kamyün

kamyünconnecting neighbors

creating community

Rachel Inman • Brett Leber • Shree Lakshmi Rao

Carnegie Mellon School of Design

Basic Interaction Design • Fall 2011

Over the course of the Fall 2011 semester, the Carnegie

Mellon School of Design Basic Interaction Design course

created mobile applications for a wide range of users and

contexts.

This book outlines the process and development of this

half-semester long project, Kamyün, in which we examined

problems that currently exist in the realm of neighbors

sharing resources with each other, and formed proposals for

ways to enhance community-building.

This project was completed under the guidance of Professor

Peter Scupelli and teaching assistant Clarence Yung.

p r o j e c t o v e r v i e w 1 1

Executive Summary

s t r at e g y 1 5

The Idea

Motivation

The Larger System

Defining A Focus

r e s e a r c h 2 1

Approach

Survey Methods

Analysis

Personas

Competitive Analysis

d e v e l o p m e n t 3 9

Challenges

Variations on Navigation

Defining Exchanges

Challenges & Iterations

s y s t e m c o n c e p t 4 7

Visual Language

Color Studies

Site Architecture

Imagined Scenario

r e f l e c t i o n 6 7

strategy

research

development

system concept

reflection

project overview

10 | Section Title

Rachel Inman • Brett Leber • SL Rao | Basic Interaction Design | Fall 2011

e x e c u t i v e s u m m a r y

We developed the concept and interactive demo for Kamyün,

a mobile application for sharing local community knowledge,

food, activities, and materials. By creating opportunities for

sharing resources between neighbors, Kamyün makes it easier

to live a locally-focused lifestyle.

Kamyün was developed in response to a Basic Interaction

Design project brief centered on “mobile life”, which asked

us to “explore the design challenges for mobile information

systems” by focusing on a particular user group and task.

From the given user groups and tasks, we chose parents of an

infant or toddler, who would like to find sustainability infor-

mation and broadcast actions.

We followed a persona-driven design process in which we

derived personas from research (interviews and surveys) with

project overvie w

potential users, and used the needs of these personas to shape

the design. These personas evolved over time, as did our con-

cept of the problem we were trying to solve and its solution.

This process book details the course of our project, from

initial brainstorming and research, through concept refine-

ment, wireframing, and prototyping. The final deliverable,

a prototype that tells the story of two women who meet and

share food and an activity through Kamyün, is included on a

CD in the back of the book. We end with a ref lection on the

experience of designing Kamyün.

project overview

research

development

system concept

reflection

strategy


t h e i d e a

We began by considering sustainability through the lens of

behavior change and personal action. What are the areas

where someone could live more sustainably? We considered:

■ Food (growing and sharing)

■ Waste (recycling, food disposal, composting, lessening

trash)

■ Resource usage (electricity and water usage)

m o t i vat i o n

How can children learn and assimilate the ideas of sustainable

practices at a young age? What will their motivation be? To

understand these concepts, we defined a system that both

parents and children could participate in.

Str ategy

t h e l a r g e r s y s t e m

We defined a large system that integrates futuristic infra-

structure within the home. This included:

■ Energy and water consumption monitoring devices.

■ Trash monitoring device (to measure weight of trash pro-

duced).

■ Compost monitor (for sensing whether more browns,

greens, or water are needed).

■ Physical atifact or “toy” for children.

We considered these systems to be paired with a master

smartphone application that would ref lect the household’s

sustainable practices.

16 | Section Title

d e f i n i n g a f o c u s

Within the larger system, we chose to examine the food-to-

waste cycle and how it could be made more sustainable for

parents and their children. For the parent, our application

would serve as a space for direct action that would allow them

to live more lightly on the earth—from composting to garden-

ing to sharing the results of their harvest with those nearby.

For the child, it would serve as an opportunity for education

and activity. Might parents want to teach their children about

ecological systems through the concrete activities of growing

food and dealing with waste by composting?

