Micro Social Collaborative Design Studio
Highly creative design projects, such as Photo or Scrap
Books, can greatly benefit when worked on in small groups where group members
can gain inspiration and increased productivity by sharing ideas and viewing
each others “ work in progress” in a social settings. From the days of social
“Quilting” to present day scrapbooking - “Crop” events, these physical
gatherings occur on a worldwide basis. The Patent Pending Micro Social Collaborative Design
Studio provides the tools and features that are missing from all existing
design platforms to enable social collaborative design groups to form, inspire,
produce, and disband – without regard to physical presence of the group.
The Micro Social Collaborative Design Studio – or MSCDS for
short –works in a networked or cloud environment. It consists of:
1. The
Project Manager, is a cloud based system that both
manages user accounts and design projects. User accounts enable people who
visit the system to create, edit, and delete personal accounts. Design projects
are typically, but not limited to, product oriented user design-able projects
and may consist of numerous sub-components, such as a Scrapbook which may
include a component for the pages of the book, another component for the cover
of the book, and additional components for items like a slipcase or a dust
jacket. Together the User and all Components for a specific product make up a
Project.
2. The
Social Networking Manager provides tools in the form of web based methods for
users to be able to perform actions such as listing or searching for Micro
Network Groups based on a variety of criteria such as themes, size, users and
more. It enables users to invite other users to join existing Micro Network
Groups or to join groups they have found or been invited too by attaching a
Project to the group.
3. The
Collaboration Manager provides the live connectivity functions to make
Collaborative Design possible. The Collaboration Manager will establish and
maintain an always open connection channel – or “Socket” for each active Micro
Network group. Each user Design Studio instance will “subscribe” to the
designated channel/socket as established by the Social Networking Manager for
the specific “joined group” for the currently open User - Project - Component.
The Collaboration Manager will send and receive messages using either the
channel/socket with the Design Studio, or using a standard messaging system
with the various server side Design Processors that perform work.
4. The
Design Studio, a web application that will create a visual user experience when run
as part of an internet connected web browser for each User - Project -
Component. The Design Studio performs two most basic functions, providing the
tools and features similar to existing design tools which enable the user to
combine art, graphics, text and more into an artistic creation; and second to
enable the Social Collaboration Preview Window features enabling users to
experience the social sharing of design, inspiration, criticism, and
communication that is critical to maintaining the Micro Network group.
5. The
Design Processors developed using technologies such as AMQP messaging, C++ and
Java the Design Processors receive messages from the Collaboration Manager to
perform various work units which give work results that are then transmitted
back to the Collaboration manager. Design Processors are used in various ways
such as to prepare uploaded art to a form compatible for use in the Design
Studio and to prepare final Project Component designs into forms suitable for
production printing such as PDF. One highly critical function of Design
Processors is Social Collaboration Preview Rendering. The Collaboration Manager
will receive Page Layout Descriptions of modified pages from the Design Studio.
These single page descriptions are then sent to the Preview Rendering Design
Processor which quickly renders a version of the page to a format that can be
displayed by the Design Studio Social Collaboration Preview Window and then
returns this Design Preview back to the Collaboration manager.
In a typical case users will start by creating a User
Account. Next they would create a new Project based on some design-able Product
– or any kind of design event could be used in place of Products depending on
the nature of the web use. Once a Project is created the user can attach the
project to a Micro Network Group by creating a new group, responding to an invitation of an existing group, or requesting inclusion to a found group,
using features of the Social Networking Manager.
Once attached – and until the user removes the project from
the group – any time the user opens any Component of the Project in the Design
Studio a channel/socket connection will be made with the Collaboration Manager
which will now designate this Project with an Active Status in the group. The
Collaboration Manager will now send a message to all Active subscribers to this
specific Group channel/socket causing all Active Users Design Studio to add an
entry to the Social Collaboration Preview Window for this user and to load any
current Design Preview should one exist.
When the User Project Component is updated in the Social
Collaboration Preview Window of all Active Users Design Studio then several
actions can be taken by any Active User that includes:
1. Contribute
to the design of the currently open component. This includes using the Design
Studio artwork tools to add or edit any artistic element in the current design
layout area or page. Such actions result in changes to the Page Layout
Description of the currently referenced layout area or page. When individual
actions are completed, or after some short predetermined time period has
passed, as defined by the Collaboration Manager settings, the Design Studio
will transmit the modified Page Layout Description of the current layout area
or page to the Collaboration Manager which then forwards to Preview Rendering
Design Processor and receives back an updated Design Preview which is
transmitted to all Active User Design Studio Collaboration Preview Window.
2. Contribute
to the design of another Active User Project Component. This involves
activating the Edit URL link associated with the specific Active User
Collaboration Design Preview panel. This action will either open the designated
User Project Component in the Design Studio while minimizing the current Users
Project Component or open a separate Design Studio window with the designated
User Project Component. Once opened in this fashion, either user can contribute
to the design of the project as described in #1 above resulting in modified
Page Layout Description first transmitted to the Collaboration Manager and then
in turn transmitted back to the Design Studio of other users with the same
Project Component open. The Design Studio will then execute these received Page
Description Modifications and update the design to reflect changes made by
others. All Active Users also receive updated Design Previews as in #1.
3. Engage
in an act of communication with the group or a specific Active User.
Communication can take the form of various technologies starting with simple
text based chat, and later using live audio streaming, or live video/audio
streaming. Such communication data is collected into packets by the
communication routine of the Design Studio and transmitted through the
channel/socket to the Collaboration Manager which then stores and directs the
data back to the specific Active User or the entire Group as designated by the use
of the communication routine.
