Designing A Wearable Social Network more

CHI 2009 ~ Student Research Competition April 4-9, 2009 ~ Boston, MA, USA Design ning a W Wearabl Socia Netwo le al ork Abstract t This paper presents a frame r ework and design for a wearable s social network bas sed on Facebook. We begin with a disc cussion of social n networking by isol lating key characteris stics of social inte eractions in three research areas: Soc Networking Si cial ites, Mobile Comp puting, and Wearable Computing. These characteristics a e are to gn t analyzed t suggest a desig framework that can be applied to the design of soc networks. Usin this cial ng framework we have design k, ned and created a wearable social netw work called Patche which extends the social es, s interaction available in mo wearable devic today. ns ost ces Figure 1- a wearable social network integrated in a sweatshirt d Yin He School o Interactive Arts and Technology, Sim of mon Fraser University y 102 Ave enue, Surrey, British Columbia, V3T 0A3 h 3 yha43@ @sfu.ca Thecla Schiphorst School o Interactive Arts and Technology, Sim of mon Fraser University y 102 Ave enue, Surrey, British Columbia, V3T 0A3 h 3 thecla@ @sfu.ca Keyword ds Social netw working, wearable computing, interaction e ACM Classification Key ywords H.1.2. Use Machine System Human inform er ms: mation processing H.5.2. User Inte g. erfaces: Interactio styles. on Introduc ction Traditionally, the internet has been a mecca for social g s networking activities. Social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Friendster and LinkedIn have n increased in popularity in re ecent years [19], and y, net continue to grow [2]. Today thanks to intern capabilities and ch heaper mobile pla ans, social browsing c networking is no longer exc g clusive to compute ers. The number of people using the mobile phones to access f eir Copyrigh is held by the author/owner(s). ht CHI 2009 April 4–9, 2009, Bo 9, oston, Massachusetts, USA. ACM 978 8-1-60558-247-4/09/ /04. 3353 CHI 2009 ~ Student Research Competition April 4-9, 2009 ~ Boston, MA, USA social networking sites is rising [29]. Mobility is central in transforming social networking access to a wider audience. We propose that developing mobile systems that literally sew social networking into the fabric of our everyday lives is the next step in the development of wearable social networking. We begin by examining how friends within a social network interact with each other, primarily teenagers as they represent the most typical users [17]. We focus on research that strengthens their social networking activities: Social Networking Sites, Mobile Computing, and Wearable Computing. We use our findings to propose a social framework. Finally, we introduce a wearable system that encourages social networking and enhances user experience. A SNS site such as Facebook offers many social networking tools: browsing or sharing photos, checking other’s profiles, joining a group or network, reading or writing on the wall, finding new or old friends, creating or updating a profile, and adding or using applications. According to Hart et al., Facebook users like to keep an eye on the activities of their friends. Quick methods of communication such as poking, sending drinks or gifts, as well as applications that involve innovative ways of interacting with friends through gaming and quizzing are preferred [11]. Nazir et al. presented quantitative evidence regarding the popularity of their social game, Fighter’s Club, over non-games like friend and virtual hug applications [23]. Roa [26] suggests that casual games such as Hug Me, X Me, and Superpoke, have a place in our increasing participatory culture [12]. He views social networks from the perspective of a “third place”, a concept introduced by Ray Oldenburg to describe socialization areas that allow playful expression in addition to work and home [24]. He considers Facebook as a virtual third place as it creates a playful mood for its users. Mobile Computing Key features of Mobile Computing such as portability and mobility offer a different set of social interactions. SMS, or text messaging, is a feature of mobile phones that have been rapidly adopted by teenagers. According to Ling et al., teenagers are attracted to mobiles as a method to quickly call or ‘text’ others in order to coordinate activities [18]. Dodgeball is a mobile service that helps friends keep in touch and enhances social Background research We start off by examining key characteristics of social interaction that have led to the success of social networks. We view social interactions from three perspectives - Social Networking Sites, Mobile Computing, and Wearable Computing. We are particularly interested in technologies that enhance interactions between person-to-person, person-togroup, and group-to-person. Social networking sites Social networking sites, or SNS, have been a main internet success story in recent years. Among them, Facebook is the most visited social networking site in North America, third most popular in Europe, and continues to grow rapidly [19]. This is illustrated by numerous publications about Facebook in this year alone [11, 15, 23]. 