SOCIFER: Social Ferry Booking

Most of today's software applications are designed to be used by single users, operating in a domain abundant of information, but completely devoid of people. Regardless of the fact that millions of people visit the Internet, Web applications are rarely designed to take advantage of this. Apart from the odd visitor counter, and slow response time at popular sites, there is little or no evidence of other people being present.

Nonetheless, computer users are people, and people are social beings. We are intelligent, active participants in what we do, not just passive users following a predefined path. Rational reasoning, however important, is not our only driving force, but emotions play an important role in our lives. And most of all, we live, work, and play together with others.

Travel booking is a good example of a social activity. You travel together with others: your family or colleagues, and all the other people using the same means for transportation. You also interact with others when you book your trip: with your travel companions, with the sales agent, and with other people booking their trips at the same time as you.

In a joint project with Stena Line, we developed and tested a prototypical social component to be run on Stena Line's on-line ticket booking site. By displaying booking statistics we attempted to make other ferry travelers visible to the person booking a ticket, allowing for social behavior. Results from a user study strongly support this approach.

A second approach is to enhance the travel experience by bringing travelers in contact with each other. Besides providing general contact making facilities (a thematic notice board, an on-line chat), we propose an intense contact game. The game would start building up before travel (on the web, by mail or by SMS), and continue on context sensitive handheld devices once onboard the ship.

Contact Åsa Rudström or Petra Sundström for more information.

Read more about this project in
Åsa Rudström and Petra Fagerberg (2004).
Socially Enhanced Travel Booking: a Case Study.
In Journal of Information Technology and Tourism 6(3), special issue on Travel Recommender Systems.

You can also read about the user study a short article in Ercim News No 53, page 43.

SOCIFER was jointly funded by the SITI Social Computing programme and Stena Line.