The key objective of our team is to study and describe cultural activities in Katowice. While designing the study, we have included not only traditional methods of acquiring information about event participants, but also the analysis of data from information and social services and research carried out on the web via Facebook.

For many users, Facebook is one of the main sources of information – not just about what is going on with their friends, but above all about what is happening in the city, in the immediate vicinity of the user. Many event organisers use a Facebook profile as the primary channel for communicating with the audience. The appeal of the portal lies in its massive reach, number of users, and also ease of use and a range of tools to facilitate interaction between users.

In order to investigate this issue, we have created a web application called ‘Badamy Kulturę’ [Studying Culture].

As usual with Medialab, the development of the application was a multi-stage process that involved working in an interdisciplinary team. At the initial stage, we had to decide what our basic needs were, what the purpose of the application would be, and who would use it. In an attempt to systematise our ideas and assumptions, we used the hexagon design tool for determining the three contemplated types of potential users.

Thanks to this, it was easy to determine who will be using our application, what the capabilities and limitations of potential users are to be expected, and what devices they use. The contemplated application user types included both social media enthusiasts, less active users, and people professionally involved with Facebook (e.g. page administrators).

Following a thorough investigation of the relevant audiences, ways of reaching them and their motivations, combined with a precise formulation of our goals, we were able to create a preliminary concept of our application. We also documented our general assumptions, described our audiences and their rationales.

We then focused on the apps functional design. By picturing the process that the user is going through, we drew potential content layouts on individual screens and jointly decided which of the various interface layouts would be the clearest and most intuitive. We turned tiled layouts and those modeled on Tinder for the simplest list layout inspired by the Facebook interface.

The next stage involved work on information architecture within the application and the path that the user is meant to go through. We drafted all the elements of the service, defining their mutual relations and hierarchy, as well as the proposed course of action for the application user. The working models prepared as part of the designed process enabled us to create a prototype which, in turn made it possible for us to click through the entire application. This approach enabled us to determine if the path we designed for the user was logical and intuitive.

The next stage included both the preparation of the final version of each view by a graphic designer, and the creation of the application by a programmer, based on the previously prepared functional design. Our work on the product involved ongoing contact, prototype verification, and fine-tuning of the application rules. Following the implementation stage, we were able to proceed to testing our app on a variety of devices and with different output variables (for example, an FB user who was not interested in any events or a user who frequently chose the ‘Going’ option). The testing phase is the time for making adjustments, determining the final version of the process, creating the missing graphics, and ensuring the application actually works as planned.

In order to pass the verification process, we had to prepare the app’s privacy policy, description, instruction manual and screencasts to demonstrate its operation. A positive review of the application by Facebook administrators meant we were given the green light to launch it. At this point we started a promotional campaign using the application to invite Facebook users to participate in the study.

In order to access the application, all one needs to do is go to badamykulture.eu and log in using their Facebook account. This enables us to learn which of the public events published on the portal have been of interest to the user in recent months. The application then requests the user to confirm or deny the actual participation in the events. This way we are able to investigate whether Facebook declarations are reflected in real participation in concerts, workshops or film screenings. As the geographic scope of our study is limited to Katowice, the application user’s event listing should not include any events sited beyond our area of interest.

The study also includes a short survey, similar to that used in traditional studies conducted during cultural events. Each application user can choose one of the events in which they actually participated and answer a few questions about, among others, the way they traveled to the event, their companions, or the expenses incurred in connection with attending the event.

Depending on the number of public events in the user database, the entire study takes from under a minute to a few minutes. Although it relies on Facebook data, the application operates as a web tool. There is no need to install it on your own device, which significantly speeds up the process of obtaining data from users. It is highly intuitive, user friendly, and has a familiar graphic interface drawing on the solutions used by Facebook and the Shared Cities project itself.

Even the first responses collected using the application show that a social networking site may not only be an interesting research topic but may also provide a platform for conducting research. The results of our investigations, including those conducted via Facebook, will be revealed soon.