R.A.A.M.

R.A.A.M. Remote Activity and Awareness Medium. This project investigates how digital environments can be made more social.

Social awareness systems are starting to emerge more often. Websites such as Facebook or Twitter allow us to remain in contact with our social network. But this increase in personal information that is shared also leads to privacy risks.

That is why in design it is strived for embedding social constructs in digital environments. This way, social norms that are apparant in the physical world can emerge in the digital world. Two such approaches are social translucence and symmetry of information flows.

In this project both approaches were implemented in one concept. The concept describes a digital window between two remote locations. These windows allow users to look at the other side. A webcam captures what is seen at the remote location and converts this to a silhouette image (to preserve privacy). However, one cannot always look at the remote location. A layer of condensation is added on top of the silhouette images. This condensation is shared for both locations and can be removed at will by the user. However, when one removes the condensation it is also removed at the other location. Thus, the other knows that one is looking.

The prototype was evaluated in a field study and showed how both approaches were perceived by users. This project was interesting since it showed how products can be created such that social norms can emerge. Especially regarding future products this knowledge is interesting, since products will be embedded more in our environment and daily life. This means that these products should also be socially embedded, meaning that they should fit our social interactions.