4. Close
and leave the Active User Group. This action of closing the Design Studio will
result in a message to the Collaboration Manager which will then close the
channel/socket for this User and send a notification message to the Design
Studio of Active Users to remove the Collaboration Preview of the exiting user.
Examples of Use
Currently, the wide spread nature and accessibility of
the internet combined with social networks and other collaborative environments
have expanded the collective base of like-minded people, irrespective of
distance and location. This has given a new impetus to many traditional
activities, such as scrapbooking, designing, projects (such as preparing
regional marketing materials, project reports and so on) by allowing people to
express their creative nature through collage and design in an artistic fashion
through online social and collaborative networks. These activities are greatly
enhanced by a collaborative environment, where people can work on individual
design projects and tap into the collective consciousness of like minded groups
to share resources and knowledge. This group activity as it relates to the
scrapbooking community is generally referred to as a "Crop Event" which
has a long standing history in the traditional world of scrapbooking as a
gathering of people for the purpose of cutting pasting and assembling
intricate books while working in the company of a group.
There are many websites which offer designing as a project,
where users may create and edit various artistic works ranging from technical
design, creative writing, and photo based layouts. A few of these websites
provide a rudimentary capability for multiple users to edit the same design.
However, none of the websites provide a capability for multiple users to work
on multiple individual projects in a simultaneous collective fashion. In
addition none have the capability to provide any indicators of the current
moment activity status of online collaborative group designing.
Currently online social networking connections are made
on permanent basis around individuals instead of events. Design sharing events
such as the previously described scrapbooking “Crop” event are short lived
networks based on the project and subject or theme relevance rather than long
term connections and such connections will typically dissolve at the conclusion
of the event.
Thus, there is a need for enabling a group of users to
be able to easily find “active” design “parties” they can easily join to
prepare creative expressions individually, while working in a shared collective
social network that automatically dissolves at the conclusion.
Description
A web site such as
www.photoalbum.com
will provide the user experience enabling visitors to interact with each other.
These interactions can start from the ability to see activity based on the
Social Networking Manager and the Collaboration Manager components. These are
manifest in a “What's Happening Now” listing of current group design projects
that are actively in use at the moment. This is further enhanced by the ability
to display the Design Processor Design Preview of live or near to live actions
happening in the group. This completely new concept causes the visitors to not
only quickly become entranced with the live activity, but to also quickly find
group projects that match their interest and to then join the selected group.
Once a member of a Collaborative Design Group the user
experiences the strong motivation, caused by the peer group activity, to devote
a greater amount of time and effort into their design project than might
normally be the case with individual design. The communication capability of
the Collaboration Manager allows users to provide guidance and inspiration to
each other. Additionally users can actively assist other users using the Design
Studio with Collaboration Manager ability for multiple users to actively work
on the same design at the same time. This enables the kind of sharing of
artwork content and layout techniques that are central to the traditional
physical Crop Event.
Benefits of this capability extend beyond those
described above for the group design members, to the website owners. One of the
most common problems for ecommerce sites using online design capability for the
purpose of promoting the sale of personalized products is the very high
percentage of unfinished projects that are never converted to orders. The Micro
Social Collaborative Design Studio solves this problem in a number of ways.
Design projects are left unfinished for many reasons. One user might not finish
a project due to technical questions about how their design idea can be
accomplished, with the MSCDS this user is able to quickly get answers from
group members. Another user might abandon a project due to a lack of creative
inspiration or a feeling of dissatisfaction with their work, with MSCDS users
gain both creativity and pride from the direct feedback of their peers. Yet
others might leave partially complete projects due to boredom or the tedious
nature of completing such intricate work and subsequent mental exhaustion, with
MSCDS users receive a higher level of motivation to finish projects and
additionally since a project is required to join a group the mere desire to be
part of the group results in ongoing project activity. All of these benefits
lead to higher levels of project completion and completed projects result in
higher levels of product orders.
Additional examples of MSCDS usage.
There are many circumstances where MSCDS can provide
additional benefits. One example is the use in an “IntraNet” environment such
as might be the case with a multi-national or regional company. Each divisional
sub-unit in the company might be responsible for preparing artistic content
while other executive units might be responsible for overseeing that such
content meets corporate guidelines. Using MSCDS productivity in content
creation is much greater due to the fast feedback and sharing, while at the same
time another aspect of the Collaboration Manager enables the executive unit to
“View” a masonry style layout of the activity of the divisional units in a
passive fashion. At any point the executive unit has the ability to become
actively involved as needed by either utilization of the communication tools or
to become a multi-user participant of a project.
In a similar fashion as described above, one of the
problems common to ecommerce sites involving web-to-print such as online
commercial printing, screen printing such as T-Shirt or Sign printers, or any
site utilizing client design as part of the order process – is the conversion
rate between visitors and those that place an actual order. Current tools for
such sites are very limited in regards to ways for site administrators to
interact with site visitors, simple chat functions being the best case.
Using MSCDS site administrators can use the
Collaboration Manger ability to provide a layout view of current active
visitors enabling the administrator to easily determine if a user might need
help and to proactively offer assistance. This layout view is provided in what
is termed a “Masonry” style along the lines of “Bricks in a Wall”. Each “brick”
represents any given active users current Design Preview and can also include
along with the Design Preview a variety of additional links to various tool
sets, such as a link to open the design in the Design Studio, the ability to
open a larger preview for closer observation, the ability to remotely activate
various functions in the remote users Design Studio application such as save or
build final print ready PDF, and also access to communication tools such as
chat.
These heretofore unavailable features improve the
conversion of visitors to orders and enhance competitive advantage.
