Ralph Barthel

An internet of old things as an augmented memory system

The interdisciplinary Tales of Things and electronic Memory (TOTeM) project investigates new contexts for augmenting things with stories in the emerging culture of the Internet of Things (IoT). Tales of Things is a tagging system which, based on two-dimensional barcodes (also called Quick Response or QR codes) and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology, enables the capturing and sharing of object stories and the physical linking to objects via read and writable tags. Within the context of our study, it has functioned as a technology probe which we employed with the aim to stimulate discussion and identify desire lines that point to novel design opportunities for the engagement with personal and social memories linked to everyday objects. In this paper, we discuss results from fieldwork with different community groups in the course of which seemingly any object could form the basis of a meaningful story and act as entry point into rich inherent ‘networks of meaning’. Such networks of meaning are often solely accessible for the owner of an object and are at risk of getting lost as time goes by. We discuss the different discourses that are inherent in these object stories and provide avenues for making these memories and meaning networks accessible and shareable. This paper critically reflects on Tales of Things as an example of an augmented memory system and discusses possible wider implications for the design of related systems.

Mobile interactions with digital object memories

Digital Object Memories are a novel application of the Internet of Things (IoT) that pave new ways to interact with real-world objects in situ. Tagging technologies such as RFID (NFC) and QR codes, which are increasingly available on mobiles, can enable in situ engagement with these digital object memories. However, there is a lack of an agreed format for the description of the structure of object memories that are applicable across different application domains. We propose, based on two large-scale research projects and industry inputs, an Object Memory Model (OMM) that aims to define a generic and extensible structure for digital object memories. This structure builds on widely used web protocols and best practices with the aim to provide an open and flexible architecture for the augmentation of real-world objects with a digital memory. We outline and discuss the OMM model and provide examples of digital memories that are linked to real-world objects.

Enhancing the 'second-hand' retail experience with digital object memories

For a long time, the second-hand retail market was the preserve of the charity shop. However, the advent of services like eBay has massively increased its prominence. In this paper we describe a novel Internet of Things-based approach to enhancing the second-hand retail experience by augmenting items with their provenance. After a discussion of the underlying technology, we shall describe its deployment in two related case studies conducted in collaboration with Oxfam charity retail outlets in which we tagged donated items with RFID and QR codes, allowing shoppers to hear the story behind the donated items. Finally, we discuss the impact of the deployments and their implications for the second-hand retail sector.

Collaborative knowledge building with shared video representations

Online video has become established as a fundamental part of the fabric of the web; widely used by people for information sharing, learning and entertainment. We report results from a design study that explored how people interact to create shared multi-path video representations in a social video environment. The participants created multiple versions of a video by providing alternative and interchangeable scenes that formed different paths through the video content. This multi-path video approach was designed to circumvent limitations of traditionally linear video for use as a shared representation in collaborative knowledge building activities. The article describes how people created video resources in collaborative activities in two different settings. We discuss different modes of working that were observed and outline the specific challenges of using the video medium as shared representation. Finally we demonstrate how an analysis of collaborative dimensions of the shared multi-path video representation can be applied to discuss the design space and to raise the discourse about the usefulness of these representations in knowledge building environments.

Designing interactive systems to encourage empathy between users

An oft-cited criticism of our increasingly online world is that text based communications still dominate, offering limited opportunity for the development of empathy between users and possibly encouraging more critical and confrontational interactions. Whilst there are a wide range of design methods that enable designers to develop empathy for the potential users of their products or services, there are none aimed at helping designers to create systems that actively encourage the development of empathy between those users. In this research we discuss why we believe there is a need to design systems that facilitate empathy and how designers may approach such a challenge, using the example of a digital prayer candle system developed with a church community.

Approaches to interacting with digital object memories in the real world

As IoT (Internet of Things) technologies and infrastructures become more mature, opportunities for engagement with representations of digital object memories (DOM) in the real world increase. Digital object memories can provide added value and pave the way for new consumer-oriented IoT products and services. However, our research experience of employing digital object memories in different systems for reminiscing, mediation of second-hand retail environments and augmenting digital heritage experiences (e.g. in museums) also point to some significant challenges as to how people can interact with DOMs in situ. Based on this work we will put forth some of the key user experience challenges that we encountered when employing representations of DOMs in the real world in the course of the last two and a half years and discuss some alternative routes we wish to explore through future research.

Towards a model of object memory links

A digital object memory (OM) provides a continuously growing collection of data concerning some physical artifact. Data may be added either explicitly - or implicitly as a link. Such linking may affect information storage and retrieval - and thus the overall hardware and software architecture chosen for an OM implementation. As part of work-in-progress aiming at a unified Object Memory Model, we review in this article various kinds of links employed in applications incorporating important OM concepts. On top of that, we propose an (abstract) model for establishing links to information in the same memory, the one of other objects, and external information.