3354 CHI 2009 ~ Student Research Competition April 4-9, 2009 ~ Boston, MA, USA coordination by allowing friends to check in to report their time and location [10]. Camera phones enable friends to interact through photo sharing. Slam is a mobile application that combines real-time communication, location awareness, and photo-sharing [20]. Other mobile computing applications use the phone’s location tracking ability to enhance social interactions. Serendipity uses Bluetooth in phones to initialize faceto-face interactions among people with similar interests, when they are in close proximity [9]. Sparks is a similar ‘ice breaker’ or ‘match maker’ application [7]. Plazes is a mobile service that allows mobile users with similar interests to connect together based on location [25]. Though Dodgeball, Slam, Plazes, have existed for years, they are nowhere as popular as SNS. With reduced cost in cell phone plans, the number of US wireless subscribers who accessed social networks via mobile device increased 182% in the last year, according to Kelsey Group and ConStat [1]. Wearable Computing Wearables offer a wide variety of social networking behaviours not available in SNS or mobility. Figure 3 - (top) virtual poke using Facebook and (bottom) poke interaction between two friends using Patches. After a computer initiates the poke, friends can poke each other where ever they are. Casual gaming is a feature that can be explored here. Early projects investigated how somatic information such as heart rate, body temperature, and galvanic skin response can be turn into lights and sounds [21]. Later research examined how clothing can collect our bodies’ affective non-verbal data and use it as a mechanism for social interaction [27]. Other wearable garments react to human intimacy such as whisper, touch, and human connectedness [3]. Though many wearable devices excel at transmitting and receiving human behaviours, wearable social networks on the scale of SNS and Mobile Computing are limited. The majority of these devices require faceto-face interaction to exchange digital information about the users and their relationships [5, 13]. Only Telebeads designs for teenage social networks [14] but the designs are ineffective for large groups. Figure 2- social framework with key interaction techniques Design of a social framework Figure 2 shows a graphical representation of a social framework from the key social interaction techniques derived from SNS, Mobile Computing, and Wearable Computing. The Venn diagram provides a simple model showing relationships between the three. A preliminary study of these relationships may help us further isolate key interaction techniques. Looking at the commonalities represented by the overlaps, we extracted common themes. Digital Exchange of user information All three research directions state that people commonly share their own information and enjoy browsing their friends’ information. The main interaction techniques are through exchange of text and photos to solicit emotional responses. One of the strengths of wearable computing is its ability to transmit human emotion more vividly. For instance, people can exchange a virtual hug over a distance using a Hug Shirt. While wearing the Hug Shirt, the sender of the hug hugs himself and the recipient who is wearing the shirt as well, will feel pressure and heat in those areas [8]. 3355 CHI 2009 ~ Student Research Competition April 4-9, 2009 ~ Boston, MA, USA Quick methods of communication Particularly in SNS and mobile computing, there is a desire for fast and simple communication through text, SMS, and voice. We do not know whether people with wearable devices show the same sentiments. sender back by touching the Patch. Further interactions can be communicated via the sender’s Patch. Even with electronics, the Patch integrates seamlessly into clothing, Figure 1, by maintaining its flexibility and thickness like a regular patch. Embedded inside the Patch are touch and heat sensors. The touch sensor lets the recipient poke the sender while the heat sensor triggers the patch by heating the heat-sensitive thermochromatic ink on the surface. Figure 5 shows seven different layers of the Patch with embedded electronics. From top to bottom and left to right, the first picture shows the back of Layer 1. Four pushpins attach the Patch onto clothing and power the two sensors. Conductive thread and conductive tape fasten the electronics onto fabric. Layer 2 shows the top view of the touch sensor, made of conductive foam. Layer 3 is a felt layer that separates the conductive foam. Layer 4 separates the two sensors. Layer 5 shows the heating element, a diode. Layer 6 is an oval cutout and separates the leads of the diode. Layer 7 is cotton fabric coated in thermochromatic ink. The last picture shows the Patch in regular condition. Figure 1 illustrates the Patch during a poke. Design of Patches system