TODAY I LEARNED

D e s ig n S p ac e : S. Eagen, A. Hong, C. Hsu, & A. Shave

TRANSFORMING TRANSIT THROUGH A FUN AND ACCESSIBLE MOBILE PHONE APP

 What did you learn today?

INDEXTODAY I LEARNED:

Transforming Transit

THE PROBLEM: Discovering a Need

HOW IT WORKS: Mapping Ideascapes

VISUALIZATIONS: The Beauty of Interaction

THE APP LANDSCAPEHow we stand out

TODAY I LEARNED: Transforming TransitLocation-Based Phone App: Today I learned is an interactive learning application for mobile phones.

Accessible on Public Transit Routes: Users send 140-character messages visible to other users on their transit vehicle beginning with Today I learned...

Creating Community Through Conversation: Other users mark these messages as interesting or uninteresting, and can respond with other messages grouped into conversations. Positive interaction extends the visible life of these messages as the user/carrier travels through the transit system.

F u n & A c c e s s ib le D e s ig n : These routes are then mapped artistically (visually and audibly) on a website.

   “The basic idea of the Web is that an information space through which people can communicate, but communicate in a special way: communicate by sharing their knowledge in a pool. The idea was not just that it should be a big browsing medium. The idea was that everybody would be putting their ideas in, as well as taking them out.”

- TIM BERNERS-LEE, Professor and Inventor of the World Wide Web

This image is a projected map of the virtual landscape.

DISCOVERING A NEED: Commuter Engagement

• The average commute time in OECD countries is 38 minutes.

• Most spend this time idle. 

• This is a wasted opportunity for fun and interaction.

• Riders on Transit Vehicles are selected completely at random.

• Every day, thousands of micro-communities are created and destroyed as people enter and exit these vehicles. There is rarely any positive value added.

• These communities could be the basis for open, truly democratic discussion with a variety of people. 

• By engaging with this group, and by extension one's own community, one could cultivate new relationships to turn strangers into friends.

DISCOVERING A NEED: Community Development

• The world is undergoing the largest wave of urban growth in history. 

• In 2008, more than half of the world's population will live in cities. 

• For the good of the planet, these new city dwellers must be encouraged to ride public transit to reduce automobile emissions. 

DISCOVERING A NEED: Environmental Sustainability

T H E D E S IG N S P A C E V IS IO NFACILITATING the continuous sharing of knowledge

and ideas thorough the creation of a fun and anonymous platform. 

ENABLING interaction between strangers in order to create community and a forum for discussion.

TRANSFORMING stereotypical perceptions of commuting as time wasting to make the experience fun and educational.

FOSTERING innovation and creativity by facilitating interaction between people with different lifestyles, perceptions and opinions.

ENCOURAGING people to use public transit rather than personal vehicles to create a more environmentally sustainable future.

• An anonymous commuter sends a 140-character SMS message starting with the words “Today I Learned” at the station or on the train: 

TODAY I LEARNED… “Traffic congestion is caused by vehicles, not by people. "

- John Smith

• The message travels with that commuter as he or she travels, adding it to a live-feed of cascading messages accessible by others in the same vicinity

• X commuters find it interesting or uninteresting, which adds to or subtracts from the length of life of the message. They now carry the messages they rate interesting along their own transit routes.

• X commuters can comment on the message. They now carry both the original message and stacked replies as a conversation .

HOW IT WORKS: Day in the Life

• The most compelling feature within the application is that commuters can access beautiful visualizations of the ideas along the transit map

• These visualizations will illustrate the movement of information in real time, and show the tangle of opinions present in the city. Computer users can see not only what ideas are widespread, but at what transit stop these ideas originated.

• These unique visuals demonstrate the ways in which knowledge and ideas travelin collective decision-making processes. The possibilities  for how these idea journeys will be represented are endless.

VISUALIZATIONS:The Beauty of Interactions

MAPPING IDEASCAPES:The Toronto Transit Map

Other Transit Apps exist, but none with the range or sophistication of Today I Learned.

•Twitter allows users to submit 140 characters messages and connect to others sharing the same idea via hash-tags, but lacks the ability to create sustainable communities

•Vibe uses location-based software that allows other users in the same vicinity share and view messages, but relies on groups which share pre-determined interests such as the Occupy Protests

•Blendr fosters communities of users in the same region who share similar interests, but only allows one-on-one messaging

THE APP LANDSCAPE:Similar Applications

THE APP LANDSCAPE:Innovations that set us apart– Community-moderated system that allows users to determine which ideas

are worthwhile and interesting

– Re-inventing micro-blogging as a means to share ideas and knowledge by fostering chance connections and unexpected communities

– Strengthen communities through the sharing and promotion of ideas

– Explores the possibility for new pedagogical methods that incorporate social media with educational strategies 

– Creative visualizations that illustrate where ideas originated and how they travelled to create accessible and meaningful art

Thank you for reading about

TODAY I LEARNEDPresented by Design Space