Virtual Communities at OCAD: Warmware: Emotion Database

My last posting about my emotional database idea went into much of what I would have gone into to take my idea into a 'warmware' phase. For this final posting I want to refine those ideas and provide a number of possibilities for customization of my proposed program. My last post was: "a proposal for a way of recording and creating a sort of digital simulacrum for this memory process that could be carried around by a person on a PDA-like device or cell phone." It was basically a database that a user could build up emotional information and experience in (Sample images from my last post: [1] [2] [3] [4].)

Most important to me with this idea was the idea that each entry would have a user generated colour background that would be shaped by user input. With this in mind, and with the discussion that we had in class last week, I have come up with a series of modifications and ideas that I think improve and expand upon my last posting.

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1. Allow for user-customization of the emotional scales and of the category tabs.
The emotional scales that I created for my first post were admittedly crude and non-specific. The best solution to this problem is to allow the scales to be user created and editable in both what they represent and the colours associated with the tabs. For example if the user did not like my initial "Boring<->Fun" and "Important<->Unimportant" scale for entering information about People they could opt for another entry scale like "Best Friend<->Enemy" and "Nearby<->Far Away".

On top of being able to customize the entry of the emotional information for each category it would be nice if the user could also create categories of there own. For example if the user didn't like the "People-Places-Ideas-Things" layout they could change it to "Friends-Movies-Music-Books" or whatever they preferred.

2. Provide more opportunity for user modification of the background visualization.
The simple gradient background visualization is a good starting point for visualizing the emotional input into the database, but a more direct approach mght help the entries be more personal. Perhaps if the user could directly add images (like clip art, camera images, etc.) directly to the background they could personalize the entry to their liking. The gradient would still be visible on top of the altered background so the emotional scale idea would still work with users altering the background.

3. Add the ability for the user to add sounds or movies to an entry.
Adding sounds and movies to the entries would allow the user to add another layer of information to an entry and make that entry more interesting and accessible. It seems like a logical step if only to add more options for the user.
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Using the above three ideas I've come up with a few sample images of what the modified program would look like with these changes:

This image shows the modified interface (different buttons and tabs) as well as a user modified backround visualization (the stars)

This image also shows the new buttons, but without the modified tabs. It shows the possibility for user edited backgrounds.

These three additions to my initial idea will make the program more user friendly and customizable. With these additions the program also becomes more personal to each person that uses it so that two people using this program could have completely different experiences and output using the same program.