ambient human activity

flash forward, amsterdam, november 2001

visiting with yacco vijn

ate at a traditional dutch restaurant

noises were comforting and familiar, though i speak no dutch

experience of sharing a space with others is a key part of human existence

desire to "be in a group" drives people to restaurants, movie theatres, the ballet, sporting events, and even to quiet libraries

yet, collective experience is largely missing from the web

i call general commotion of crowds "ambient human activity"

december 2001, began Ambient User Sound project

mission: explore ways to integrate ambient human activity into web content

ambient user sound

content plays sounds in response to user activity

like human activity creates sounds in a restaurant or library

sounds for the following actions:

  • entering the page
  • exiting the page
  • clicking the mouse
  • moving the mouse

    • perceiving users through audio

    when user is alone, application is quiet

    when there's a crowd on the page, there's a murmur of clicking and whirring

    sounds could be literal, like an office environment

    sounds could be interpretive, perhaps resulting in something quasi-musical

    from sound to motion

    decided to use moock.org's homepage for sound experiment

    lots of activity: navigation panel requires mouse movement and clicking

    to make a sound when the mouse moves, i had to track mouse position

    hence, had enough information to represent users visually

    could show user's mouse pointer to other users

    the collective experience

    seeing other mouse pointers gives users that feeling of "being in a crowd"

    each user sees which pages other users are accessing

    some people might follow others, creating visible trails to popular content

    good for usability studies with an administrator observing user activity

    an idea: queue to a navigation panel

    allow them to push and shove each other around. Would the normal "no butting in line" etiquette apply?

    the ambient user sound homepage

    interpret user's pointers as insect-like creatures

    live demo

    Ambient User Sound live demo

    observed results

    mouse pointers had living, bug-like behaviour:

  • flit about trying to interact (like a swarm)
  • roost while the user reads something on the page
  • head directly to a link
  • if one starts clicking, others tend to respond
  • one often chases others

    • links on the page seemed to take on the role of food or flowers

    extend the organic analogy:

  • mouse pointers need links to stay alive
  • mouse pointers pollinate and spread the links by using them

    • user death: stop clicking

    page death: stops being clicked

    multiuser navigation

    to encourage cooperation and interaction, added what i believe is the web's first "multiuser hypertext link"

    when three users point to the link, it activates

    groups of users waiting for the link resemble bugs swarming:

    further explorations

    in version 2: added a larger flying insect

    allows user activity to be perceived on both a macro and a micro level

    added food particles for each user's bug

    each food particle represents a single point on the mouse's path

    bugs follow that path, appearing to consume food along the way

    future: portray age (time on the page or number of visits) by evolving the user's bug (metamorphosis)

    intentionally ambient

    don't show each user his/her own bug representation, just as we cannot see ourselves in real life

    trying to avoid "lost in the mirror" effect (or listening to your own echo)

    represent incidental user activity with as little intentionality as possible

    focus on exposing the natural, intrinsic behaviour of users

    lets us study responses to others instead of response to self

    when one person looks up on the street, others look up to see what the first is looking it

    i can walk around my house listening to people visiting my site

    when there's a lot of noise, i am similarly drawn to investigate what's going on

    almost as if there were a crowd on the street outside my door

    types of multiuser activity

    user representation

  • instant messenger buddy lists
  • other cars in a racing game
  • conceptually: gives sense of "being in a crowd"

    • user transformation

  • path across a field
  • moving location of links on page based on popularity
  • conceptually: gives sense of self over time

    • user contribution

  • adding your own room in a virtual world
  • graffiti
  • blog comment
  • conceptually: creativity (procreation)

    • user interation

  • chat
  • railgun
  • conceptually: love

    • uTulip

    uTulip started as a series of drawings of tulips

    changes in the subject matter

    1 drawing per day for 21 days

    i wanted to track how the tulips changed over time

    changes in the observer

    over time the tulips did change

    but when all the drawings were done, i realized that my interpretation of the tulips changed as much as the tulips themselves

  • my drawing style changed
  • stationary objects, such as the table, moved around the page based on how i was looking at the subject matter
  • i placed emphasis on different elements in the scene (plug grows in importance and size)
  • my framing of the scene created a comparison between the energy of the flowers and the energy in the plug and cord

    • in the final series of drawings, my observation and perception of the tulips is, itself, very much a part of the content

    perspective is content

    realizing that my interpretation changed lead me to a more general conclusion

    the perspective of all viewers is part of the content being perceived by the collective

    people affect and change everything they experience

  • chairs in a room are rearranged when people sit in them
  • a path forms across a field when enough people walk across it
  • a tree branch used by hikers to climb a rocky section of a trail will eventually wear smooth
  • the murmur of a crowd in a room

    • bringing perspective online

    on the web, the effects of users viewing and experiencing content are rarely obvious

    the motive of uTulip is to portray the effect that users have on content when they observe it and interact with it

    live demo

    uTulip live demo

    representing perspective in uTulip

    uTulip displays 4 drawings on screen at a time

    each drawing can be changed to one of the 21 drawings in the tulip series

    hence, each users can create their own composition of 4 "time slices"

    with enough users connected, the compositions animate

    audio volume increases as more users connect

    each user experiences his/her own interpretation

    each user's interaction is reflected to other connected users

    the uTulip piece shows the users' collective effect on the content

    uTulip represents remote user activity...the feeling of being in a crowd

    uTulip makes user changes persistent (morphable worlds, the worn branch)

    uTulip portrays user trends (reveals the most common images selected, paths across a field)

    uTulip contrasts sequence of time vs sequence of human exploration

    uTulip reveals "echoes" of user actions and reactions