iYou™ Plug-in, 2010–2011

iTunes software plug-in

iYou™ is a research project developed by Niels Schrader and Bert Kommerij in collaboration with Waag Society and software developer Michał Ejdys.

The goal of the project is to create a personal, mobile data guide, which reflects directly on the media habits of a mobile phone user. It addresses relevant issues of contemporary media:

The project aims to contribute to and elevate the debate on media literacy. The current discussion focuses largely on online behavior and the risks involved. Media literacy, however, concerns the skills and the mentality that people need to consciously, critically and actively participate in the technically mediated world – no matter what medium: mobile, online or otherwise.

So far, the iYou™ consisted of the research into the quantity and nature of data sets and explored different visualizations and interface proposals. It resulted in a plug-in for iTunes that scans the iPhone’s back-up and presents the relationships between individual communication events in an interactive 3D globe.

Learn more about iYou™ on the project website or on the Infosthetics weblog.

concept in collaboration with: Bert Kommerij; programming: Michał Ejdys, Waag Society and Jan van Bruggen

iYou™ is developed as a plug-in for Apple’s iTunes application. After launching the iTunes Visualizer the backup files are processed and visualized as a communication globe. The events are arranged chronologically along the globe’s equator starting with the user’s most recent item in the front. When a selected item of the globe is highlighted, the related communication events are grouped around it. The communication globe displays the relations (threads) between individual objects. The pulldown menus in the control panel allow to filter the communication events. After applying a filter, unrelated items are hidden. The slider in the control panel determines the zoom level. Moving the camera inside the globe gives a different perspective on the data. In February 2011 iYou™ was presented at Pixelache Festival, Helsinki. – Photo by Antti Ahonen Photo by Antti Ahonen