App Testing

View of Brasenose Lane with iPhone showing same scene with dance performers Exciting moment this week when we took to the streets of Oxford with our 4step location-based iPhone app to test out the first build.

The treasure hunt of following the GPS markers in the Augmented Reality view of the app worked brilliantly well. We have to make some adjustments to the trigger range when users arrive at the key locations, due to variability in GPS accuracy (which is device dependent as well as connection dependent)

Final outstanding task for our developers is to connect up the “Achievement Unlocked” prize when people discover one of the video locations to the Dancin’ Oxford Festival web site. I’m really interested to see how people respond to the game mechanic of the app – if our user enters a Player name in the introduction screen of the app, their successful visits will be reported and listed on the Festival web site with the aim of engaging more visitors to join the Digital Dance Trail.

There’s so much to be learned from an actual field test of a project like this, from how comfortable it is to hold your mobile phone out in front of you while you follow the floating pointer to the location, to gaining an awareness that this is actually a slightly hazardous way to walk through a busy City Centre – Disclaimer Note added to the app !

 

 

January 21st, 2012 | Leave a comment

Street Footage

Rare Faction Instagram imageI’ve just completed production on some great videos that will appear in the augmented reality view within the 4step app. Our last filming day on the streets of Oxford was with Aya Kobayashi at the amazing Bodleian Library and street dancers, Rare Faction in the 15th Century Brasenose Lane .

I don’t do so much filming in public spaces, but even with required permits etc. it’s surprising how much hostility gets thrown at you by passers by. We had people ruining takes by deliberately walking into the camera shot, becoming more angry than you might consider appropriate about getting themselves on camera, and generally being unhappy about the presence of artists with cameras on their streets.

With all of the publicity around the presence of government monitored surveillance cameras on our streets, I do wonder if this response is some kind of deferred frustration which people can’t express to their City officials directly.

It was cold too!

Anyway, we got some great stuff from our performers and many people who’s journey about the streets was disrupted by our filming were charming and interested. Video trailer coming soon…

January 8th, 2012 | 4 comments

GPS Filming

We started filming content for the 4Step app in Oxford this week. Funky tappers, Sole Rebel Tap used the site at Bonn Square in the heart of the City and Joe Lott performed within the walls of the Oxford Castle-Unlocked site.

In the final project, playback of these videos will be triggered when people visit the right spot on the digital dance trail using the app during the Dancin’ Oxford Festival in Feb-March 2012. The image here is a screengrab from the GPS app that I’ve been given to record the general location of the camera.

Although they’re all less than a minute in length, compressing the HD video down to a size suitable for use in a downloadable app is going to be a challenge.

 

December 30th, 2011 | Leave a comment

Design Steps

We’ve been working on the interface design of the digital dance trail app for Dancin’ Oxford 2012 this week, now christened 4step. I love doing this sort of stuff where you can get right into every detail of the user interaction as well as designing a look and feel.

Luckily, we had a house guest staying over the weekend who is a copy writer, with experience of game development – so I had someone on hand who could understand the context for the game-like onscreen instructions about “unlocking achievements” etc. and give me some advice – Each of the four locations that the app will  navigate you to will earn you a FourSquare-esque badge, resulting in a bonus video download for visitors who get to all of the sites.

Oxford is a fantastic City to use for this project. We’ll have augmented reality sites set up at Oxford Castle, Bodleian Library, the medieval Brasenose Lane and Bonn Square in the heart of the City. The app experience will stay live after the Festival, so future visitors to the City will be able to unearth some digital archeology by digging up this layer of digital reality that we’re building now.

We’ve got most screens laid out as concepts now, ready for our developers to take things to the next stage of implementing them into a working app. Here’s the splash screen, which gives the general concept really  well.

We’re filming the first performances on location right after Christmas. One of the really cool things about being involved in this project is that Chris, our Tech Director has built me a custom app for recording the GPS locations on the exact spots we’ll be working in, I’m now my own mobile Sat Nav – maybe I should start practicing the voice and I could yet have a third career.

December 21st, 2011 | Leave a comment
 
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