We considered different interactive games around sustainable

practices that children can be involved in and the possibility

of two representations of the same application, one for the

parents and another for the child. We also considered the

idea that the child’s sustainable activities—in addition to

that of the entire household —would be displayed through the

physical artifact, allowing the child to share this information

with his or her peers and involve them in the system.

project overview

strategy

development

system concept

reflection

research

20 | Research

Rachel Inman • Brett Leber • SL Rao | Basic Interaction Design

a p p r o a c h

We conducted surveys, interviews, and research based on our

interest in exploring the sharing of resources in a neighbor-

hood and giving parents suggestions of activities to do with

their children related to the food-to-waste cycle. The online

survey explored attitudes towards composting, growing food,

and recycling. We also wanted to find out how parents talk

to their kids about growing and consuming food and their

awareness of energy used and waste produced.

s u r v e y m e t h o d s

We had 71 respondents in total to our two online surveys.

The surveys were directly channelled to parents with young

children through The Children’s School at Carnegie Mellon,

Westminster Presbyterian Church Children’s School, and

re Se arch

friends and family with young children. Respondents had

between one and four children and most of the children were

between the ages of two to nine years-old. The majority of the

parents who responded currently live in urban areas, which

was probably a ref lection of the channels we chose to distrib-

ute the survey through.

22 | Research

s u r v e y s

To the right are some key percentages from the survey that

illustrate general attitudes and practices around composting,

gardening, and recycling.

24% compostOf those who do not compost, 67% would like to start.

36% have gardensOf those who do not garden, 83% would like to start.

All gardeners garden with their children.

All would like to spend more time educating their kids about the environment through activities like gardening.

85% recycle


s u r v e y s

To gauge awareness, we asked participants to describe a recent

instance where they thought about living more sustainably.

“We always had a garden which produced bushels of

vegetables and collected our compost material year

round. I would love to get back to that. I just need to

figure out how to keep all the creatures out!”

“In the past three months my husband and I have

made plans to purchase a rain barrel, we planted a

vegetable garden, and we’re looking into participating

in a local produce co-op, and purchase beef from a

local farm where steers are raised.”

“I was throwing away kitchen scraps the other day

and remembered that my neighbor has a compost bin.

Sometimes we take the scraps to his bin and I decided

we really needed to make it more of a priority.”

24 | Research

s u r v e y s

• On awareness of garbage produced by the family

• On awareness of electricity consumption

On awareness of waste produced:

“We always notice when it is garbage day how much we

have wasted.”

On awareness of electricity used:

“Every month when I pay my utility bills.”

“We only have 1 garbage can. Many families in our neigh-

borhood have 2,3 even 4 cans. When I put my garbage out,

I can’t understand why these families have so many gar-

bage cans.”

“We likely do not have a great appreciation but we do have

to put out bag on the curb (not just garbage cans) which

does remind you weekly how much garbage has been pro-

duced. We have a child in diapers so we no doubt produce

more garbage than many families of comparable size.”


s u r v e y s

Based off of the initial concepts for our mobile application

we asked participants to rank some of our ideas. Below is the

average ranking they came up with

1. A service to connect you with other par-ents in your neighborhood with children of the same age as yours.

2. A means for you to network with other parents to share excess resources (second-hand clothes or toys, surplus of vegetables from garden or store, gardening supplies, etc.)

3. A forum for sharing ideas for sustainable living with other parents.

4. A digital application that designs custom-ized creative games and activities for you and your child.

26 | Research

i n t e r v i e w s

Our interview included four face-to-face interviews and one

focus group made up of four people. All interviewees had at

least one child under the age of 10 years-old.

Focus group with coworkers

U01—father of 10-year-old

U02—father of two (ages 9 and 11)

U03—mother of two (ages 4 and 8)


Individual Interviews*

U05—mother of three (ages 3, 6, and 9)

U06—father of two (ages 3 and 9)



* see attached transcripts of individual interviews


a n a ly s i s

The results from the surveys and interviews began to suggest

some changes in the direction we were taking.

