisco. In this condition, being a short term place seems like a deliberate idea. Then why they choose this idea?

Personally speaking, I think it might be because that free space is a project bigger than what they did before. What they did before focus on small group, like hiking or riding. One of the core members has his own group named Wigg Party. “The Wigg Party is a community organization based in the San Francisco neighborhoods surrounding the bike route known as the Wiggle. Our mission is to make the community that uses the Wiggle a leader in the transformation to sustainability and resilience.” It’s much smaller than Free Space. The requirement of money, facilities and space are also lower too. So they might be considered the conditions and resources they owned, and then decide to make their goal realistic. Next question is why they don’t believe they could cover this project if it was a long one?

I remember that all of the core members are keep talking about making free space totally free. So they don’t like putting big donation jar or ask participants to give money. Almost all of their donations come from online collection. When they run out of money, they tried to cover the cost by their own. So considering their present job and account balance, they thought making a short time project. Why they have to cover the cost all by themselves even they insist free space is all free.

A lot of other successful agencies like Noisebridge is non-profit. But they all have their own ways to raise funds. For example, Noisebridge, a free hacker space, they ask membership fee per month. If participants want to get the right to vote, they need to pay several bucks to become members. But free space insisted that everyone can’t be, even feel, they were pushed to take money out of their pocket. And there was no advertisement allowed. Free Space is a place can’t be tagged. Why free Space has to be totally 100% free even until it can’t make it anymore.

Free Space do has its core spirit, build a place where can be used by anyone. Comparing their survival, the core spirit is more valuable, which is their first principle. So this need to be our first principle too. No matter what kinds of solutions we offered later, we should consider it.

11:37 AM

Managing Data Strategies

When talking about the managing data, in this Free Space project, I'd like to start classifying them, according to the different people, users, customers and any other related ones.

Firstly, we draw a relation map to tease out how many kinds of groups are related with our customers. In this step, some now group may appear because relational context becomes more and more clear during the arrangement, which can also inspired us to find some new connections. On the other hand, the existed relationship net can verify each other.

image from http://www.mattbaline.net/work/ethnographic-research-on-mobile-phone-use/

And then, according to them, we can classify our data, by using post-it or simple sketching. There are a lot of strategies I think is very useful.
A. AEIOU
AEIOU is a framework to organize the data according to the taxonomy of Activities, Environments, Interactions, Objects and Users. The graph we got through this method can guide field observation in return.

B. Affinity Diagramming
This methodology uses a "bottom-up" process for building affinity diagrams.

image from http://www.baran-systems.com/Products/Affinity%20Diagram%20for%20Excel/index_concept.htm

C. Behavioral Mapping
We can use it to document location-based observation (community or Free Space activities) to study the layout of the whole space.

image from http://youthmappers.blogspot.com/2007/06/behavioral-mapping-of-day.html

D. Personas
We may build personas for both our customers and users.

image from http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/33491/Everything-Marketers-Need-to-Research-Create-Detailed-Buyer-Personas-Template.aspx

E. Photo Studies/Picture Cards
Build a photo-document of different categories. Pictures can be sorted by groups and used to guide stroytelling.

F. Thematic Networks
Using this method can helps build a step-by-step process to find Free Space themes based on its core value.

G. Triangulation
It's a way to corroborate evidence from several different angles.

image from http://www.cxpartners.co.uk/cxblog/using_ethnography_to_improve_user_experience/

12:46 AM

Reflection on a War Story

1:00 AM

About Moccasins Project

2:42 PM

How do you get strangers to talk to you?

4:59 PM

I wish someone had thought of before they designed. (Blog Assignment 2)

In my first month in San Francisco, there is an interesting thing happened on me at Bart station. I remember it was an afternoon, about 4pm. I intended to go to the film theater but got lost. So I took out my cell phone looking on the map. I felt a burly African America man stared right back of me, which got me nervous. And the news about a Asian girl getting robbed came to my mind. When I pretended playing with my phone and thinking how to shake him off, he made a beeline for me. “Are you using a Galaxy 2?” he asked when I was ready to run.

After a couple minutes taking, I found out because of the old sight, he can’t see his iphone screen clearly. When he saw me holding my huge screen cell phone (ZTE N5, 5.7’ screen), which ”looks like a notebook”, he wondered its band and where could he can get one.

There is often a progressive loss of sight in old age, which cases a big problem when people using these small-size portable devices. When I taught my mom and grandma how to use a smart phone, this point was particularly stark. For my mom, who is 50 years old, the 3.5’ screen made the words and icons too small to read. Besides, since she has myopia, she usually didn’t change to presbyopic glasses. On the other side, my grandma is in a different situation. She is 78 years old now. Like other elders, it’s difficult for her to remember the steps to setting the cell phone and using an app. Therefore, mostly she had to find out the right icon and try every selection. The small screen is difficult for her not only to read, but also to touch, because of the bad eyesight and inflexible fingers. And my mom and grandma told me, basically all the people in their age struggled with the same problems.

The solution is quiet simply. USE TABLET AND NON-SAMRT PHONE. I gave my mom and grandma a tablet (11’ screen) in alliance with a small non-smart phone with keypads, to replace their smart phone. And it worked very well. The reason why people obsessed with smart phone is because “smart” part can run thousands of apps which offered various functions and “phone” part can provide internet. In other words, people are pursuing multi-function, and portability at the same time. In my view, the small-sized smart phones sacrifice a part of usability of these functions to achieve the portability. But for the people who value the implement function most, this strategy is unworkable. Therefore, we what can do is separate the functionality with portability, or expect the new soft screen comes into the market.

( http://www.ztechnews.com/organic-light-emitting-diode-to-be-used-in-the-manufacture-of-soft-screen-phone/)

9:22 PM

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I wish someone had thought of before they designed. (Blog Assignment 2)

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