Bram Lievens

Co-creation and user-generated content-elderly people's user requirements

There is an increasing demand on citizens to participate in social network websites and to create and share their own user-generated content (UGC), such as photographs, videos, and blogs. So far, little is known about how elderly people respond to these new trends and master the techniques required. This paper reports on three studies that investigated elderly peoples user requirements related to consumption, sharing and co-creation of UGC in new media. The first study, conducted in Norway, identifies patterns of Internet usage, age differences, and participation in online communities and the consumption, sharing and co-creation of UGC on a macro level. The second study, conducted in Belgium, investigated the social requirements of elderly people on a group level. The third study, also conducted in Belgium, investigated user and context requirements on an individual level. The results of the first study show that the elderly rarely participate in online communities and share audio-visual UGC. However, they embrace some aspects of the new media and more often express themselves politically. The results of the second study show that the elderly are very motivated to contribute with UGC, given the right circumstances. The results of the third study show that it is important for elderly people that they be able to use the new technologies easily and identifies their worries about using them.

Seeing the bigger picture: a user perspective on 360° TV

Omnidirectional video (ODV) is a type of video in which viewers can look around in 360° as if turning the camera themselves. This type of video presents opportunities for new interactive television formats. The development of such new formats, however, is accompanied by challenges in terms of user experience and technical and creative development. In this paper, we discuss which issues and opportunities users anticipate. These findings are the result of a human-centered design study in which we first introduced potential users to ODV, gathering their feedback, and then encouraged them to envision suitable ODV-based enhancements of television genres.

Ensuring Trust, Privacy, and Etiquette in Web 2.0 Applications

An analysis of three user studies of Web 2.0 applications reveals the most important requirements related to ethical issues. The development of features that support these requirements should be tailored to the type of application and specific community needs.

Does Mobile Television Challenge the Dimension of Viewing Television? An Explorative Research on Time, Place and Social Context of the Use of Mobile Television Content

Television is one of the last media technologies to become disconnected from a fixed place like home. Media like newspaper, radio, audio recordings and computing have already been introduced in a mobile setting since some time. However with the wide spread and strong domestication of mobile devices, and the dominant character of television in households, it seems that the transition to mobile television is inevitable. Viewing patterns and behavior are strongly determined by dimensions of time, place and social context and it is exactly on those dimensions that the mobility aspect has a great impact. The question we therefore address in this paper is to what extent that relationship between mobility and these dimensions will influence the uptake and usage of mobile television.

Speckle disturbance limit in laser-based cinema projection systems.

In a multi-disciplinary effort, we investigate the level of speckle that can be tolerated in a laser cinema projector based on a quality of experience experiment with movie clips shown to a test audience in a real-life movie theatre setting. We identify a speckle disturbance threshold by statistically analyzing the observers’ responses for different values of the amount of speckle, which was monitored using a well-defined speckle measurement method. The analysis shows that the speckle perception of a human observer is not only dependent on the objectively measured amount of speckle, but it is also strongly influenced by the image content. The speckle disturbance limit for movies turns out to be substantially larger than that for still images, and hence is easier to attain.

From Era of Plenty to Era of Overflow What Shall I Watch

This article focuses on how viewers decide what to watch in a context of almost infinite video content availability and a lasting expansion of the process of digitization. We investigate to what extent viewers apply an active search process toward video content. Therefore we applied a focus group methodology. Seven focus group sessions were conducted, totaling 47 participants. We found that this process is guided by a combination of contextual, content-related, and personal factors, which simultaneously free as well as restrict the viewer in his choice. Moreover it can be concluded that a gradual shift is taking place in who fulfills the gatekeeper’s role.

Managing social adoption and technology adaption in longitudinal studies of mobile media applications

In this paper we present a case study of a longitudinal in-situ observation that involves a new social application for mobile communication. Our study demonstrates the need for an adaptive approach to planning, design, and implementation that is responsive to emerging social and infrastructure conditions. This represents a shift from traditional longitudinal studies that observe prototype systems with fixed sets of affordances. In the case of mobile and social applications there is a complex interaction between the social dynamics, the new technology, and the mobile infrastructure. Exploratory research thus requires approaches that can deal with such complex conditions. That includes a high level of prototype plasticity to ensure adoption and sustained use that is needed for longitudinal in-situ research. The social aspects dictate specific forms of instrumentation to enable observation of social interactions and mechanisms to inject the new technology into an existing social and communication ecosystem. Our study demonstrates the evolving use of complementary techniques and in-situ modifications of the prototype to support longitudinal observations in a real setting.

Does Mobile Television Enhance a New Television Experience

Television has become a common – and often a dominant – practice in the everyday life of people. A transition to a mobile environment seems natural – as industries like to believe. But is this really so? To what extent will mobile television have the same position as well as the same practices as the traditional television set? Our research has identified that the affordances of mobile television are quite different. In this chapter we will first identify those affordances and then we will investigate whether these also lead to a new practice of watching television.

Extending the field of view: a human-centred design perspective on 360° TV

Omnidirectional video (ODV) is a type of video that presents viewers with a new type of interactivity. It enables people to look around in a 360° view of the recorded dynamic scene as if they are controlling the camera themselves. ODV presents opportunities for new interactive television formats. The development of such new formats, however, is accompanied by challenges in terms of user experience and technical and creative development. In this article, we discuss issues and opportunities tied to televising ODV from a user perspective. These findings are the result of a human-centred design study. In this study, we introduced 20 potential users to ODV, as this was new to them. We gathered their feedback on the demonstration, and then encouraged them to envision suitable ODV-based enhancements of television genres. This article offers a discussion of both the methodology (including a form of laddering) applied in the study and the user research findings. We found that people see an added value in ODV under certain conditions (e.g. enabling exploration), but that there are also a number of bottlenecks such as the concern to miss key parts of a television programme while looking around.

OPEN INNOVATION NETWORKS: EXPLORING ACTOR ROLES AND NETWORK ORCHESTRATION IN LIVING LAB

In our contemporary society, innovation is more and more considered as a collaborative effort between different actors who tap into distributed sources of knowledge. This has fostered research into open innovation, innovation networks and open innovation processes. However, research on how these innovation processes are coordinated within these networks is largely lacking. Therefore, within this chapter we explore a specific approach that tries to facilitate and govern distributed innovation processes through a Public–Private–People partnership with a central role for the end-user: Living Labs. As we consider Living Labs as clear examples of distributed innovation through a collaborative effort of different actors, we use concepts from open innovation and from innovation networks literature to analyse and make sense of innovation processes taking place in Living Labs. By means of an in-depth case study analysis, we look at the knowledge transfers, constellation and orchestration taking place in FLELLAP, a Flemish ICT Living Lab that generated some successful projects, but also failed on some aspects. This allows to abstract lessons and propose avenues for future research.