There were more objections to composting than gardening,

but it made clear that composting would be a hard sell to

those not doing it. The notion of trading or selling compost

also didn’t gain much traction in interviews.

Parents made it clear that talking to their young kids about

food only goes so far. There were varying levels of awareness

for kids (a potential opportunity for raising this awareness of

food), but many kids are picky eaters, and topics like where

food comes from were simply off the table for many parents.

Vegetables can also be a hard sell for kids.

We also learned from the surveys and interviews that normal

activities, not pre-canned ones, would be more appealing to

parents. The idea of an application that offered scripted ac-

tivities for them to do just didn't seem realistic. Networking,

they said, was more important to parents: respondents to our

surveys regularly ranked "a service to connect you with other

parents in your neighborhood with children the same age as

yours" above "a forum for sharing ideas for sustainable living"

and "a digital application that designs customized creative

games and activities for you and your child".

Our research also reinforced some ideas we had, such as

the notion that teaching children about ecology and living

sustainably is important to parents, and that parents generally

want to be doing better when it comes to waste and energy

use.

In the focus group and interviews, parents often talked about

how they already trade food with neighbors and friends, and

would enjoy doing more of this. We took these comments to

heart, and began to think more about our app as a way to en-

able more communication, conviviality, and local exchange.

28 | Research

p e r S o N a S

s p e c t r u m o f p e o p l e

From our surveys and interviews we began to see categories of

people emerge based on their background, motivations, and

influences. We considered the motivation of each group of

people and how we can influence their behavior through an

interactive application. Our personas were derived from this

spectrum of people.

We began by considering three personas each belonging to

the different categories. As we proceeded, we realized that

it is important to consider the scope of the application. We

realized that it would be difficult to influence the behavior of

someone in the “Aware” state directly through the application.

So we narrowed our focus to the “Curious” and “Committed”

and considered the influence of these two groups on someone

in the “Aware” category. Michael, our secondary persona falls

into the “Aware” category.


“AwAre” “curious” “committed”

People who have a basic knowledge of the problem of food waste.

They don’t want to take the ef fort to change their lifestyle to make it more sustainable.

People who have made many changes to their daily practices so that they can live sustainably.

They have knowledge of a variety of sustainable practices and are true proponents of the cause.

They are always willing to help others who want to get on the same path.

People who are aware of the problem and have taken a few steps to change their lifestyle.

Changes are made only when they’re convenient.

They are looking for more information, resources, help, and reasons to be motivated.

30 | Research

r e b e c c a p i n n

Age: 35

Financial Associate for CMoA

Lives in Lawrenceville

Mother of two girls who, with her husband, is very focused on

the education of her kids.

She and her husband care deeply about creating a world where

their kids can live happily and healthily—the same for their

kids’ kids, too.

She happily embraces alternative ways of living, such as car-

pooling, composting, gardening, and biking.

Rebecca’s intuition is to do more with the girls that shows

them how they can value sustainability. They garden and cook

together, and she’s taught the girls how to compost.

She desperately wants to share her knowledge with others in

the neighborhood, and get the whole community to live more

sustainably.


a n d r e a

Age: 30

Physical Therapist


Mother of two young children who cares about tradition and

family.

Her focus is on raising two happy, healthy kids, and passing

on the values her mother instilled in her. This includes cook-

ing great food.

She grew up eating home-cooked meals her mom made,

and wants to provide the same experience for her kids. She’s

interested in saving money and finding fresh ingredients for

cooking.

She doesn’t enjoy gardening, but she has had some success

with basil and sweet pepper plants her husband bought.

32 | Research

m i c h a e l

Age: 35

MBA from University of Pittsburgh

Chief Lending Officer at PNC


Father of two who wants happy, healthy kids—the key word

being happy.

One of his 5 year-old boys is a picky eater, and even lost some

weight recently after being spooked about the idea of eating

beef.

Michael's food choices are often based on what is on sale at

the grocery store each week.

He’s very knowledgeable about computers and landscaping,

albeit not the organic kind.

