Browsing by Author "Nisi, Valentina"
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- Appropriating Video Surveillance for Art and Environmental Awareness: Experiences from ARTiVISPublication . Mendes, Mónica; Ângelo, Pedro; Correia, Nuno; Nisi, ValentinaArts, Real-Time Video and Interactivity for Sustainability (ARTiVIS) is an ongoing collaborative research project investigating how real-time video, DIY surveillance technologies and sensor data can be used as a tool for environmental awareness, activism and artistic explorations. The project consists of a series of digital contexts for aesthetic contemplation of nature and civic engagement, aiming to foster awareness and empowerment of local populations through DIY surveil lance. At the core of the ARTIVIS efforts are a series of interactive installations (namely B-Wind!, Hug@tree and Play with Fire), that make use of surveillance technologies and real-time video as raw material to promote environmental awareness through the emotion generated by real-time connections with nature. Throughout the project development, the surveillance concept has been shifting from the use of surveillance technology in a centralized platform, to the idea of veillance with distributed peer-to-peer networks that can be used for science and environmental monitoring. In this paper we present the history of the ARTiVIS project, related and inspiring work, describe ongoing research work and explore the present and future challenges of appropriating surveillance technology for artistic, educational and civic engagement purposes.
- Augmented Reality Museum’s Gaming for Digital Natives: Haunted Encounters in the Carvalhal’s PalacePublication . Nisi, Valentina; Cesário, Vanessa; Nunes, NunoMemories of Carvalhal’s Palace – Haunted Encounters is an Aug mented Reality (AR) location-based game which involves players in uncovering the mystery behind the haunted aspects of a museum premises. The game de ployed at the Natural History Museum of Funchal makes use of mobile interac tive AR and gaming strategies to promote the engagement of teenage visitors (digital natives) in museum experiences. Through this game, the audience em barks in a journey through the museum spaces, collecting scientific information about selected exhibits, while interacting with their tridimensional (3D) AR mod els. The audience’s interactions with the museum exhibits are rewarded with pieces of a map, which will guide them to a hidden location, the scientific library of the museum. There participants can finally unlock the mysteries they have been summoned to solve. The game’s goal stems from the fact that digital native teenagers are identified as an audience group that is often excluded from a mu seum’s curatorial strategies [1] and as consequence, they appears to be generally disinterested in what museums might offer [2]. In this article, we present the de scription and rational behind Memories of Carvalhal’s Palace: Haunted Encoun ters mobile gaming application and then discuss the results of first empirical tests performed to evaluate the usefulness and usability of the game.
- Beanstalk: a community based passive wi-fi tracking system for analysing tourism dynamicsPublication . Nunes, Nuno; Ribeiro, Miguel; Prandi, Catia; Nisi, ValentinaThis paper presents Beanstalk, an interactive platform to assist communities in easily running systematic analysis of mobility patterns of tourists at their destinations, contributing in new ways in visualizing spatio-temporal mobility data for forecasting, tracking trends, detecting patterns and noticing anomalies. The approach takes advantage of a combination of passive Wi-Fi tracking and ground truth data provided by tourism authorities. By analyzing a large dataset for a medium sized European island, we provide evidence of the accuracy and effectiveness of this low-cost method in inferring topological characteristics of tourist behavior and relevant typologies of trip itineraries. This helps decision makers in the touristic sector to plan and manage actions geared towards improving the sustainability and competitiveness of their touristic regions. In particular, we argue that in a world where sensing data is becoming inexpensive, there is an opportunity to use this approach to deliver data back to local communities which are empowered to act and leverage this information.
- Beyond Eco-feedback - Using Art and Emotional Attachment to Express Energy ConsumptionPublication . Nisi, Valentina; Nicoletti, Diego; Nisi, Raffaella; Nunes, Nuno JardimThis paper describes several art based eco-feedback concepts conceived around the potential of emotional attachment between people and the natural environment. Starting from a sensor-infrastructure that looks at how families consume electricity in their homes, we investigate several artistic visualizations of the Madeiran local landscapes exploring the connection between families and elements of the endemic laurel forest. The approach described here leverages digital art as a means to go beyond traditional eco-feedback technology. By coupling people and the forest landscapes we intend to narrow the physical, temporal and psychological gaps between our everyday actions and nature. We explore how people can build a direct emotional connection between their daily energy consumption and the impact on the natural environment (such as climate change and related forest fires, mudslides, desertification and erosion).
