Selected Works and ProjectsAbhigyan Singh

Design Researcher | Interaction Designer Master of Arts (New Media Design) | Bachelor of Technology (ICT)Aalto University School of Art and Design, Finland | DA-IICT, India

January 2009 - March 2010

Design Opportunities and Challenges in Indian Urban Slums - Community Communication and Mobile Phones

The aim of the master’s thesis is to identify design challenges and opportunities for mobile based community communication services for mar-ginalized communities belonging to Indian urban slums. The thesis is based on two ethnographic field studies done in urban slums of India and it is grounded in the conceptual frameworks of Community Informatics, Communicative Ecology and Communities of Practices. The thesis dis-cusses the existing practices of mobile phone’s use, identifies the ‘Human Nodes’ of community communication, presents design opportunities and challenges for community communication services, and proposes a design concept called ‘Asynchronous Voice based Community Communi-cation Service’.

My Tasks: Ethnography, Participatory Design

Awards: The thesis was awarded the highest grade, ‘Department of Media-Stipend’ and Second Prize at CUMULUS 20th Anniversary Exhibition (‘Young Creators for Better City & Better Life’) at Shanghai World Expo 2010, China.

URL: http://www.slideshare.net/abhigyan1107/thesis-presentation-abhigyan

Urban Slum ICTs and Residents of urban slums Self-Documentation and Social Map

Communicative Ecology Human Nodes Design Concept

July - October 2008

EU-Funded ENCOMPAS (Enabling Community Communications – Platforms and Applications) Project

An independent seven week research initiative funded by ENCOMPAS EUREKA CELTIC project to broadly explore mobile practices in the context of citizen journalism in India. The ethnographic field-studies were conducted in Mumbai and Bangalore city of India. The project targeted low-income communities and corporate workers belonging to Indian Middle Class. I developed and tested a mobile application prototype called Voice Annotation Tool for Mobile Image and Video. The prototype was developed using Python for Symbian platform and it was tested on Nokia’s 2nd and 3rd edition mobile phones.

My Role: Researcher, Finland/ India

My Tasks: Ethnography, Participatory Design, and Mobile Application Prototyping

Awards: 3500 Euros Research Grant

Ethnography Rapid Mobile Application Prototyping Paper Prototyping

Affinity Diagram Voice Annotation Tool for Mobile Image and Video Prototype Testing

February - June 2008

EU-Funded Urban Mediator (UM) Project

Urban Mediator (UM) is an open framework and collection of tools that provides a way for communities to mediate local, location-based dis-cussions, activities, and information. I designed and developed a prototype called UM’s Mobile Standalone Tool. The tool has been designed to capture and publish information (digital images, geo-information, user-generated tags etc) and uses digital maps service. The prototype was developed for Nokia 3rd Edition (Symbian) Phones using Python (S60).

My Role: Research Assistant at ARKI Research Group (http://arki.mlog.taik.fi/research/), Finland

My Tasks: Mobile Application Prototyping and Usability.

URL: http://mlab.taik.fi/urbanmediator/

Urban Mediator (UM) Web Interface Mobile Application Prototyping (Python S60)

Testing Prototype during Kiasma Museum Walk User Testing of UM Interface User Testing of UM Mobile Standalone Tool

Heuristic Evaluation of UM’s Web Interface

May - June 2009

EU-Funded Alan01 and AlanOnline Project

Alan01 is an interactive installation based on life of Alan Turing. It investigates associational storytelling and interaction structures. AlanOnline is web counterpart of the Alan01 installation. I worked as an independent usability researcher and conducted qualitative and quantitative evalu-ation of both Alan01 installation and AlanOnline. The evaluation work consisted of creation of use-cases, conducting user tests and web-based survey, correlation of qualitative and quantitative data and compilation in a report.