34 | Research

c o m p e t i t i v e a n a ly s i s

At various points in our process, we examined other ap-

plications that were addressing similar problems. While we

performed a competitive analysis at the beginning of the

project, it wouldn’t be until later, when we defined a new

focus, that we explored websites that promoted sharing with

others nearby.

Curiously, none of the similar applications we looked at had

mobile application versions of their websites. We hypoth-

esized that maybe these projects were just nascent, and hadn’t

yet had time to develop mobile apps. Mobile seemed like a

great opportunity to use the location of the user to describe

resources nearby. Of course, there would need to be a way to

override this, but as a default, it could be very useful.Freecycle is an email list for giving things away to people near you. A unique feature is their strict rules—they have a strong no-curb-alert rule, which states that you can’t just put something outside and say “ first come, f irst served”.

Craigslist maintains a “ free” listing section, similar to Freecycle but with fewer rules and a central website.


Hey, Neighbor! is a website that encourages neighbors to meet one another through the performing of “microfavors”, small favors that friendly neighbors typically perform for one another (borrow a truck, for example, or help move a couch). You can set your location and the radius within which you want to find neighbors.

NeighborGoods is a website for sharing things you own and borrowing things you don’t. It focuses only on borrowing, and emphasizes money saved through estimates of how much you saved and how much you saved your neighbors.

BarterQuest is a website where people post what they have and what they want, and are able to barter with one another by mailing things. It has no focus on trade with people nearby. BarterQuest will compare your haves and wants with others and suggest transactions for you. A unique feature is that you can include “points” in a transaction, which are essentially dollars. The feedback system similar to eBay's (positive, negative, neutral rating).

Mobile apps

Patch. Local news curated by a local editor. The mobile app determines your location for you, but lets you override it.

Green Genie. Suggests projects to work on that prompt you live more sustainably.

Green Map. Lists and maps green living sites and natural, cultural, and social resources nearby.

GoodGuide. Lists sustainable products and fea-tures a bar code scanner for you to check an item’s environmental impact before buying it.

project overview

strategy

researcH

system concept

reflection

DeveLopMeNt

38 | Development


With personas and a new concept in mind, we sketched the

various screens of our mobile application on paper.

c h a l l e n g e s

Sketching is typically an individual activity, so we were chal-

lenged to find a process that worked for a group of three. Our

solution was that we would each work on a series of sketches

independently, then meet to see how they overlapped and dif-

fered. With a revised understanding of the application that we

reached through discussion, we would then do another round

of independent sketching and meeting. Through this iterative

process, we continued to refine both the interface design and

the concept of the application. We would eventually settle on

the sketches of one teammate.

De veLopMeNt

On paper, it was hard to estimate the proper dimensions of

the iPhone. We resolved this by printing a series of pre-made

wireframes of the iPhone on tabloid-sized paper, and sketch-

ing within these blank canvases.

It was through wireframing that we explored and found solu-

tions to many design problems, like how to rate a transac-

tion completed in Kamyün, which is essentially a rating of a

neighbor.

40 | Development

We experimented with navigation through sketched wireframes.

va r i at i o n s o n n av i g at i o n

An initial task was to define the navigation that would be

used on the main screen of the app and the screens that fol-

lowed from it.

For the main screen, we focused on the primary actions the

user could do—“find” or “share”—as well as a few second-

ary actions —“search”, “calendar”, and “map”. We eventually

chose to integrate the map and search with screens lower

down in the hierarchy (search a full list of activities, for

example, or view a map for a particular item), while retain-

ing “find” and “share” at the highest level. A calendar did not

seem especially useful, although integration with an existing

calendaring system might.

We also experimented with global navigation—in our case,

the icons that would appear on most screens of the applica-

tion. The sketches to the right show a number of global navi-

gation ideas for the top of the screen. But we realized that for

an iPhone, this is non-standard; global navigation typically

appears at the bottom.

Our ideas for global navigation included links to Home,

Search, Notifications, Profile, Calendar, and Settings.

