Blog 11/17/08: Pukinskis Sets

Below is the Pukinskis Set I created for our project.

(Click to enlarge)

Principles Blog

Predisposition – Users want improved chat featues as well as improved privacy features.

Research – Distributed questionairres that showed the want for enhanced chat and privacy within facebook.

Insights – Many people wanted a video chat feature as well as the ability to become “invisible” while using the facebook interface.  Many people also wanted the ability to share files through facebook.

Concepts – Create a video chat, give the chat more creative options, create additional privacy features, allow file sharing.

PRInciPles

Predisposition: Users want facebook to upgrade its chat features.

Research:  Using the questionnaires results to make a data collection. The result is people don’t really care about group chat features in Facebook but they expect a more user friendly and sophisticated chat features on facebook chat that allow easy virtual interaction.

Insights:  Applying existing features that other Instant messenger services are using ( yahoo,msn,aim)

Concept: Add a user’s status and add/block friend features for user’s privacy

PRINCIPLES

Predisposition: Users want to enhance the experience of one-to-one chat.

Research: Data is collected via a questionnaire in order to understand the end user’s opinion about the flaws in chat. Data shows that users do not want group chat.

Insights: Users referenced existing instant messaging systems’ features such as an “add a friend/screen” button and to be able to share media.

Concept: Use existing instant messaging system concepts to represent the wants of chat users to improve real-time and efficient communication by adding these features. For example video chat, pre defined emotions/tones (i.e. emoticons), add user buttons, and media sharing capabilities.

Blog for November 17

Predisposition:  Users want enhanced chat within Facebook

Research:  Questionaires are distributed and the results confirm the need for enhanced chat

Insights:  A lot of the things people wanted to see were the more used concepts from the widely used instant messenger applications.  Such as sound notifications, ability to share and send files, video chat, and emoticons.

Concepts:  Including the above insights plus Privacy features such as blocking other users from chatting with you and making yourself invisible to everyone.

Pukinskis Set

PRInCiPleS

Not sure exactly how to do this in a blog but here goes:

P1(Facebook users want a group chat feature) -> R1(survey data shows that the majority of people don’t want or don’t care about a group chat feature on Facebook. A few participants mentioned video streaming, file sharing, and new privacy options) -> I1(Having group chat on Facebook may not enhance the chat application experience.) -> C1(Do not implement group chat into Facebook, focus more on enhancing the experience between two individuals chatting).
(Initial predisposition is proven wrong by research which brings me to another one) -> P2(Video streaming, file sharing, and the ability to block or hide yourself on chat, similar to other stand alone chat programs, enhances chatting online). -> R2(Second Survey shows much more interest in video streaming, file sharing, contact groups, and new privacy features).
->I2(Including features that are already implemented in stand alone chat programs such as AIM, MSN, and yahoo messenger, will enhance the user experience with the chat application).
->C1(Add block/invisible features to Facebook chat. Allow file sharing and video streaming with a single friend at a given time. Also enable the ability to organize and construct friend lists and contact groups.)

sketch

Sketch Blog

Unfortunately I am unable to create a sketch for this blog assignment.  I had to go to Chicago to visit my relatives on Thursday night and they do not have any way for me to scan or upload my sketches that I have created.  They are however very easy to pick up if you have used facebook before. 

1.  When you click on the online friends tab of facebook a list of friends comes up.  When you put your cursor over the name of one of your friends it only says their status.  This creates a problem with because it does not say anything about what happens if you would click on one of the names.  There needs to be something that pops up that says “click to chat,” instead of the person’s status. 

2.  After you click on the name and the person gets brought down to the bottom where you are able to chat, there needs to be a spot within the chat that says “video chat.”  when you do this facebook will then ask the person you are attempting to chat with if they would like to allow for video chat.  If yes then a seperate window will come up with the other person on their web cam.  If they say no, then an error message will come up within your chat section that says “Chat not allowed”

3.  Another thing that we have talked about adding is to somehow being able to hide allowing others to know that you are currently on facebook.  For this to be possible, I suggest that everyone’s name including your own be viewable as someone who is currently using the interface.  If you do not want to be viewed I suggest that we make it possible for the user to be able to right click on their own name and click “hide”  There is something like this on your wall, where you can say delete your wall post.

Sketch 1

Here is the first rough sketch of my design concept.  Hopefully it all comes out clear in the pic.  I accidentally chopped off one of the notes at the bottom, but all it says is “scrollbar” (which corresponds to the arrow pointing to the scrollbar).  A few things to note:

- The little rectangle along the middle of the vertical divider has hover text that says something along the lines of “press to hide video chat.”  This could be used to give users who aren’t interested in video chat more room to type, and more room to view the chat log (think along the lines of how Google Maps can expand to your whole screen by pressing the button.  I’m planning on drawing a 2nd sketch of what the window would look like if video chat was collapsed.

- There are 2 toolbars at the top.  The one on the left is for general chat stuff, like status, font, sending files, and privacy settings, while the one on the right is for video/voice chat-specific things.  It could be shaded a slightly different color to set it apart from the general toolbar.

- The pic at the right is a type of general placeholder for users who haven’t yet initiated video/voice chat.  One of my ideas, which I also plan on sketching, is that this placeholder would change to say “this user is already in a video/voice chat session” if the other user was already using it with someone else.

(Click the pic to make full-size)