My Role: Usability Researcher at Crucible Studio Research Group, Finland

My Tasks: Qualitative and Quantitative Usability Evaluation

Paper: Mika Lumi Tuomola, Teemu Korpilahti, Jaakko Pesonen, Abhigyan Singh, Robert Villa, P.Punitha, Yue Feng, Joemon M. Jose. “Concept, content and the convict”. ACM Multimedia. Beijing 2009

URL: http://crucible.mlog.taik.fi/productions/alan01/ and http://mlab.taik.fi/alanonline/

User TestingPhysical Interface

Alan01 Interactive Installation AlanOnline Website Data Analysis

January - April 2008

Havis Amanda Interactive Video Installation

Havis Amanda Interactive Video Installation was part of Havis Amanda - Mon Amour exhibition organized by Helsinki City Art Museum. The exhibition was held at Jugensali, Helsinki from 30 April - 31 August 2008 to celebrate 100th anniversary of the most famous statue in Helsinki. Every year on the eve of May Day students from one of the universities in Helsinki ‘crown’ the statue with a student cap to celebrate the end of a study year. This tradition has continued since 1920s and it is witnessed by thousands of people. The Havis Amanda interactive installation facilitated virtual crowning of Havis Amanda and involved projection of video footages based on motion tracking technique.

My Tasks: Interaction Design, Scenario Based Design

Team Members: Aleksi Hyvönen, Anna Keune, Juha Kronqvist, Kristine Visanen, Mikko Pykäri, Sonja Krogius and Suvi Kitunen.

Havis Amanda and Helsinki City Art Museum Interaction Workflow and vvvv scripting Postcard with tracking pattern and floor-marking

Testing the interface Havis Amanda Interactive Installation Sample Visuals

February 2008

Can You See the Whole Picture?

This prototype of a Collaborative-Generative mobile game concept for public spaces was conceptualized and developed in two days of time as an outcome of Rapid Mobile Application Prototyping workshop. The concept focused on real-time multi-user participation and exploration of a physi-cal environment. The prototype was developed for Nokia’s 3rd Edition phones. The prototype runs a python script on a mobile phone which al-lows user to take a picture and send the picture over a WIFI network to a server. On the server side a PHP script saves the picture and a Javas-cript code reloads the screen every three seconds.

My Tasks: Conceptualization and Python Scripting

Team Member: Linda Kronman

Workshop Python Scripting Step 1: User selects a number displayed on screen

Step 2: User takes a picture Step 3: User sends the picture Step 4: Picture gets displayed on the screen

April - August 2006

New Price Management (Client: Kmart & Sears)

A software application for price management procedures at Kmart & Sears retail stores. This application was designed to be used as single point of contact for complex price management procedures for the products in over 3000 Kmart & Sears retail stores in U.S.A. The application was very data-intensive. Design challenge was to reflect the merchandize information hierarchy and enhance the readability of the financial informa-tion. Design constraint was that all the Kmart & Sears stores have screens of 800*600 pixels resolution.

My Role: User Interface Designer at Infosys Technologies ltd.

Client’s Comment: “Overall all screens look great, Very intuitive and I am very happy with the way these screens look. Good Job!” - Bonzo Joyce, Project Manager (Price Management), Sears

“I was just with Joyce and she said something similar about the offshore merchants liking the fact that they will be able to see prices easier” - Kathy Rink., VP (IT), Sears

1. User-Task Matrix 2. Task Analysis 3. Task Flows

4. Information Architecture 5. Wireframes 6. Visual Design and Design Specifications

December 2006 - March 2007

TSS Xpress (Client: BNSF Railways)

Transport Support System (TSS) Xpress is a web 2.0 application designed for migration from critical main-frame applications for BNSF railway’s tracking system. This application is used by over 10,000 users. I was involved in this project for a period of 4 months. My role dealt with inter-action design and usability issues related to Yard Status Workflow.

My Role: User Interface Designer at Infosys Technologies limited.

My Tasks: Interaction Design, Usability

Awards: The project won Infoworld’s Top 100 IT Projects of 2007 award.

Landing Page Simulation for Color-Blindness Yard Status Page

January - April 2005

Synesthesia (Bachelor’s Thesis)

Synesthesia is a research exploration to give an understanding of color to visually impaired children through the aural and haptic senses. The project involved experiments with non-speech auditory displays and culminated in a functioning prototype of ‘Audio-Haptic Color-Teaching Tool’. This project is my thesis for the degree of Bachelor’s of Technology in Information and Communication Technology (ICT).