It wasn’t until we were working in high fidelity and discuss-

ing the design with colleagues that we decided to simplify

the global navigation and have buttons for “Home”, “Share”,

“Find”, and “Profile”.

We experimented with navigation through sketched wireframes.


d e f i n i n g w h at c a n b e e x c h a n g e d

From the main screen would come the categories of things

that could be shared or found:

■■ Food.■Any type of food item—grown, bought, or cooked.

■■ Activities.■Events to attend—either large-scale and public

(like a farmer’s market) or smaller-scale and more private

(like an afternoon of vegetable canning).

■■ Materials.■Things that might be useful to other people, like

household supplies, compost for gardening, and tools.

■■ Expertise. We debated whether this meant articles posted

by Kamyün users or a listing of the skills and competencies

of those users. We decided it would be the former, and skills

would be listed on user profiles.

We also had to decide how exchanges would work. Would we

support bartering and if so, how? Could users buy things from

one another?

We considered the idea of allowing a currency to be used in

exchanges, but decided against this as we wanted to promote

sharing and bartering as an alternative economy that valued

human capital over money. This idea was influenced by John

Thackara’s book In The Bubble, as well as the precedents we

discovered during our competitive analysis.

We decided on the following types of transactions:

■ Food could be offered for free or bartered.

■ Supplies could be offered for free or bartered, or even bor-

rowed.

■ Knowledge and activities could only be free.

The f low of f inding and selecting an activity (top) and more experiments with navigation (bottom)

42 | Development

Sketch of a scenario in which the user finds a posting for apples, requests and receives the item, and leaves feedback.


Finding and selecting an activity (top) and sharing an activity (bottom).

project overview

strategy

research

development

reflection

systeM coNcept

46 | Development


We wanted to find a simple way to allow people to find and

share items (food, toys, materials), information, and activities

in their locality. The application also helps people meet and

get to know their neighbors. We wanted to explore how to do

this while still keeping the application easy to use. We also

wanted the system to feel friendly, the way you would want

your neighborhood to feel. We used a visual language that

communicates this friendly neighborhood feeling.

One of the central ideas of our application was encourag-

ing users to share and find resources locally. We made the

distance between the user and the food, activities, and

materials very clear. In the screen shots of the application,

you will notice that users can only view items that are within

a 5-mile radius of where they are. If the user travels to work,

the application will adjust the posted items on Kamyün to be

those within the 5-mile radius of his workplace. We wanted

to recognize that people have more than one environment or

SySteM coNcept

community that they might be interested in sharing or find-

ing resources within.

We also imagined that Kamyün's use could seamlessly expand

over time. Those users who frequently share on Kamyün

would become neighborhood champions, eager to reach out to

newcomers in the community. Our hope is that the more Ka-

myün is used, the more its presence in the physical environ-

ment can be seen—neighbors hosting weekly events, sharing

food, borrowing items, and giving advice to one another.

v i s u a l l a n g u a g e

Kamyün, the name of our interactive mobile application went

through several iterations before we settled on its current

spelling. What do we call a mobile application that looks at

sustainability with focus on the local community? We wanted

the name of our application to ref lect coming together and

sharing so in the initial brainstorming sessions we looked at

names revolving around the community and neighborhoods.

The word commune, as in to come together, explained the

concept of our application. We looked at the phonetic spelling

of the word as a branding identity- Kämyoōn and simplified it

to Kamyün.

For the font studies, we considered a variety of fonts and fi-

nally settled on Terminal Dosis, a typeface designed by Pablo

Impallari. The font needed to communicate the friendliness

of a community.

Font and application name studies

This mood board was based on the colors of a green hillside farm.


c o l o r s t u d i e s

Our first mood board was based on the colors of Autumn.

We considered another color set that not only focused on Autumn colors but also brought in shades of blue and teal to not associate it with a particular season.

v i s u a l l a n g u a g e

We also wanted our color studies to reference sharing, the

outdoors, and growing fruits and vegetables.

