KMDI 1001 project

Our preliminary design solution is, admittedly, quite adventurous in scope. We would like to develop a smartphone application that allows users to tag physical spaces (through GPS) and make notes on them easily, and to share their tags with friends or all other application users if they would like to.

We plan to use Google Maps as the foundational layer, with our own software layered on top of it. The application does no require users to ever visit a website; all functionality should be available through the application itself. Because our survey results showed a diversity of preferences when it comes to creating, sharing, and searching out information on smartphones, we determined that in order to be successful, our application must be extremely flexible. Many of our smaller design decisions have been explained in the “Brainstorming” section of this paper, and we hope through extensive prototyping that we will be able to experiment with a variety of interface and functionality choices.

We imagine the application would work as follows:
The default setting would be “alert me” unless the user chooses to turn it off. After downloading the application, the user could search for tags or users. Once they have entered a preliminary search term, they can browse the results to find specific tags that interest them (see Appendix B), and browse each tag to see the type of alerts they would be receiving. They can then subscribe to any tags that interest them. Users should be able to customize alerts: whether the alert comes as a vibration or a beep, whether they receive only the most popular tags or tags from most popular users, or all of them, or whether they receive only tags from users they’ve subscribed to. They can also customize the distance from which they receive an alert, perhaps 3 meters, 7 meters, or 15 meters. The user can tag a place they are currently standing in, but they can also tag a place at long range, by locating it on the map (this would be where Google Earth comes in handy, so that users can be sure, at a distance, that they are tagging the right spot). As users walk around and receive alerts, they can rate the spot, make a comment on it, and decide whether they want to receive the same alert again.

While not all users of the system will need to contribute to the tagging, there will need to be a critical mass of active users to ensure that tags are granular, and that enough sites are tagged to interest users in staying active.

(Designed in conjunction with Evan McMurtry.)

Quel trio!

I just got back from a fantastic Professional Development at the iSchool event on job interviewing.

Sooo thrilling to have three dynamic, sociable speakers. Librarians: not what they used to be, thank goodness.


(To be fair: not what stereotypes that I have never actually seen in action dictate they would be).

Playing with Fire

This blog post is for INF2196, New Media Practices for Youth

Hijazi-Omari, Hiyam & Rivka Ribak. "Playing with Fire: On the Domestication of the mobile phone among Palestinian teenage girls in Israel." Information, Communication & Society, 11(2). March 2008, 149-166.

This article discusses the use cell phones by teenage Palestinian girls living in northern Israel. The girls, who were interviewed extensively over a two year period, are part of a fairly conservative, patriarchal community, and all of them use cell phones only in secret, as a way of communicating with their boyfriends. The majority of the girls are given the phone by a soon-to-be, or already (secretly) established boyfriend, and hide their conversations, as well as the phone and its charger, from parents and siblings.

Authors Hijazi-Omari & Ribak trace the ‘domestication’ of the cellphone for these girls as taking place in four stages: appropriating, objectification, incorporation, and conversion. In the first stage, appropriation, the girls receive the phone (“appropriation never consists of a teenage girl purchasing a mobile phone, having her parents purchase one for her, or literally owning it” [Hijazi-Omari & Ribak 156]). The transfer of the phone from boy to girl often happens via an intermediary, usually a cousin, friend, or neighbour. Some girls were simply told where to pick up the illicit new object: in one case at a cemetery, and once beside a garbage dump. Another complication for cell phone owners is the cost of the often-lengthy phone calls. While purchasing calling cards was one way the girls could contribute to the relationship, others saw the phone bill as wholly the boy’s responsibility. Bills were typically between $75 and $250 a month, a substantial cost for teenagers.

In the second phase, “objectification,” the girls hide their phones from their family. Those with their own bedroom were considered incredibly lucky, and their room often became a storage spot for other girls who had to share their room with a snitcher sibling. Many of the girls reported having their phone found by a furious parent, but this did little to stop the object from entering the house: a new phone was quickly acquired, and a better hiding spot sought.

In the third phase, “incorporation,” the girl learns how to negotiate the actual use of the phone. During this phase, rules dictated by both the boyfriend, and the family and community at large, determined how and when the phone could be used. While the object had to be stored safely when not in use, it was the girl and the sound of her conversation that needed to be kept hidden when she used it. Many reported hiding under their bed, or piling a mountain of blankets and pillows on top of themselves. I found this fascinating: we so readily characterize cell phones as connoting freedom of movement, but for these girls exactly the opposite holds true. I think this is the clearest evidence of the authors’ thesis, that the technology is not, in itself, either emancipating or oppressive. Instead, it is through the highly gendered use of the item that demonstrates its medium.

In the final phase, “conversion,” many of the girls developed their own uses for their phones, separate from their boyfriends. Friends would chip in to buy a phone for a girl whose boyfriend could not afford one, or else purchase a phone to be shared among the group on a schedule. Some girls, once gifted a phone by their lover, purchased a second SIM card so that they could use the device to talk to friends, or even other boys, without their boyfriend’s consent. By the end of the study, many of the girls, approaching university age, (and living two years later in the history of technology—there was a huge leap in cell phone use generally between 2003 and 2005), were given mobile phones by parents.

What I found most interesting about this article was the characterization of the immensely complicated relationship between phone as physical object and phone as symbol. For most teenagers, ownership of a cell phone is a point of pride, and arguably more so if it is a gift from a boyfriend. But for these teens cell phones were less of a status symbol and more of a liability: girls wanted a cell phone from their boyfriends, but there was a huge risk involved in the acquisition, keeping, and use of the device. Furthermore, as the authors note, the sense of emancipation the girls got from being cell phone users was more romantic than factual; boyfriends often demanded that they not give out their phone number, talk to friends, or even turn their phone on except to talk to them. As soon as the relationship ended, the phone was retrieved, and the girls lost both the symbol of their romance, and the use of a very handy gadget.