influencing the experience of people in urban public places through mobile mediated interactions
DESCRIPTION
This study presents research findings to inform the design and development of innovative mobile services aiming to enable collocated people to interact with each other in public urban places. The main goal of this research is to provide applications and deliver guidelines to positively influence the user experience of different public urban places during everyday urban life. This study describes the design and evaluation of mobile content and services enabling mobile mediated interactions in an anonymous way. The research described in this thesis is threefold. First, this study investigates how Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can be utilised in particular urban public places to influence the experience of urban dwellers during everyday life. The research into urban residents and public places guides the design of three different technologies that form case studies to investigate and discover possibilities to digitally augment the public urban space and make the invisible data of our interactions in the urban environment visible. Capital Music enables urban dwellers to listen to their music on their mobile devices as usual but also visualises the artworks of songs currently being played and listened to by other users in ones’ vicinity. PlaceTagz uses QR codes printed on stickers that link to a digital message board enabling collocated users to interact with each other over time resulting in a place-based digital memory. Sapporo World Window, Brisbane Hot Spots, and YourScreen are interactive content applications allowing people to share data with their mobile phones on public urban screens. The applications employ mobile phones to mediate interactions in form of location and video sharing. Second, this study sets out to explore the quality and nature of the experiences created through the developed and deployed case study applications. The development of a user experience framework for evaluating mobile mediated interactions in urban public places is described and applied within each case. Third, this thesis discusses how the three different technologies can have an impact on the urban experience, drawing on research from urban sociology, psychology, and urban design.TRANSCRIPT
Influencing the Experience of People in Urban Public Places through Mobile Mediated
Interactions
Final Seminar Presentation
Jan Seeburger - [email protected]
Urban Informatics Research LabQueensland University of Technology
Brisbane, Australia
Agenda
• Introduction & Motivation
• Methodology
• Case Study 1: Capital Music
• Case Study 2: PlaceTagz
• Case Study 3: Urban Screens and Mobile Phones
• Synthesis
More than half of the world’s population now lives in cities (United Nations, 2008)
People live more closely together and share the urban infrastructure.
“Physical closeness does not mean social closeness” (Wellman, 2001, p. 234)
Information and Communication Technology creating “cocoons” in public urban spaces (Mainwaring et al., 2005; Bassoli et al., 2007; Crawford, 2008)
Using ICT to seclude oneself and avoiding contact with collocated strangers in public spaces
Mobile engagement […] is so clearly about (among other things) occupying a cocoon of private space while in public that the mobile phone can function in many cases as […] effectively closing off interaction with anyone not already on one’s contact list”(Crawford, 2008, p. 93)
“What attracts people most, it would appear, is other people.” (Whyte, 1980, p. 19)
“People and human activity are the greatest object of attention and interest. Even the modest form of contact of merely seeing and hearing or being near to others is apparently more rewarding and more in demand than the majority of other attractions offered in the public spaces of cities and residential areas” (Gehl, 1987, p. 31)
Opportunity
“Adding a digital layer to the existing physical and social layers could facilitate new forms of interaction that reshape urban life”(Kjeldskov & Paay, 2006)
Opportunity
• Urban Informatics
“Urban informatics is the study, design, and practiceof urban experiences across different urban contextsthat are created by new opportunities of real-time,ubiquitous technology and the augmentation thatmediates the physical and digital layers of peoplenetworks and urban infrastructures” Foth et al. (2011)
People Place
Technology
Opportunity
Influencing the Experience of People in Urban Public Places through Mobile Mediated Interactions
How can ICT in public urban places be applied to influence user experiences and in what ways?
Experience: More enjoyable and social
Mobile Mediated Interactions: Sharing “lightweight data” with unknown collocated people
Three case studies
Methodology
• Methodology
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Literature Review
Chapter 4: Case Study 1
Chapter 5: Case Study 2
Chapter 6: Case Study 3
Chapter 7: Discussion
Chapter 8: Conclusion
Case Study 1: Capital Music
“Music also plays a role in our social lives – talking about, displaying, swapping and sharing music are all ways through which we express who we are and interact with others.” (O'Hara & Brown, 2006, p. 3)
Visualising artworks of currently played songs of collocated people?
Case Study 1: Capital Music
Approach
Literature Review & Ethnographic
Observation
Paper-based Experiment/Foc
us Group
Development
User trial/Focus
GroupDevelopment
User Experience Study (WoZ)
October 2009 September 2011
Case Study 1: Capital Music
1
How can Capital Music influence the experience of a bus ride?
1
Case Study 1: Capital Music
User Experience Evaluation: Wizard of Oz Study
– 13 study participants in simulated real-world scenario
Case Study 1: Capital Music
User Experience Evaluation: Findings
• Sharing, discovering, and recommendations
• Social interaction
– Music ideal icebreaker
– Like message easy way to interact
– Sharing additional information towards song selection
– Anonymity important
– Lightweight interaction to kill time
Case Study 1: Capital Music
User Experience Evaluation: Findings
• Curiosity, perceptions, voyeurism
– Who is who?
