Get Together
Get Together
Get Together is a service that uses the web and SMS to help friends coordinate social activities. It is designed for collaborating on upcoming events (i.e. birthday party) or to help friends make an event when none exists (i.e. friday night after work). Get Together strives to use the power of social software and mobile phones to facilitate face-to-face communication between friends living in the same city and is designed to be accessible to anyone with a mobile phone.
Research & Explorations
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Being interested in mobile devices, my starting point was a probe I called Mobile Ideas. This consisted of envelopes filled with blank cards fixed to the back of people’s mobile phones. The idea was to collect inspirational and spontaneous ideas for imaginary mobile phone features based on problems experienced while on-the-go.
To explore the role mobile phones played in social contexts, particularly amongst groups of friends, I initiated Dispatch, a day long experiment involving my classmates, their mobile phones and a party we attended. The rules stated that they could not call or text anyone in the group except me. When they contacted me, they could leave messages, status updates or inquire about other people’s updates.
The idea was to see how limiting the way people used mobile phones would make them coordinate their plans differently. It was also a way for me to observe everyone’s communication that evening.
Dispatch II was the next experiment in the form of a low-tech, group SMS prototype. I sent all my classmates a text one Saturday morning saying they are now part of the “Pilot Year Dispatch Group” and any SMS they sent me would be forwarded to the whole group. People who sent the word “bail” would be unsubscribed.
The idea was to see how a group of friends would use such a system and if it would result in any social activities that evening.
Watch the Dispatch videos: Dispatch I, Dispatch II or the abridged version.
Final Concept
Product demo
The final concept, a service called Get Together, is presented in three videos. The first video (above) explains how it works. Core features include
- Group messaging through a single phone number
- Groups based on the time frame & context of specific events
- User involvement can range from being a member & receiving no updates all the way to installing a dedicated iPhone app and website membership
- Suggest and vote on ideas to facilitate group decision making
- Broadcast and volunteer for “roles” to facilitate group collaboration
- SMS keywords to interact on-the-go
- Event web page as a lasting document
Scenario I
This video scenario tells a story about how Get Together can be used to organize a party.
It is Eilidh’s birthday and her friends are throwing a surprise party. Adam has volunteered his garden and set up an event on the Get Together website. We meet several people who tell us about their contributions to the party and how these were coordinated using the website and text messaging.
Scenario II
The second scenario tells a story demonstrating how Get Together could be used on an occasion when there is no specific event planned.
Sid is spending a Saturday afternoon with his girlfriend and wants to know what the rest of his friends are up to. He uses the app on his iPhone to create on an on-the-go group and suggests everyone meets at the park. He eventually catches up with his friends after one of them tells about a free concert.
Prototyping
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I was able to test aspects of this service by creating a small prototype. It consisted of a mobile phone that used blue tooth to communicate with a computer running special software.
The prototype allowed me to setup a group phone number, invite people to that group and let people contact the entire group by sending a single SMS to the group phone number. It also had a few additional features. For example, people could suggest ideas of things to do by sending a text that began with the word idea. Then other people could vote on that idea by responding to that text. If people sent an SMS with the word “ideas”, they would receive a list of all the ideas and the number of votes for each idea.
Further Considerations
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The prototype showed that people enjoyed sending messages to the group, but the costs added up fast. I don’t doubt that if the money was coming out of people’s own pockets they would be less willing to send those messages. But instead of thinking about subscription models, I see more potential in partnering with organizations that would be interested in sponsoring such a service. In the first example it is Carlsberg, a company that should be interested in getting people together. You could also imagine clubs or venues having a similar interest.
Get Together could also partner with companies interested in providing supplies or services for parties. In the second example, people setting up an event on the Get Together website have the option of ordering printed invitations, party supplies or even catering.
The next two examples show forms of advertising that Get Together could support, both through the app and SMS.
Personal Contribution
Get Together was my final project at the CIID/DKDS Interaction Design Pilot Year and was developed independently over three months.
Adviser: Vinay Venkatraman
Special thanks to David Mellis for AppleScript and Siddharth Muthyala for hand-drawn interface elements.
Honors
Get Together was one of five projects that “passed with honors” as confirmed by a group of external examiners.