- Children's books: Paper VS Digital, What Do They Prefer?Publication . Cesário, Vanessa; Freitas, Paulo; Pimentel, Diana; Nisi, ValentinaIn this paper we present a study through which we intended to understand children’s preference towards book formats, in particular digital or paper ones. To accomplish this, we created an original story (Ritinha) illustrated by two children. The traditional book format was composed by static images and text. The digital format had animated images, hyperlinks to navigate to different parts of the story and static text complemented by an audio narrative. We conducted a field study with 105 children in order to observe in which format children would prefer to read a book: if in paper or in digital format. The method used to accomplish this task was direct observation.
- Crescendo: Routine Learning App for Children with Autism Spectrum DisordersPublication . Cesário, Vanessa; Rodrigues, Joel; Li, Helen; Wu, Iris; Nisi, ValentinaCrescendo is an ongoing project aimed to provide children with High Functioning Autism, their teachers and carers with a communication tool that bridges them. Crescendo guides carers in teaching and immersing their child in a virtual environment that mimics the real world, helping them to make sense of it and interact with objects and places in order to become self-reliant in atomized, step-by-step routines. Crescendo is a two-sided app design, one for carers and another for children. It provides both with tool for monitoring and incremental step-by-step learning.
- Designing with teenagers: A teenage perspective on enhancing mobile museum experiencesPublication . Cesário, Vanessa; Nisi, ValentinaTeenagers are an understudied group within the Interaction Design and Children community. Museums and cultural heritage spaces offer solutions for young children but none that are specifically targeted to teenagers. The active involvement of teenagers in the design of interactive technologies for museums is lacking further development. This paper centres on the presentation and discussion of several design sessions deployed with 155 teenage participants aged 15-19. They were asked to ideate a mobile museum experience that they would enjoy. Through qualitative analysis, the disparities in suggestions about story-based apps vs. game-based apps show that teenagers might value gamification over narratives. This work generates design recommendations for mobile museum tour guides for teenagers, to be used by both curators and museum designers in engaging teenagers in museum exhibitions. We also contrast the game and narrative mechanics produced by teenagers with what is already known. Finally, we answer the questions of how these findings align with existing museum guides for teenagers and how other designers can design with teenagers for this domain.
- DreamScope Catcher: a Touch Sensitive Interface to Catch DreamsPublication . Dionisio, Mara; Bala, Paulo; Trindade, Rui; Nisi, Valentina; Nunes, Nuno JardimDream Scope is the interactive, stand alone, self contained portion of a bigger Art installation named Lucid Peninsula. The goal of the installation is to offer a way for people to experience the future through a physical interactive installation. To achieve this aim we designed and developed the interactive DreamScope device, while the Time’s Up collective designed and built the physical installation. On one side with the DreamViewer binoculars enable participants to see the Lucid Peninsula fictional world and absorb data relating to factors such as air quality, presence of plant and other life forms, etc. On the other side of the installation, the audience will be able to borrow mobile devices (DreamCatchers) and ‘catch’ the dreams of the inhabitants of the peninsula, which are mixed with memories of the world before it was transformed.
- Enhancing sustainable mobility awareness by exploiting multi-sourced data: the case study of the Madeira islandsPublication . Prandi, Catia; Nunes, Nuno; Ribeiro, Miguel; Nisi, ValentinaIn this paper we present a low-cost infrastructure to collect a variety of location-based multi-sourced data with the aim of providing personalized services and raising awareness for sustainable mobility solutions. The gathered data can be used to provide: (i) citizens and tourists with personalized location-based services to increase sustainability awareness; (ii) local authorities and tourism boards with a tool to identify and prevent mobility issues; and (iii) transport companies with an instrument to support urban mobility planning decisions. To collect data, we exploited a low-cost Wi-Fi passive tracking system and we augmented this infrastructure using sensors for detecting environmental conditions. To achieve this, we provided 60 points of interest and 20 buses with our solution, to spread out the sensors over the entire Madeira Island. Using the gathered data, we developed different scenarios to prove that in a world where sensing data is becoming inexpensive, there are opportunities to use our approach to deliver data back to the citizens, empowering local communities, with the goal of promoting sustainable mobility and tourism.
- Evaluation of yasmine’s adventures: exploring the socio-cultural potential of location aware multimedia storiesPublication . Dionisio, Mara; Barreto, Mary; Nisi, Valentina; Nunes, Nuno; Hanna, Julian; Herlo, Bianca; Schubert, JenniferThis paper describes Yasmine’s Adventures, a location aware multi‐ media story designed as a location based service for a museum. Yasmine’s Adventures follows a young local girl (Yasmine) through a series of short animated adventures, tailored specifically to engage visitors in exploring the rela‐ tively neglected streets of the area in which the museum is situated. Yasmine’s perceptions of the landmarks, identified by community members themselves, reflect the real concerns of the community. Results from the evaluation of the user’s experience suggest location connection and perception changes when loca‐ tive media narratives include learning, understanding and discovery elements.