User Experience of Proximity-based Social Networking
Saarinen, Petri (2011)
Saarinen, Petri
2011
Tietotekniikan koulutusohjelma
Tieto- ja sähkötekniikan tiedekunta - Faculty of Computing and Electrical Engineering
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Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2011-08-17
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tty-2011082514776
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tty-2011082514776
Tiivistelmä
Social media is a growing phenomenon. Social network sites (SNS) are web services which are designed for supporting the communication between the users. One of the most famous SNSs is Facebook with over 500 million active users. This indicates that people are interested in using social media in their everyday lives.
Social networking has gradually gained ground also in the mobile technology. Today, mobile phones are more sophisticated than earlier, enabling the use of various communication methods. Modern mobile devices contain technologies like Infrared (IR), Bluetooth and WLAN, which allow the interaction between the users in proximity. Social proximity applications (SPA) are mobile applications which can exploit these technologies and bring social networking to the mobile context.
TWIN is a social proximity application developed in Tampere University of Technology. This thesis investigates the usage of TWIN and proximity-based communication from the viewpoint of user experience. The thesis is based on a large-scale user trial, called TWIN pilot and its results. Two months long trial with 250 participants made it possible to study user experience of proximity-based social networking in-depth and in a long term. The main aim of the user study was to find out how people use proximity-based technology for communication purposes. For achieving the aims that were set, various research methods were used during the trial.
Results indicated that people are interested in using proximity-based technology, especially for communication with their existing social network. Also, meeting strangers with the help of the technology was seen useful and fun. The peer-to-peer technology contains some challenges, which are significant to solve in the future. The overall feedback of TWIN was positive and encouraging, and thus the further development of proximity-based applications can be seen significant. /Kir11
Social networking has gradually gained ground also in the mobile technology. Today, mobile phones are more sophisticated than earlier, enabling the use of various communication methods. Modern mobile devices contain technologies like Infrared (IR), Bluetooth and WLAN, which allow the interaction between the users in proximity. Social proximity applications (SPA) are mobile applications which can exploit these technologies and bring social networking to the mobile context.
TWIN is a social proximity application developed in Tampere University of Technology. This thesis investigates the usage of TWIN and proximity-based communication from the viewpoint of user experience. The thesis is based on a large-scale user trial, called TWIN pilot and its results. Two months long trial with 250 participants made it possible to study user experience of proximity-based social networking in-depth and in a long term. The main aim of the user study was to find out how people use proximity-based technology for communication purposes. For achieving the aims that were set, various research methods were used during the trial.
Results indicated that people are interested in using proximity-based technology, especially for communication with their existing social network. Also, meeting strangers with the help of the technology was seen useful and fun. The peer-to-peer technology contains some challenges, which are significant to solve in the future. The overall feedback of TWIN was positive and encouraging, and thus the further development of proximity-based applications can be seen significant. /Kir11