Yesterday, July 16 I finally signed my certificate and I'm officially Bachelor in Communication & Multimedia Design. To get this I needed to do an exam presentation. And of course as a media boy I had it filmed. You can watch the movie on my graduation blog: http://brisdom.com/afstuderen/.
The next few months I will be working for my own company 1020concepts, to earn money for 3/4 round the world trip. End of October I hope to start, beginning in South-Africa, Cape Town and after spending New Years Eve there I will get a plain to Mumbai, India and travel trough Asia. When somewhere in May/June I hope to be in Australia and finally get to New-Zealand. If anybody has connections there, please don't hesitate to send me an email as I would like to meet people with the same interests while I'm traveling. So keep following my blog for all the adventures I'll be having. I hope that before I move this blog has had a nice update :D
Here it is, my final thesis. The work of 4 months hard labor. I hope you find it all read worthy and interreseting. I know I do. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to send a comment or reply.
UPDATE: added a zip with all the images and attachments from the thesis
Niets uit deze uitgave mag worden vermenigvuldigd en/of openbaar gemaakt door middel van druk, fotokopie, microfilm, of op welke andere wijze dan ook, zonder voorafgaande schriftelijke toestemming van de opsteller.
I didn't had the time to post updates on the project the last few weeks. That ofcourse is because I'm doing a lot of work and making long days to finish everything before the 12th of June. And it looks like I will pull if of.
The prototype is live, together with a survey. Prototype Survey (Dutch)
Already receiving a lot of valuable feedback on the design, flow and usability. Copy is a really important aspect in mobile design, something I'm finding out just now.
Today is my last official day here at Mirabeau, I had a blast here. Realy enjoyed working with the people and very pleased they helped me with my graduation project. The freedom I got to just work on the project and not have to deal with other project. (Except for some minor tasks like a small prototype and concepting) They best part is that people are coming to ask me about mobile projects. So it feels like they have faith in my knowledge on mobile development. Something I value a lot and that gives me courage and motivation to believe in myself and the graduation project.
The next coming week I will be creating a do's and don'ts list for mobile concepts. Finalize my thesis and creating the final presentation. I hope it will be possible to do a usability lab test, but will see!
That's it for now, hope to see you all at the exams or at the exposition of all the exam works
Tomorrow I have my greenlight presentation. A 10 minute speak on my progress to graduate. I hope it will all be well, but I'm pretty confidend it will be fine. Know enough on the project and have done a lot. Know I need to finish it all up and I will graduate... SWEET!
I made my first widget. It feels like my first Sony Walkman, super cool! One of the solutions for the mobile web is a widget. After seeing some blog posts and reports of mobile widget camp here in Holland the last few weeks. And the enthousiasme people have on widgets, I thought of giving it a try? And hell this is easy like @#$! If you can make websites you can make widget. This widget took me less then a day to design, build and deploy.
Promote your mobile website on other media channels
29-04-200916:24:01Scriptie, Afstudeerstage
Last week I was watching some television, like I do almost daily. Flipping channels I came across a commercial of Peugeot. Promoting there new Peugeot 3008 with driving in the snow. Now I never got why you would promote a car in Holland as being good in driving in the snow. You have the same commercial from an other France car maker, Renault or Citroen, I don\'t know. But they also promote there car as a good driving experience in the snow. I don\'t know, but that ain\'t a motivator in Holland, to promote a car like that. Cause it NEVER snows here in Holland. Or 3 days and then the national car services advices all drivers to stay home. Maybe it\'s more interesting to promote a car as a good experience in a traffic jam? That is something we have a lot in Holland. Anyway that was not the intention of this post. Lees meer »
2 Weeks ago I filed my concept thesis. Hans checked it out and gave me some valuable feedback. Because I changed the research question just before the sending the concept thesis I wasn\'t sure if it was good enough. Below you will find an update on the research question and sub question
Research question Where and how will user experience be used on the mobile web?
Sub questions
What is user experience?
Who uses the mobile web?
When is the mobile web used?
How do you use the mobile web?
How can you use the mobile web with a specific target group?
