Tür an Tür

A storytelling platform about eight unique biographies. Show more

Year

2016

What I did
  • Concept development
  • UX/UI design
  • Prototyping & user testing
  • Front- & backend development
Featured in
  • Auf Augenhöhe Bremen
  • Hochschultage HfK Bremen
  • Press #1 #2
In collaboration with

Imke Meyer, EuropaPunkt Bremen

Visit tür-an-tür.de

More than 100.000 foreigners are currently living in Bremen, Germany. Each of these persons has come from somewhere around the world, arriving with their own different stories. Every day they face the challenges that await them on the way to a new life.
Eight of those biographies are published in the interactive storytelling platform "Tür an Tür" ("Next-door Neighbours"), developed in collaboration with the film maker Imke Meyer.

Challenges

Integration is an active process in which people approach each other, their culture, and their differences to get to know their similarities. The project wants to bring the viewer closer to understanding how this process really works in the various areas of life.

  • Capturing immigration and integration in an honest and truthful concept.
  • Designing a scalable storyplatform with interactive video, audio and picture formats.
  • Developing the front- and backend system for the platform.

Solutions

Imke and I met after we both volunteered for different refugee projects. When we met, I was already working on the platform Refugees in Europe, a research tool for journalists. We wanted to continue our engadgement by combining our experience with digital media and developed the concept for "Next-door neighbors". The web platform consists of eight episodes, each telling the unique biography of one person.

The user is welcomed with statistics about immigration and a large background video.

The project contains eight stories in interactive video, audio and picture episodes.

A lot of preparation was required to make the platform possible: We met with each participant for a detailed and trust-building preliminary to develop their episode. This allowed us to determine which content elements needed to be included for the episode and how the chapters should be arranged. Eventually the actual content (interviews, photos, video and audio recordings) were created. For some participants and their families, some of whom still suffer from war and persecution in their homeland, we had to make sure the platform offers protection.

It became quickly clear that existing systems were not capable to tell the uniqueness of a story and we decided to build he platform infrastructure from the ground up with a focus on mobile devices and touch-friendly interactions.

The platform uses different media elements. Each episode is designed along the content, which makes each a unique experience for the viewer.

The UX/UI stays in the background as much as needed. The platform is made with touch devices in mind and fully responsive.

The non-intrusive UX lets the viewer find their own way through each episode.

Results

The interdisciplinary work with a talented film maker was a great experience and allowed us to center the content as much as possible. Through early prototypes I was able to test different content formats in various conditions and interface versions.
The project was met with great feedback from the audience and featured in various publications. While the platform is still avilable to everyone, we also exhibited the project on a multi-touch table on numerous occasions in 2016 and 2017.

The project was exhibited on numerous occasions on a multi-touch table.