Once we learned to speak a common language, and had some concrete drawings of what we were talking about, we worked together surprisingly well, but until then it was almost as if we were from different planets entirely. The paper prototypes turned out to be a tremendous help with the initial communication issues. The purpose of this paper prototype for us was mainly to act as a channel of communication between the main innovators and the developers, and to help clarify our ideas of what we actually wanted to produce. We started work by producing a minimal paper prototype that guided the later production of the mock-up app. Lastly, our app is more effective than mere posters or other public announcements, as a centralized online platform makes it simple to find interested people, as well as for them to discover your event. Our app seeks to connect people in the local area regardless of their prior acquaintance. On the other hand, one could certainly use existing platforms such as Facebook or WhatsApp to create micro-announcements, but these would be limited to one’s friends. What is the special value of this app compared to competing services like Foursquare and Eventbrite? First of all, our focus is on micro-scale events and activities organized by people for the people the competing apps are more focused on large organizations. If a game of basketball lacks a few members, one could simply send a call for participants in the app and get some random interested players from the vicinity to join. The idea is to make it as easy as possible for people to find interesting activities on the one hand and to find people to join their own activities on the other hand. The main purpose of the app is to function as a platform for easy creation and discovery of nearby small-scale events. For them the value of the app would be as a method of effectively announcing events for potentially interested target groups. We thought it would also be helpful to get local organizations, for example youth activity centers like Happi, involved in the creation of larger-scale events and spreading of the app. The idea is to create an app that everyone could use, and the initial marketing would be towards “the extroverts” in the local geographic area, as they could then effectively spread the app to their more introverted peers. The specific target group is internet-active introverts, however, we tried to design the system in such a way as to attract people of all sorts. We also tried to alleviate the growing fragmentation of modern society by creating a platform to help people connect with their neighbours in the local area.

Our problem was to get people stuck in the world of the Internet out of their homes to participate in various activities.

Biomutant 2.04