R: 156 C: 25 G: 42 M: 94B: 22 Y: 100 K: 22

R: 66 C: 75 G: 110 M: 38B: 92 Y: 66 K: 21

R: 247 C: 3 G: 213 M: 14B: 118 Y: 64 K: 0

50 | System Concept: Presentation


a b c D e f g h i j k L M N o p q r S t u v w x y z

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9Terminal Dosis Bold — Title Text

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

0123456789Terminal Dosis Book — Body Text

R: 204 C: 16 G: 108 M: 67B: 42 Y: 99 K: 3

s i t e a r c h i t e c t u r e

We focused on keeping the over all system of the application

simple by bringing in a level of consistency into the two major

actions that the users can undertake- “Find” and “Share”.

Though the two actions are essentially different in nature, we

maintained a similar layout for the sub-menus. The landing

page on the application is the Kamyün feed. It shows the user

all the interactions between and shares by the people on the

Kamyün network.

Since the application also functions as a means of network-

ing, we wanted to give the user the ability to control content

about themselves as it would appear to everyone else on the

network. The profile page contains person details like name,

location, expertise and their reputation within the system.

The profile page also allows the user to control the application

settings and privacy.

The system allows people to find “Activities”, “Materials”,

“Knowledge” and “Food”. listings. Posts in each category are

sorted by distance from the user. By default the application

limits the listings to those that are less that 4 miles from the

user. The user can, however, access the rest of the feed if he

chooses. The system also allows users to filter the different

feeds by the options shown in the system diagram.

The “Find” feed is populated by posts by members of the

Kamyün community so the system allows other people to

share posts under “Activities”, “Materials”, “Knowledge” and

“Food”. To allow filtering in the Find section the users are

required to tag their “Share” posts as shown in the diagram.

We realized that when we’re considering a combination of

systems it is important to consider different criteria and filters

to categorize each of them. So in the Kamyün system people

can share “Food” and tag it is as either “Trade” or “Free” and

are also required to include the expiry date with the post. For

categories like “Materials” people can either “Trade”, “Bor-

row” or give for “Free”. The scenario in the following section

highlights the “Finding” and “Sharing” of a food item and

activity.

54 | System Concept: Extension

kamyün

Find

Food

Global navigation icons

Nested navigation

Materials Expertise Activities

BrowseSearch Browse Search

BrowseSearch BrowseSearch

Distance

Expiry

Reputation

Food

Distance

Reputation

Reputation

Reputation

Distance

Date

Outdoor/ Indoor

Free Trade

By category


Share Profile

s i t e a r c h i t e c t u r e

Edit Info

Privacy

Reputation

Materials Expertise Activities

Trade Free Trade

Borrow

Tutorials Advice Outdoor Indoor

Settings

i m a g i n e d s c e n a r i o : s h a r e a n d f i n d

We chose to illustrate the function of Kamyün through a scenario in which

committed gardener and community champion, Rebecca, decides to share

extra tomatoes with her neighbors. Through this process she becomes con-

nected to a new-comer to the neighborhood, Andrea. While Kamyün al-

lows neighbors to share food, materials, activities, and expertise, we chose

to focus soley on what the scenario of sharing of food and an activity might

look like. We also chose to show how the sharing of something simple,

such as tomatoes, might lead to building trust between neighbors and then

to the sharing of an activity with those same neighbors. The following is

our scenario:

Rebecca is a mother of two and an accomplished gardener. This summer, she grew three large tomato plants that look like they will produce quite a harvest. In fact, that harvest is just around the corner: in about a week, Rebecca should be inun-dated with tomatoes—more than she could eat with her family. She’ d like to share some of these tomatoes with people in her neighborhood.

To get the word out, Rebecca uses a free mobile app called Kamyün that lets you share knowledge, food, and materials with people nearby.


Kamyün’s home page shows a feed of all of the recent activity on Kamyün. To get started sharing her tomatoes, Rebecca taps on the “Share” icon. She then selects “Food”.