How does user experience influence the mobile web?
6 weeks to go before the exams. I still need to do lots and lots of work. Time to FOCUS and replan the hole project. My planning was a bit overdue not a real problem but it didn\'t help in releasing some stress.
Check the new planning here: Planning V3 the last 6 weeks (113b, xls)
One of the first research questions I had was "When you create a mobile application, should this be done native or web?" In the last 3 months I didn\'t find a real answer to that question. What I did find is that it depends on lots of sub-questions that need to be answered first. To name a few:
Do you want to access native functions like camera, contact list or file system
Do you need to be able to update the programming
Which target group are you going to target
Which mobile phones do you want to target
Should it be cross platform compatible
Does the data that needs to be displayed be up to date, does it change a lot
Do you want to deploy it your self
Do you want people paying for your service
How do you want people to pay
How many times do people access your application on a daily basis
What is the budget
Do you have the programming skills
and lots of more questions....
Next to these findings and questions there are some other solutions that seem to be really interesting. You have Hybrid, a mixture between native application and web application. To use this kind of solution you need to be able to access the phone manufacture API. The API gives you access to some of the native functions, like GPS, Contact list, File systems and others. I really depend the API you use and phone. This rules out already a lot of the mobile phones that are out there, this is the same as making an Native application btw. But if that\'s your target group it could be realy interesting to look at Hybrid applications. Especially if you need to be able to update the programming, front-end or back-end. Again, for hybrid you realy are dependend to the API.
27-04-200911:00:24Afstudeerstage, Mobile design patterns
Update on mobile design patterns.
I\'m working on a few high-end mobile design patterns.The reason is to get a good look at what is possible with mobile websites and mobile web apps. What do I mean with High-end mobile? Think Android and iPhone like mobiles. With a browsers that supports XHTML and a bit of javascript and some sort of user-experience which is not in line with frustrating. Check Mr. Nielsen his blog on useit.com he calls them Full-screen phones.
The idea was to publish 2 of these designs every week, but my planning doesn\'t allow that. So I will publish them all at once now. And in the coming days try to explain the idea behind them. These are my visions, so please don\'t hesitate to let me know your vision in the comments.
And again an new view on mobile web and applications. Native, Hybrid, Web, Widget. What is it going to be. But I like this solution, it seems as the best one for now. Standards are the bomb!
Finally some interesting results on the usage of mobile internet in the Netherlands.
49% has access to the internet by mobile phone
of that 49%
40% uses the internet on there mobile phone
60% never uses the internet on there mobile phone
The top 3 reasons not to use it are:
- cost to much
- no need for it
- the screen is to small
The top 3 (web)applications that are used
- Email
- News
- Search
Source see:
The best thing about the discussion that is going, "mobile websites and the one web", is the fact that we are thinking about it. What should we do? "The one web" is more a dream then a reality for me. As long as standards are not followed by all browser manufactures it will never happen. Walled garden sites is what we as web developers make with all websites. IE6 or 7 websites may look the same but have extra coding to making them look the same.
Lees meer »
07-04-200910:24:34Afstudeerstage, Mobile design patterns
I'm working on a few high-end mobile design patterns.The reason is to get a good look at what is possible with mobile websites and mobile web apps. What do I mean with High-end mobile? Think Android and iPhone like mobiles. With a browsers that supports XHTML and a bit of javascript and some sort of user-experience which is not in line with frustrating. Check Mr. Nielsen his blog on useit.com he calls them Full-screen phones Lees meer »
Yesterday, Monday, march 30 I organized a brainstorm session. The idea was to find a right target group and concept for my case study. I already got a client but there was no real client wish or problem to tackle, accept that they want to do a mobile variant of there new website. Next to inviting the right people form within Mirabeau the assignment was to lead the whole brainstorm. Something I didn't do before on a company level. And of course it was a blast to do. I filmed the hole session and hope to publish it on-line if that's allowed, need to check that. Lees meer »
Today I finally got the right software to create PDF's. Now I can publish all the work I've been doing in the last month. You can find a complete list of all documents on the right-side if your are visiting my graduation blog http://brisdom.com/graduation/. The "project plan" was a bit of a hassle, in the beginning of the plan I didn't have a client yet. The same goes for my planning. Lees meer »
Last week the discussion was made on the final project outline and client. Today we received the approval of the management. I can start working on the project details and the project itself. Lees meer »
I use Basecamp for my project management and planning. Basecamp is a online app from 37signals. This is the easiest way to keep everybody in the loop of all the milestones that are set. Hans and all you can see what need to be done and so can the people of Mirabeau.
