Reveal-it!

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Contents

Resumen del proyecto / Project's summary

Planteamiento inicial (respuestas al cuestionario) / Initial approach (first day questionnaire)

1. Describe the goal of the project in 3 sentences (which message do you want to carry? to whom?)
Reveal-it! envisions the idea of revealing on-site data about the citizens’ consumption processes and its interrelations with energy-related infrastructures in urban environments. The project proposes a participatory mobile intervention for interactively discovering and visualizing this data via on-demand projection on urban surfaces using a mobile app running on a device equipped with an integrated mini projector. The app will display interactive infographics based on data downloaded from an online database.
2. What are the inspiring projects and theories)? (background, context, references,...)
The initial inspiration is mostly anecdotal: a the water cut, which was recently a frequent event in one of the author’s neighbourhood in Barcelona due to construction works. Naturally, all neighbours were informed of the cut prior to its actual happening and advised to supply themselves with containers of water for the time, where water is not gonna be available from the sink. Our house did the same - and just used the empty mineral bottles lying around as emergency water containers. What happened during the water cut, was that we could not use the sink, but help ourselves pouring water from the water bottles previously filled. It was striking to realize that it was often not enough to spend more the one whole 1.5l of water for the single act of washing our hands! This is one example of a simple almost unconscious act of consumption is nowadays something we, as a part of a modern western society, accustomed to the use of all kinds of comfortable urban infrastructures, understand as something “given”.

In that context we found these problems:

  • Data barely understandable by non-experts
  • Interrelations between measures and daily practices not clear
  • Concepts of energy consumption detached from urban context
  • Data generally not easily obtainable and visible
  • Insights and awareness require a high-level of motivation and dedicated search

We also found some artistic and activist projects very inspiring. Some of these are:


3. What is the short-term objective (what do you expect to finish in 2 weeks)?

  • Have a basic databes online with data about water, gas and electricity consumption in the city of Barcelona
  • Design the infographics and interaction
  • Design of the stickers
  • To develop the mobile application
  • To test the prototype


4. What is the long term objective (what posterior development do you think of)?'

  • Contextual study of use in a neighborhood
  • Enhancements:
    • Inclusion of other platforms (Android, etc.)
    • Incorporation of other relevant databases
    • To develop some kind of scrapper to keep data up to date automatically
    • Inclusion of QR code recognition in the app
    • Improvement of projection geometry by mean of inertial sensors
  • Redesign of the website to match the app
  • Inclusion of social networking features in the Website:
    • User profiles
    • Connection with Google Maps API for geolocalized data interfacing


5. What are the data (status, where do they come from, who specifically owns the data?)
Data is mostly obtained from the statistics section of the Barcelona City Council web page (http://www.bcn.cat/estadistica). They are constantly updating statistical data from the city, including but not limited to energy consumption and population data, which is what we need. It is presented as html tables, so we initially copy+pasted the data to spreadsheets, cleaned it, and we finally put it in a MySQL running along a webserver, so we can access it online. It is currently running in one of our computers, but we already have an online server to host the data after it is ready.
6. How will you convert data into some perceptual experience?
Our idea is to generate stickers which will include URL encoding as QR codes, so anyone can read them with a mobile device. Those URLs are specific queries which depend on the place we are going to put the stickers (for instance, a light pole in La Barceloneta). The URL would then return XML data which would then be read by our mobile application, which would take it and display it in meaningful infographics. the app will also allow a certain degree of interactivity, such as animations, the possibility to scroll or zoom the graphics, etc.
7. Do you have any assumptions or previous hypothesis?
We conducted a previous rapid ethnographic study to test some of our initial hypothesis. We proved to be wrong in some of them and right in others. We found (amongst other things) that most people, even though they like to be aware of their own personal consumption data, wouldn't want to share it or know about other's personal data, but they want to know related data so they can estimate if their consumption is fair or not. After the prototype is finished, we will make tests to see the level of interest an engagement that we can achieve.

Equipo (nombres y descripción de roles) / Team (names and roles description)

  • Nina Valkanova: interaction design
  • Penélope Maldonado: graphic design
  • Guillermo Malón: ethnograpy, graphic design
  • JP Carrascal: data processing

Datos / Sources, data structure, etc

  • Source: Barcelona City Council webpage (http://www.bcn.cat/estadistica)
  • Format: html tables
  • Typology:
    • Population data: total, by distrito (district), by barrio (neighborhood)
    • Electricity and water consumption: monthly, domestic and commercial
    • Gas consumption: tri-monthly, domestic/commercial and industrial
    • Recycling: not found so far
  • Units: cubic meters (water), Megawatts per hour (electricity), Kilowatts per hour (gas).
  • Structure: varies according to type of data. We have copy+pasted it into spreadsheets, cleaned and formatted it manually. This sould be eventually be automated.

Desarrollo / Development process

week1 week1 week2 week2
Data acquisition and database setup x
Design of infographics / information designs settings x x x
Development of interaction design concepts x x x
Video output / proyector connection development x
App-to-web connectivity development x
Final build of the application prototype x
Application testing x

Tecnologías y herramientas / Tools

    • iPod touch. It migh sound contradictory, but the development is still under development.
    • 3M pico projector
    • Web and database connectivity: php, mySQL
    • Design: Photoshop, Illustrator
    • Interaction and animation: OpenFrameworks

Prototipo final / Final prototype

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