Design Brief for the 24 Hour Conference Challenge

Background and task description

A recent Victoria Tourism advertising campaign, titled "Lose yourself in Melbourne", aimed to encourage people to discover new places in Melbourne, a city that is constantly changing. Your task is to design a system (e.g. product, service, display) that helps people getting "lost" in Melbourne. The emphasis is on experiencing the city, not on way-finding.



Your solution should focus on ubiquitous computing technology, and be integrated in the existing physical, urban environment. You are encouraged to conduct ethnographic research in the field to collect qualitative data about your target users. You are also expected to create a physical, low-fidelity prototype of your system (real-life or to scale) as a physical mockup using cheap materials, which should allow the conference delegates to experience your system first hand.

Additionally, your solution has to:
- Enable people to discover new or hidden places in Melbourne
- Connect locals and tourists
- Aim at a specific user group
- Use and/or augment the urban furniture
- Allow some form of user interaction
- Incorporate digital technology

Submission

You should demonstrate your solution in the form of a poster and a low-fidelity prototype, which both will be exhibited at the OZCHI conference. Email your poster (PDF, DIN A1 portrait = approx 23.4 × 33.1 inches) before 24 November 2009, 5pm (Melbourne time) to sdc@ozchi.org. If the file size is too large to attach it to your email, you can alternatively upload it to a server and include the download link in your email. 

Judging process

Your submitted poster will be exhibited during the conference, where delegates will have the opportunity to vote for their favourite work. The winning entries will be determined based on this voting.

Prize

The top two entries earn a Certificate of Recognition and prizes sponsored by our industry partners. The award ceremony will take place Friday 27 November during the closing session of the conference.

Support

You can post questions on Twitter through direct tweets to @ozchi24. You will receive continuous support from the challenge chairs or student volunteers to answer questions throughout this experience.  

Coverage and documentation

We would love to see as much behind the scenes coverage as possible on Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, blog posts, etc. Please use #ozchi24 for tagging any challenge-related items.

Conditions and other information

To participate in the Conference Challenge and be eligible for the prizes mentioned above, you must be currently enrolled as a student at a university or other institution of higher education. You further agree that your submission will be published on the OZCHI 2009 website.