“Plesion” is an ancient Greek word which means “nearby”. It’s also the name my friend Jimmy and I chose for the company we co-founded and for the product we’ve been building with Denis and Dmitry. Here is how we designed PLESION, the universal board app.
The standard, person-centered post format
The post format is a natural evolution of the web page. It has become a standard format across mobile digital platforms aimed at the general public.
A post is small, hence well suited to small screens. It can contain a link to a web page for those who want to dig deeper. Easy to write, share, go through, like, or comment, the post is simply the most convenient way to share and access online information.
A post typically contains 4 types of information: its author, a timestamp, content, action buttons.
As can be seen in the above drawing, the author is the top visual element in a post. This post design is the logical consequence of the fact that, on such platforms, one follows people. Each post is centered on its author. The feed that every user receives on his or her screen is centered on the people he or she follows. Those apps are people-centered.
A new, location-centered post format
What if, as an individual, you wanted to filter out the information which is not locally-relevant for you? What if you wanted to reach out specifically to the people who are physically present around you? What if you wanted to be aware of real-life discoveries and interaction opportunities, right where you are? At PLESION, we wanted to cater for those situations.
When one meets with other people in real life, one does so in a given location. In the real, non-interfaced world, location becomes central, so we designed the following post format:
This way, on PLESION, you receive a location-centered feed. You can follow familiar locations. You can share what is happening right where you are. You can reach out to the people around you. You are aware when someone offers or needs something nearby. And you can meet with him or her in the real, non-interfaced world. The PLESION location-centered variant of the standard post format is designed to help you re-root in the here and now.
Places and pins
Places
Digital platforms index places. A place has a name and, usually, an address. A place can be a shop, a restaurant, a train station, a hospital, a museum, a hotel, a school, a monument, a public building, a stadium, a park, a neighborhood, a village, a pass, a forest… the list goes on and on.
Precision of a pin’s location
The pin has become a standard symbol representing places on digital interfaces. Technically, a pin is a point on the map, more or less precisely located depending on the number of decimals of the coordinates used to characterize it.
As an example, the coordinates of a pin on Google Maps have 7 decimals, which means that the precision level of a pin’s location is 1/10 million of a degree. As per the original definition of the meter, the spherical distance between the equator and any of the two poles is 10’000 kilometers. There are 90 degrees of latitude between the equator and any of the two poles, so a degree of latitude corresponds to a distance of 10’000 / 90 or 111 kilometers on the Earth’s surface.
Google Maps pins are located with a precision of 111 kilometers / 10'000'000 or approximately 1.1 centimeter or 0.4 inches. That is very precise.
Why we chose coordinates to represent locations
Each point on the Earth’s surface has unique coordinates consisting of one latitude angle and one longitude angle. At PLESION, we chose to represent locations with their coordinates. Why did we choose this seemingly obscure system?
Universal
Not all locations have an address, but every location on Earth has coordinates. Unlike addresses, coordinates work the same way everywhere.
Poetic
Coordinates are a poetic reminder that all of humanity shares one sphere as a living space. Coordinates are apolitical.
Unequivocal
Coordinates are being used by pilots of all types of ships and airplanes in contexts where confusion is not an option.
Perennial
The coordinates of a given location never change.
Why degrees, minutes and seconds?
At PLESION, we chose to express the latitude angle and the longitude angle of every location in degrees, minutes and seconds. Those angle units are to angle measurement what hours, minutes and seconds are to time measurement. This simply means that there are 60 “degree minutes” in one degree and 60 “degree seconds” in one “degree minute”. Why did we choose this seemingly obscure representation?
Sufficient level of precision
A second of latitude, which represents a distance of 10’000’000 / (90 x 60 x 60) or approximately 30 meters or 100 feet, is a sufficient level of precision for day-to-day human activities. We love the idea that, with a string of 12, 13, 14 or 15 characters (latitude angles vary between 0 and 90 degrees, while longitude angles vary between 0 and 180 degrees), which is not much longer than an international telephone number, you can characterize any location on Earth with a 100 feet level of precision.
Standardized
We use the existing ISO 6709 standard representation of a location.
Readable and memorable
A coordinate expressed in degrees, minutes and seconds is easier to read, write, share and memorize than a long string of decimals. In addition, you will not often travel to another hemisphere or cross degrees parallels or meridians, so you will rapidly skip mentioning hemisphere letters and the degree component of coordinates.
Old things are cool
Sexagesimal (base 60) coordinates representations have been in use since the early days of cartography and exploration. We like putting to use a system that’s been doing the job for centuries instead of inventing a new one.
PLESION post examples
With PLESION precisely located posts, you can reach out to the people around you:
You can share and discover what is happening nearby:
With PLESION, we aim to help everyone of us re-root in the here and now. Did you notice PLESION’s logo was a tree?
We hope you will find PLESION useful to connect with people and real-life opportunities right where you are, wherever you are. Stay tuned for upcoming news of the app’s release!
William for PLESION
