Drew Cogbill | Thesis Blog

During the last week, I’ve had a variety of people try out the sign-up and contact making aspects of Pigeon.  Beyond testing technical implemenation, I did of research into how to talk about the system.

People generally thought that the sign-up time was appropriate.  Most didn’t want to spend more time than they did completing sign up.  I’m still considering if and how profile information should be collected to make searching for contacts easier.

There were some issues in understanding the voice prompts, especially the phrase “member number”.  I may change that to “Pigeon number.”  The chat excerpt below was discussing this issue.

Some users were given the system as is, but I gave later ones some context, telling them that “Pigeon gives you 2 minutes to tell your world what you’re up to.”  I want a really catchy phrase that can sum things up quickly, and I want to be able to talk about the system in more detail clearly. One of the harder things for users to understand without that prompting was that their messages are available to all of their contacts.

I think a set of instructions should be played as soon as sign up in complete with the option to skip the instructions if desired.  These instructions could also be avaliable as the last choice on the main menu.

I also lengthed the amount of avaliable wait time for entering a desired member number, because as a tester said “what if they don’t know you need a number?”

Pigeon will now properly play back the public messages for all of a user’s contacts.

Direct US Phone: (713) 574-9488

Skype: +99000936 9996079967

Now you can add contact on Pigeon if you know the member number of your desired contact.  Figuring out how to accomplish this was a bit more complicated than the sign up code.

Here’s an old map of my database schema, which I have been referring to and helps to explain my logical organization: dbschema.pdf.

The contactLink table is used to join to members together and make them contacts.  I had to change my plan for organizing this table to make it easier to approve or decline contact requests.  There needs to be an option for ignoring a request and dealing with it later, but for the purposes of quick prototyping, this option was put on hold to get the main funcitonality going.

In my old prototype, I had faked the ability to leave messages for only your contacts.  Only this functionality needs to be added for a round of interesting user testing to occur.

Phone access:

• Direct local (713) 568-7265
• Skype +99000936 9996079900

contactsadding.zip contains all of the Pigeon code up to this point.

I’ve begun rapid prototyping out the Pigeon system using Voxeo’s CallXML.  I have the beginnings of the system from my previous work, so I’m starting by adding the next essential features.  Yesterday, I worked on making it so you could actually sign up for a Pigeon account (with a 9-digit member number, and a 4-digit pin number).

This “sign up” working version is available via Skype at +99000936 9996079834 or via a direct line at (845) 521-7421.

signup.zip contains code as of that implementation (contains 7 php files, one xml file).

*All developmental versions of Pigeon are and will be prealpha and hugely buggy.  The point of posting small prototypical builds is to document the process of development.  Phone access may or may not be active.

The following are rough implementation prototypes exploring system maps.

This is a edit and expansion of a previously developed system map for Pigeon.  The contacts, direct message, and groups sections are new and have yet to be technically implemented.  As this is a phone based system, the numbers on the map represent the digit to pressed to access that feature.

The beeping system would have quite a different system map.  I decided to consider registration via text message from mobile phones for the system for now, so the system has two cases, if the incoming is a SMS or a call.

Originally, Pigeon was imagined with international use in mind.  When speaking with people though, local use seemed to be something that kept coming up.  An old prototype of four sisters spreading gossip works locally or internationally.

Pigeon could also be used by groups of local friends to organize outings as shown in the following role prototype:

It would be an option to build a similar system based on beeping, which I proposed in my summer paper.  “Beeping” is calling in and hanging up before the other person answers, generally to indicate that you want them to call you back.  A system could recognize missed calls and then set a caller’s profile as active for a certain amount of time.  During the active time, text messages could be sent to the user informing them about their friends who become active in the system.  Below is a visual exploration of how such a system might work in people’s lives.

Street signs in Belize City have a space for a small advertising token.  Belize has what seems to me to have a pretty high saturation of ads, meaning that in most, even small, populated areas there is advertising.

You see lots of  restaurants with Coke, Fanta, or Belikin (the local beer) signs.  One company handles the bottling of these and other available beverages.  I’ve heard that if you will use the signs, they will give it to you for free.

In store in Belize City with a Western Union depot, the largest, attention grabbing sign was in Chinese.  I didn’t have my camera, but thought that it was a significant observation.

This little trash stand is at the house accross the street from where I’m staying in Dangriga.  It’s sturdy and even a better solution for keeping dogs out of the trash as plastic cans are easily knocked over.

This sign is an ad for an area called Old Belize, which is located on the highway between Belize City and Belmopan.  It does a good job of establishing legitimacy for tourists.

Side note: I got a little sunburned laying at the Old Belize beach yesterday.

I’ve been looking at the signage of Belize City recently, and will post more on that, but I’m particularly intrigued by this hand painted sign:

In my experience in other towns in Belize, you pick your main up at the Post Office, but perhaps here in Belize City there is some type of delivery service.  I’m wondering: what else beside mail would be slid into that slot? Why the exclamation marks?  Am I supposed to be excited about this?  Or has this Harry been receiving mail for another Harry? And if so, why is the Harry so much larger than the Longsworth?