Patches is a wearable social network device not limited in social networking scope. We designed the system with a wide variety of social interactions currently only possible from SNS, with communication strengths from Mobile Computing, and emotional affordances from traditional Wearable Computing. The Patches system, or Patches, is a unique mobile device that uses the popular Facebook infrastructure and brings online communication offline. We used Facebook as our backend infrastructure for its rich set of social interactions and its large social network. In our first design iteration, we were interested in its ‘poke’ application, a tool that encourages interaction among a variety of people – a friend, a group of friends, or a stranger – by virtually poking them. We created Patches to augment the poke and enhance social networking, Figure 3. Figure 4 shows an overview of Patches. The server runs on JBoss, a Java application server. Since standard Facebook Java API forbids retrieving poke information, a JavaScript application called PokeMe parses the Facebook Home Page for new pokes. PokeMe communicates with Java using cookies. On receipt of a new poke, the server communicates wirelessly via wifi to the Arduino Microcontroller, which then triggers the Patch, Figure 5. At the same time, PokeMe sends a text message to the recipient. The recipient can poke the Figure 4 – overview of Patches system Implications of the Patches system Patches recreates the social interaction of a poke. Like real social interactions, the recipient of the poke can either ignore and end the interaction, or poke the sender to encourage the game. In this case, the Patch represents the sender and touching the Patch mimics poking the sender. Translating Facebook’s virtual poke offline offers many interaction techniques not found in current wearable 3356 CHI 2009 ~ Student Research Competition April 4-9, 2009 ~ Boston, MA, USA devices. The interaction techniques incorporated into Patches are those that were found to be key characteristics in our social framework. Timely responsiveness of communication With Patches, people no longer need to log into Facebook to experience a poke. Sending a text message takes time on a small keypad, while communication offered by Patches is direct, intuitive, quick, and easy. Exchange emotion Patches allows wearers to experience a poke more directly. Wearers see an oval imprint as well as feel heat on the Patch, resembling the shape left from a friend’s finger and the residual heat, respectively. The experience of poking can also be modeled further with sensors. For example, sensors can physically depress the shirt for the duration of a poke or jolt the receiver. For this project, our purpose was not to accurately recreate the poke sensation but rather illustrate that it is possible to send such a sensation as a communication between friends. Figure 5 - Patch electronics embedded into 7 layers Touch is essential in our emotional health and development, by helping to treat infants, the elderly, people that are isolated, and sufferers of mental illness or trauma [6]. Furthermore, Patches transmits this physical, tactile, information in a familiar manner, through interaction with our clothing. Though many wearable devices can be considered emotional interfaces, [4, 22, 28], Patches eliminates the need for a mediating object, such as a stuffed animal, for a more natural experience. It allows two-way communication for a true interaction experience. Patches quite literally adds to the non-verbal communication associated with our clothing [16]. Conclusion and future work In this paper, we analyzed three different technologies and developed a social framework based on their interaction techniques. Using this framework, we created a wearable social network that encourages interaction unlike most wearable devices today: quick method of communication, exchange emotion, casual game, and interaction with somatic information. The Patches system is created from Facebook infrastructure due to its popularity in social networking as well as its variety in interaction techniques. We augmented the poke application on Facebook to create a unique mobile device that brings online communication offline. Patches can be used as a platform for examining true social interactions, since it uses the popular Facebook site. We plan to continue research with user testing and exploration of online vs. offline communication, casual gaming, and touch through a distance. Casual game Roa [26] considers poking on Facebook as a casual game. Instead of confining this game to the internet, the Patch system brings virtual poking into real world “third places”. Bringing these casual games offline may create a more playful environment as the game expands to another dimension. We plan to study this relationship in the future. Interaction with somatic information A main feature of Patches is its ability to transmit the natural human sensation of touch through a distance. 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