I used basecamp before in some project management and I need to say it's one of the best tools online at the moment. For now it isn't possible to see passed deadline. I'll try to see if I can fix it else you can see the project planning here.
Found out that it doesnt work to share an imported google calendar. I'll try to find an other solution.
In mijn vorige post had ik het er nog over, maar ik was het even vergeten om er bij te plakken aan het einde. Dit is nu de opzet van mijn scriptie en casus. Al zal de casus nog wel wat verder worden uitgewerkt. Lees meer »
De eerste 2 weken op Mirabeau zitten er op. Te samen met de eerste meeting met Hans Kemp, een borrel en het 15de potjes tafelvoetbal. Na een korte introductie op de eerste maandag, aan alle mensen bij Mirabeau, via de mail, op vestiging Rotterdam face-to-face, (Mirabeau zit in Amsterdam, Rotterdam (waar ik zit), Hoorn en Eindhoven) kon ik meteen aan de slag met mijn scriptie. Veel lezen, heel veel lezen en dan nog wat meer lezen om dan te eindigen met lezen.
Eerst scripties van vorige jaar gelezen, daarna artikelen zoeken over mobiel, user-experience en nog zo wat. Veel linkjes klikken, bookmarken en nog meer bookmarken. In de introductie mail had ik gevraagd of er al mensen bij Mirabeau bezig zijn met mobiel. Daaraan geen tekort, een paar mooie reacties gekregen, al is er nog niks concreets online gezet, er worden vooral veel concepten gemaakt. Lees meer »
Mobile websites are getting more and more interesting. I'm trying to create a clear view for me and my clients on how to approach this upcoming market. So while surfing the web on my desktop and creating small mobile websites I was wondering what would be the best way to direct a user to your mobile website. A subdomain or a extra extension, like .mobi. Automatic redirection, a link to your mobile website. No redirections or anything at all, only different stylesheets depending on screen-size or user-agent.
There are a few options if you optimize your website for mobile devices when it comes to url specifications.
a domain specific site. sitename.mobi This is a common solution if you are mainly focused on mobile users. But should you visit it on a desktop, should it be desktop optimized?
a subdomain mobi.sitename.com, there a many variations on the subdomain, the most common is m. others i've seen are mmm. mobile. mob.
a request url such as sitename.com/m/ and again with very different requests as m / mobile / mob etc.
a plain domain sitename.com, most of the time you will find these load different stylesheets.
all of the above, never missing anyone.
For all five, and there are probably more, there are pro's and con's. I was wondering if there is a w3c standard for domain specifications if you are creating a mobile version of your website. There is nothing i could find that is directed towards mobile specifications. Only the following 2 comments:
[URIS] Keep the URIs of site entry points short.
"5.2.1.1 What it means: Typing URIs on mobile devices can be difficult, and it is expected that users will prefer to use alternative methods of obtaining URIs when available - such as following a hyperlink (from an e-mail, SMS or other Web page), WAP Push, 2D bar code, color bar code, RFID tag and Bluetooth. However, typing a URI may in some cases be the only option available. By keeping site entry point URIs short it is possible to reduce the chance of error and provide a more satisfactory user experience."
[URIS - http://www.w3.org/TR/mobile-bp/#URIS]
a quote saying that domain URI's shouldn't have aliases if they are presenting the same resources.
"A URI owner SHOULD NOT associate arbitrarily different URIs with the same resource." -from Architecture of the Word Wide Web, Volume One [ WEBARCH - http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-webarch-20041215/#uri-aliases]
