Scene was the final iteration of a number of ideas that were floated during our Initial Meeting. Our first suggestion was completely different and this conveys the journey the team went through. Report-it  was proposed as a browser add-on used to report malicious comments/users from any website/forum etc. (Nic Fair – Report-It). Users would have a global profile that would detail their behaviour across all these sites. However, governance issues (such as determining if a user on one forum is the same as a user on another forum) led to the eventual dismissal of the idea. Whilst the premise holds strong – and possibly a tool the internet needs – it would prove to hard to implement.

From this, the team moved towards social applications, taking particular influence from Tinder. The Tinder theme (e.g. swiping) was considered for areas such as eating out, cinema and books. In each, the user would rate items and the application would build a profile of their interest and make recommendations as well as linking them to people with similar interests. A few Google searches later however and many similar applications had been found.

The true genesis of Scene then began. An application was proposed that would resemble RuneScape, except applicable to real life. In RuneScape, users travel through a virtual world collection items and honing their avatar’s skills (e.g. fishing or wizadry). Brought into the real world, these skills would grow based on the person’s actions. For example, visiting a bookshop would enhance their reading skill. This led to the idea of rankings and leaderboards, playing on the natural competitiveness of humans. It also plays on the human nature to express/promote themselves through social media. This application plays to that desire, with users wanting to raise their skills.

A few discussions later and this concept had been refined to that of the original post, Scene.