– Raised awareness towards collocated people
– Reconsidering perceptions: Not judging a book by its cover
– “Digital people watching”
• Entertainment and fun
Case Study 2: PlaceTagz
Case Study 2: PlaceTagz
Approach
Deployment/ Data Collection
Development
December 2010 February 2012
Concept BuildingContent
Analysis/Semi-structured Interviews
Case Study 2: PlaceTagz
• 150 PlaceTagz deployed
• Content Analysis of 121 comments
• Interviews with application users
Case Study 2: PlaceTagz
Real-world experiences & findings:
• QR code = Advertisement
• Decontextualised QR codes pique curiosity
• Uniqueness, location-awareness, and interactivity
• Raised awareness towards collocated people who used the space in the past
Case Study 2: PlaceTagz
Real-world experiences & findings:
• Lightweight interactions about people, place, and technology
• Reply to PlaceTagz content rather then previous posts
• Co-experience
• Boredom and waiting
• Still collecting data…
Case Study 3: Urban Screens and Mobile Phone Interaction
Case Study 3: Urban Screens
Approach
User trial/Focus
GroupDevelopment
October 2010 April 2012
Concept Building
ObservationDevelopment DevelopmentSurvey/Data Analysis
Concept Building
Sapporo City Council searching Space Content Application for the North 2 Underground Public
“To create a social space where the general public, government, as well as commercial and cultural sectors can collaboratively engage in promoting and learning about Sapporo’s creative industries, tourist attractions, art, culture, and other relevant information, utilising ten large public screens and speakers that are to be installed in the underground passageway”
Sapporo City Council
Sapporo World Window
- Interactive screen based application- Location-sharing on public screens- Remixing social media
Sapporo World Window
The Original Plan
• Abstract Submission
• Development
• Initial User Study
• Media Release March 10, 2011
• Final Release March 12, 2011
• Observation & Interviews
• Analysis
March 11, 2011
Case Study 3: Urban Screens
2nd Iteration: Brisbane Hot Spots
Case Study 3: Urban Screens
2nd Iteration: Brisbane Hot Spots - Observation
• Observations
Case Study 3: Urban Screens
• 2nd Iteration: Brisbane Hot Spots – Observation
• Screen orientation
Case Study 3: Urban Screens
• 2nd Iteration: Brisbane Hot Spots – Observation
• Screen orientation
• Screen location and bus stop location
Case Study 3: Urban Screens
• 2nd Iteration: Brisbane Hot Spots – Observation
• Screen orientation
• Screen location and bus stop location
• Flow of people
• Looking down, not up
• Public interaction
• Environmental conditions
Case Study 3: Urban Screens
3rd Iteration: Design Goals
• Private Interaction
• Lightweight content
• Auditive experience
Case Study 3:YourScreen
• 3rd Iteration: YourScreen
Case Study 3:YourScreen
• 3rd Iteration: YourScreen
Case Study 3: Urban Screens
• Data Collection:
– 183 video submissions in 10 Weeks
– Twitter: 52 %
– Mobile Web 44 %
– Facebook 4 %
– 16 Survey Responses
Case Study 3: Urban Screens
• Findings:
– Videos for the crowd
– Sharing experiences
– Specific videos for own interest
Case Study 3: Urban Screens
• Findings
– Motivation to submit a video: idle time, curiosity, and reactions from collocated people
– Motivation behind video submission: entertainment for others/self, promotion
– Social experimentation in public space and awareness of collocated people and their reactions
– Novel experience
– Community and connections
Synthesis
How does the establishment of ICT-mediated social interactions between collocated users influence the experience of those users in particular urban spaces?
Synthesis
• Activities in Place (Gehl, 1987, 2010)
Necessary Activities Optional Activities Social Activities
Commuting, catching a
bus, buying groceries
Going for a walk,
sunbathing, play
Seeing, hearing, greeting,
talkingExample
Good physical
environment
Poor physical
environment
Digitally Mediated Social Activities
New Optional Activities
Synthesis
• Presentation of Self (Goffman, 1959)
Social interaction in public urban places as theatrical performance
- Actor/Audience
- Give/Give off impressions
- Front/back
Synthesis
• Presentation of Self (Goffman, 1959)
Mobile mediated interaction in public urban places as theatrical performance
Capital Music: digital presentation of self on top of physical presentation of self
YourScreen: create digital fronts and observe the performances of collocated people
PlaceTagz: digital stage demonstrating user’s front comprising given and given off information
Synthesis
• Escape boredom while waitingBoredom: “an unpleasant, transient affective state in which the individual feels a
pervasive lack of interest in and difficulty concentrating on the current activity”(Fisher,
1993, p. 369)
Humans experience boredom when being disconnected from what is going on or when they are understimulated and there is nothing to do (Conrad, 1997)
Mobile phones are used as a social utility to relieve boredom through socialising (Wei
and Lo, 2006)
Design interventions provide novel interaction possibilities while being bored and provide information to connected to the place and the people within.
Synthesis
• CuriosityCuriosity:“a positive emotional-motivational system associated with the recognition, pursuit, and self regulation of novel and challenging opportunities” (Kashdan et al., 2004, p. 291)
Curiosity can result from the deprivation in cognition through a gap in a persons knowledge (Loewenstein, 1994)
Curiosity is related to a positive experience in relation to the self, the world, and the future (Kashdan et al., 2004)
Synthesis
• Categories of curiosity (Berlyne, 1954)
Synthesis
• Categories of curiosity (Berlyne, 1954)
Synthesis
• Zone of Curiosity (Anderson , 2011)
Synthesis
• Awareness
Design interventions raise awareness towards people, place, and technology
Awareness: “knowledge or perception of a situation or fact” (Oxford Dictionary)
Synthesis
• Anonymity
Anonymity a social construct (Marx, 1999)
Blasé attitude: “an incapacity [...] to react to new sensations with the appropriate energy” (Simmel, 1950, p. 413)
Focus on content rather than people
= Implicitly “giving off” information
Anonymise content and interactions
= Lightweight data exchange
Synthesis
Boredom Curiosity Awareness
Anonymity Lightweight Content
People
Technology
Place Necessary, optional, and social activities
Presentation of self
Designing for…
The End
Questions?
Thank you for your attention!Jan Seeburger
QUT Urban Informatics Research Lab