My Tasks: Contextual Inquiry, Design and Development of Audio-Haptic Color Teaching Tool

Awards: The thesis was awarded the highest grade.

Team Member: Rahul Mukherjee

1. Contextual Inquiry 2. Hand Measurements 3. Sketches

4. Wire-Models 5. Audio-Haptic Color Teaching Tool 6. Top, Middle and Bottom Layers

November 2007 - April 2008

Happily Bubbling Map

A Self-Organizing Map (SOM) based visualization of music folksonomies on Last.fm. Last.fm is UK based Internet Radio with over 20 million us-ers. The aim of the visualization was to show how different countries are related to each other on the basis of online music listening behavior. The Last.fm usage data from 40 countries, 139 unique artists (top 10 artists of each country) and 269 unique user-generated tags (top 15 tags for each artist) were processed for the visualization. Data visualization utilized position, color and size parameters for representation while in-cluded functionality of mouse-over (blur), Filtering and Zoom-In/Zoom-Out for interaction.

My Tasks: Visualization and Technical Development using Processing

Team Member: Jenni Stenman

Happily Bubbling Map Sketches

February 2009

We Use GNU Linux, a documentary video

We Use GNU Linux is a documentary video. The project is in progress. The documentary revolves around Mani and his life at Ambedkar Com-munity Computing Center (AC3). Ambedkar Community Computing Center (AC3) is a computer education center in Sudarshan Layout, a resi-dential space for marginalized communities at Bangalore, India. The documentary video deals with Mani and his friends daily struggle in pursuit of digital education, their self-beliefs, issues of empowerment, and self-expression.

Short Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srq5MI_NvqQ

Publications

2009Mika Lumi Tuomola, Teemu Korpilahti, Jaakko Pesonen, Abhigyan Singh, Robert Villa, P.Punitha, Yue Feng, Joemon M. Jose. ‘Concept, content and the convict’. MM ‘09: Proceedings of the seventeen ACM international conference on Multimedia. Beijing 2009

2010Singh, Abhigyan. ‘Visual Artifacts as Boundary Objects in Participatory Research Paradigm’. In press for special issue of Journal of Visual Arts Practice.

Abstract: This article is based on the findings of an ethnographic field research conducted at Sudarshan Layout, an urban slum in Bangalore, India in February 2009. The research was participatory in nature and was conducted in collaboration with AC3 Members, a group consisting of local youth of Sudarshan Layout. Vari-ous visual research methods like ‘Self Documentation’ exercise, involving creative use of digital camera, and ‘Social Map Drawing’ exercises were employed. These methods led to creation of various visual artifacts like hand drawn social maps and digital photographs. In this article, I argue that these visual artifacts (hand-drawn social maps and digital photographs) acted as boundary objects, enabled a dialogue and promoted negotiation of meaning between participants and me. In the article, I describe how these visual artifacts facilitated the participatory research and assisted in collaboration, communication and cooperation between partici-pants and me.

Singh, Abhigyan. ‘Design challenges for sustainable mobile community communication services for Indian Urban Slums’. Sustainability in Design:Now! Conference. Bangalore. September 2010

Abstract: This paper is based on findings of an ethnographic field research conducted at Sudar-shan Layout, an urban slum in Bangalore, India. The research in-vestigated mobile based community communication and it is grounded in theoretical framework of Com-munity Informatics. The paper discusses communicative ecology of Ambedkar Community Computing Center (AC3) Members, a local community of Sudarshan Layout and hence attempts to build a broad socio-discursive-technological context of local community communication practices. This paper opens a discussion on social context of design for sustainability. The paper presents an approach for design research for sustainability for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) initiatives targeting low-income user groups and those be-longing to marginalized section of society. Following the discussion the paper presents design challenges for sustainable mobile community communication services for residents of Indian urban slums.

Contact:abhigyan.singh@gmail.com

Linked: http://in.linkedin.com/in/agsingh Mobile (India): +91 97 1787 409

Mobile (Finland): +358 45 279 4447Skype: abhigyan.singh