58 | Recommendations


She enters a title and short description, and uses her iPhone to take a picture of the tomato plant outside. She decides to list the tomatoes as “Trade”—why not get something in return for her hard work? Rebecca taps “Post” to make her listing public.


Andrea, who has just moved into the neighborhood, is talking to her new next-door neighbor, Michael. He tells her about an app he uses on his phone called Kamyün. He says it’s great for borrowing things from people in the com-munity, as well as for f inding locally-grown produce. Andrea’s eyes light up as Michael describes the produce he’s gotten through Kamyün. Later, Andrea signs up for Kamyün and downloads the app.

Once in the app, Andrea jumps to the “Food” feed.


One posting about tomatoes that will ripen soon catches her eye. The listing was created by someone named Rebecca. She takes a look at Rebecca’s profile—another mother of two who lives nearby. The listing says “trade”. What could she of fer for garden-ripe tomatoes? She thinks for a moment. She could bake some biscotti. Who doesn’t like biscotti?

She taps “Get” on the tomato listing, and writes up a quick message to Rebecca: “These tomatoes sound wonderful. Would you be interested in some home-made biscotti? Give me a call--412.555.3321”


Andrea and Rebecca work out the details over the phone. Later that week, they meet up and the exchange goes well .

A month passes, and Andrea and Rebecca continue to use Kamyun.

One Saturday morning, Andrea checks Kamyün and sees an activity listed on the activity feed—Vegetable Canning. It was posted by Rebecca. Andrea likes the idea of bringing the kids to play with Rebecca’s girls. She RSVPs.

Time passes.. .


At the event, the kids get along well , and Andrea even learns a couple things about canning. Toward the end of the afternoon, Rebecca gives Andrea a small gif t: a pot-ted rosemary plant that she started from seed. Attached is a small note: “Welcome to the neighborhood.”

To see the full scenario, please view the application demo on the DVD located in the back f lap of this process book.

project overview

strategy

research analysis

development

system concept

refLectioN


We began by thinking about how we could encourage parents

of young children to think more about the growing and shar-

ing of food, the waste they produce, and the energy they con-

sume. These three areas created a very wide scope in which

we needed to define a single problem space to work. Our in-

terviews and survey feedback largely contributed to honing in

on our more focused problem space of sharing neighborhood

resources. From there we identified the most common things

that neighbors would want to share between each other: food,

materials, expertise, and activities. We then explored how

each of these transactions would play out. What information

would one neighbor want to know about another before agree-

ing to share? What would compel someone to continue using

the Kamyün app? Why is it essential that Kamyün be a mobile

app? In our six weeks of developing Kamyün, we have tried to

answer these and other key questions.

There are a few areas for future work we have considered.

Based on the suggestions of our classmates and instructor,

we would want to further develop how users could rate the

transactions between each other and build reputations. We

discussed this idea and generated some preliminary sketches,

but never fully developed and integrated the screens. [We dis-

cussed this idea, but never generated what the rating screens

would look like. ] There are also other areas of the applica-

tion we could f lesh out based on our system diagram, such as

privacy settings. One thing we wondered about was how, if

Kamyün existed, we could seed activity in the system. How

could we help move it from an interesting idea with few users

to a groundswell of activity with many users? Overall, we have

created a solid foundation for what could be developed into a

fully functional mobile application to connect neighbors and

strengthen community ties.

refLectioN

Overall, we have created a solid foundation for what could be

developed into a fully functional mobile application to con-

nect neighbors and strengthen community ties. On the whole,

we were very pleased with the concept, design, and prototype

we produced, especially given that this was the first mobile

application any of us had designed to this level of detail, and

look forward to designing more for resource sharing and

sustainable behavior in the future.

Project Team

Rachel Inman

Brett Leber

SL Rao

Course

Basic Interaction Design

Carnegie Mellon School of Design

Fall 2011

Instructors

Peter Scupelli

Clarence Yung (T.A.)

kamyün

Documents

focusr e s e

e x e c u t

e c t i o n

t h e i d e awe

p r o j e c t o v e

c o n c e p t

scenario r e f

design challenges