It’s official.
It’s amazing to see how the “Are You Normal?” application has evolved, and to witness how quickly one million people around the world have used the app. The Kinzin team is quite proud, to say the least, but also excited to continue to provide private and fun places online for friends and families.
Technical team member Vince Hodges watched and waited to be sure to grab this momentous shot:
As a Participatory Designer, I am constantly amazed at how experiences and products are designed solely from the point of view of the people making them. What’s worse is that most people take the blame on themselves when they can’t use something effectively. They automatically assume that it must be their fault that they can’t do something with technology. The next time this happens to you try looking at the design. Was it designed to work with what you do?
A new form of interactive design called embodied interaction is based on using tangible situations and social approaches to creating new technology. In other words, designing interfaces and objects with an understanding of how people do things in the context of their environments and perceptions.
Currently, Kinzin is designing an application called “These Are My Kids†that can be used on its own on the web and within Facebook to share photos of our kids privately. The Kinzin Team decided to focus on this application because we talked with parents about what they do and how they want to do it. The participation design surrounding this application is fulfilled by providing simple steps to help parents accomplish something they want to do and not something we think they might need. Every design step integrates our team expertise with real world technological challenges.
Another step to making sure this application works is by getting real people with kids to use our first version (beta-version) of “These Are My Kidsâ€. As you can well imagine this means that we need to find people who are already too busy with their families and their jobs to sit down with us and tell us what they think about the way it works. But we know that there are people out there that want to help.
If you are a parent, grandparent, aunt/uncle who lives in or around Vancouver, BC and would like to give us a hand then contact me: Julie AT kinzin DOT com or please comment here.
…US!
No, not quite. We’re not *that* cheeky. But there are some cold, hard facts that do make the Kinzin Team take notice and feel pretty swell about all that’s evolved with our Facebook app, “Are You Normal?”.
Paul Prescod, Kinzin’s DAD, uses this neat Facebook analytics and advertising platform, Adonomics: it’s OPEN and FREE, and quite fun to play with, if you’re into Facebook analysis. And really, who isn’t? Adonomics gives you statistics on your daily active users, gains and losses, measured in days, weeks and months and displays your Facebook ranking overall.
So we thought we’d take a look and compare our app with the likes of another Vancouver success story, this city’s most successful app to date, Hockey Pool. (Go Canucks.) Hockey Pool grabbed a pretty substantial audience right off the bat (kudos to Ben - it’s a great application!) The unfortunate reality for this application is that it’s seasonal, and as Paul pointed out to me, it helps that our app is, well, not . :)
According to the chart, we’re beating Hockey Pool (gasp!) in two out of three metrics and could be closing in on the third… Thanks to Adonomics, we can officially state with zero discrepancy that “Are You Normal?” is Vancouver’s biggest Facebook app for installs. Hey Ben: Maybe we should have a go at a Hockey Normalcy app….
“Are You Normal?” has just released the latest survey - it’s a doozy that most can relate to or comment on: How Normal Are Your Habits? We all have them, good or bad, and it’s kind of nice to be encouraged to get a small glimpse into your true habitual self. Visit “Are You Normal?” here to begin.
The Kinzin family continues to receive some excellent contribution and suggestions from users all over the world - want to be a part of the party? Please suggest topics or write full surveys on our discussion board or become a fan and give us your thoughts on the fan page.
Look for new surveys weekly!
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