Possible Design Object using Jelly!

My new project titled Possible Design Object is a continuation of my previous work. I believe a designer's key role is to define entry points that channel data derived from interaction with the design object and serve to structure the design object itself.

My first implementation of this software is a collaborative story, text, any word or adhjksf based application. expressive, low barrier to entry, synchronous, anonymous...check out the first version...***still a work in progress!
www.fun.jellyproject.com
... On the right side of the screen is a continuous body of text. On the left side is a series of "sensors" input boxes to which users can add their own pieces of text. In order for a single user's text to be added to the group body of text, other people need to vote on it. When the number of votes on a node of text surpasses a threshold, the text leaves the node and transitions to the right side. If after a certain amount of time, no one likes the text in a node, the node eventually degrades and dies.

Last night and today in class I did two quick runs of user testing. each test lasted about 3 minutes. User testing is great! very funny and you learn a lot.

observation 1:
initial barrier to understanding a new interface. during this faze, people try to figure out what is going on, are hesitant, and testing out the application. and VERY quick to alert the bugs. are fearful of breaking anything.

observation 2:
after the first few minutes, people were writing small words...a discon-
nect between input side and output side.

observation 3:
people started writing longer input. still not a huge connection with
output.

There is an interesting challenge here. How do you build a complete system, where input from users is channeled in a way that is continuously relevant to output. How much do you want to direct output to be a certain way? Loose? Structured? Rigidity of endpoint objectives can vary. How clear do you want a the starting point to be?

At what point does "group" value outweigh "me" value to a user? Can both "group and me" values be realized simultaneously?

My professor raised an interesting interface issue today in class about my project. I'm not sure if I understand exactly what he meant. But I think he was arguing that writing text in little blue boxes on a screen is a big abstraction for a user. I am not in disagreement with him. Am I just forcing users to consent to the arbitrary vocabulary of my system? another abstraction in the scope of computers...which are already abstract? Yes, but it is immensely important to challenge pre-existing vocabularies, show that they are not fixed, break them and try new ones. even if they seem a bit funny at first. funny is good.

That being said, my users were running with the application during testing after under a minute. I think that this is pretty low for new software, that is providing new opportunities for creativity...i hope.

There are a few Possible Design Objects that I want to experiment with over the next few weeks.
- classroom educational tool...a way to be continuously expressive on a subject, no fear of being wrong, or taboo, can express when it is not your turn to talk, or if you don't like to talk.

- interface with existing design process...brainstorming shoe design.

- design idea...clock design

- price bidding model

- use system to release first possible design object...more to come on this soon...

I spent the last two weeks building the first version. I wanted to get a clean framework in place like my other software was...I spent two weeks hacking away at it in PHP ajax css... in the end it was buggy, dirty and would not be portable to run different design ideas like I was doing with my other software. The good news is, I learned a ton about web-development and that the languages used were not designed to build software...(it never realy made sense). The better new is, two days ago, I decided to rewrite it all using JELLY!!! (Kunal Gupta and Tristan Perich's web-development platform...). I don't know if you have seen this at all, but I have great things to say about their software...they re-frame web-development in a way that is about writing REAL, cohesive software, as opposed to making redundant, inefficient, fragmented nothingness...the way most websites are....websites...ugh...those things are byebye. finally a great new tool! yay jelly! so easy an alligator could do it!