When the city becomes the interface: From third-wave interaction to city apps
In the last 5-10 years we have witnessed the arrival of the long-predicted technologisation of our everyday lives and cultures. As digital interfaces transgress the boundaries of work/leisure, purposeful/playful, cognitive/emotional, we are challenged as designers to reconsider and rethink existing design methodologies and practices of design.
This talk focuses on some of these challenges from the perspective of designing digital applications in urban space. While there are many aspects learned from designing so-called third-wave interfaces, e.g. in entertainment settings or for 10-foot experiences, that can also be applied at an urban scale, the city presents a much messier design environment. The demographics of users in urban space are not only wide-spread but also hard to predict, people have varying motivations for interacting, and in most cases interactions are sporadic and of very short durations.
Proposing the city as operating system, the talk illustrates challenges and takeaways illustrated through a series of city apps in the form of experimental prototypes. The prototypes were deployed and studied in real environments and include: a mobile app for crowd-sourcing public transport information, an interactive transit shelter, a gesture-based large-scale information display, and a skyscraper-scale user interface.
The talk discusses the big picture – regarding trends and why city apps will play an important role towards more sustainable urban living – as well as detailed design considerations derived from the case studies. The aim of the talk is to connect experimental research projects that explore what might be reality in the next 5-10 years with current UX practices to shed light on some of the challenges ahead.
References
- Anthony Townsend. Smart Cities: Big Data, Civic Hackers, and the Quest for a New Utopia. W. W. Norton & Company; 1 edition (2013)
- Martijn de Waal. The City as Interface: How New Media are Changing the City. NAi Boekverkopers (2014).
- City of Sound
- Urban IxD
