LocationPortals

Thurs 29th - we just finished [WWW] LocationPortalsRoadmap

A proposed workshop on the design and UI of location-based portal pages for open access wireless networks.

The idea of how the web should look and what it should do when I connect from a specific location.

**This is not tied only to geo-info. Info about other users and interaction with them (think neighbornode), community using that space, etc).

Check out this page [WWW] http://wirelesslondon.info/NodelSoftArchitecture

Interested in helping out - MichaelLenczner, MichelleKasprzak, MayaWiseman, GabeSawhney, LauraForlano, SaschaMeinrath

Attendees: (this list is just from my recollection - a year later)

Examples of Location Portals (please add!)

SeeAlso

WSFII September 30 – Afternoon discussion, location portals, users and user interfaces Gabe Jo Benoit Mike L François Alison Dana Pete Ferne MK Introductions

Mike: summary of yesterday’s discussion of tools and technologies fitting together. Now want to talk about what users would see, real-world scenarios. Mike: ISF group, bunch of users, want to create content and implement. Role as founder, push for developing community. Benoit: designed most of WiFiDog architecture, but we are not sure what to deliver and how we want it to look. How does one show what someone is potentially interested int but doesn’t know about. Issue of taking control away from user; data collection. Jo: wrote nodemapping client for londonwireless, write semantic web applications. Wants to find out what applications should be in the core, how could this work with WiFiDog. Nodeal – captive portal. Build model for conference Gabe: WirelessToronto using WiFiDog, launching 8th hotspot. Also Murmur, location-based storytelling project. Interested in community potential for community portal pages. Need to work on technology design. Alison: François: WiFiDog developer. Wrote mapping part and created content in CMS. Interested in developing ways to show multimedia content. Show art work using locating Dana Spigel: NYCWireless, addressing issues in WiFiDog after last month’s launch. Hotspot software development (ie wifithankyou). WiFiDog should evolve into something a grandmother could use. Pete Ferne: BristolWireless. Free open network over most of Bristol. Open source evangelizing. Use Linksys with WRT, looking at WiFiDog. No captive portal, so interested in what BristolWireless might get out of it, what they could contribute to developing local portals. They connect community organizations; schools hospitals, etc. Not tracking or mapping usage. They want a map of the network. Happy for people to pass through the portal

Discussion on location portals:

Gabe: the wonderful and terrible thing about the internet is that it is the same everywhere – this is an opportunity to create place-based information.

Mike: you don’t want just geographical information but community information. Place= geo + community. Benoit: 4 questions for the portal page: who is here? what is related to here? why is this here and who provides it? what is around here?

NYCwireless: don’t own nodes, don’t run them, and they are sponsored by 3rd parties. UI is thus effected by constraints of ownership and influence.

Mike: who controls the interface?

How do you show users something interesting to them? Gabe: implicit assumption that groups are providing something valuable – that there is value in information about place. Every group will have different takes/policies/mandates about this.

Someone needs to produce or aggregate content. This is expensive and difficult. Who wants to do this? Not the providers of hotpsots or service. Distinction between content providers and service providers.

François:Another kind of content – user-created content. IE Flickr aggregator for potential hotspots. Not only organization that provides portal, but a collaboration with user.

(However, NOTHING on portal page that suggests that you can change the content).

SCOPE: captive portals in general:

1: How to show content? (15 minutes) Difference between login page and captive portal. If it’s possible to create serendipity w/ information on the portal, people will not just pass through. People will use WiFi in a location they have never been to (check this abp, is this true in user experience) Reasons why people pass through? - going somewhere – going to specific URL - looks co – commercial wireless portal (Dana notes that NYC community is expecting this commercial look; this may be cultural) - Doesn’t change - Don’t want to be stopped or restricted – suggestion, not insistence (where could you find this if you don’t need to go through a portal page??) - Place-based content is a speedbump. Annoys them, negative vibes because it’s a speedbump. what would get them to stop on their way? - opportunity to have positive feelings - personalizing the page (placeSite) – set of personalities associated with the site. – end users of products are not the developers of the system (MK and Alison will look at MSN login page, François disabled it) - what will people be interested in?

What are people interested in? What do they want to see? - Mike – sex (ie meeting other people) - Dana – drugs - MK – rock and roll (specific practical, historical and current information about the area they are in) - Local politics and civic responsibility ie they work for you - Visitors vs. locals. Locals may want some persistence of information. - Keep track of how many times you have visited – dynamic content, showing something NEW TO SOMEONE (ie art). Wifidog server - B. points out as well that community groups have an agenda, we should not be hesitant about having an agenda - D. suggests that content might encourage people to accept or understand agenda - Content from network owner, node owner, user

3: Responses to Benoit’s 4 UI questions (keeping in mind above) who is here? what is related to here? why is this here and who provides it? what is around here?

Dana: point – user education – could show them an interface of a blog because users already know and understand.

Benoit: point – if we start with the mental model of a blog it can cause mental disconnect when we don’t actually have the information of a node.

Mike: what about tabs (question). Alternative is showing one piece of information on the page and then have tabs to different types of content.

Dana: Want to let node owners manage the content.

Different paradigms to show information:

Dana -location API for wifidog – Iframe idea – something is missing. Include in the url the user info and the node info.

2: Who could control interfaces? (5 minutes)

4: How can groups coordinate with one another to address these issues (general question on community coordination) Follow up after - A: Join the wsfii-dev list! [WWW] http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/wsfii-dev

last edited 2007-12-05 15:25:26 by xtraffer