engaging a divided urban community with public visualisations and voting technology: a case study in...
Post on 18-Oct-2014
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In an ideal world, members of an urban community would be cohesive and equal. However, in reality many communities have to cope with socioeconomic differences that can cause tensions. In our case study, we challenged a community’s perceptions and the reality of one such divide demarcated by a railway bridge in their street. We designed and deployed a novel combination of interactive voting technology, placed inside shops, and public visualisations of the gathered data. These visualisations were created with chalk graffiti and located on the doorstep of all participating shops. This novel combination elicited unspoken views, opinions and attitudes about aspects of the community. Our findings show how this low-tech and playful approach of gathering and visualising local data not only successfully provoked discussions amongst community members, but also evoked curiosity and challenged peoples’ perceptions of the community they live in. In our talk, we will describe the design process, implementation and in-the-wild evaluation of our approach to designing urban technology and discuss the merits of using it as a mirror for a community to look at itself. We will conclude by providing a set of design recommendations for the creation and deployment of interactive voting technology and public visualisations in urban communities.TRANSCRIPT
Engaging a Divided Urban Community with Public Visualisations and Voting Technology: A Case Study in Cambridge
Lisa Koeman & Dr Vaiva Kalnikaitė
HCI background !PhD student at UCL (ICRI Cities): public visualisations of local data
Dr Vaiva KalnikaitėLisa Koeman
HCI background !Founder of Dovetailed Senior Visiting Fellow at UCL (ICRI Cities)
Public visualisations
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April May June July
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April May June July
Nuage Vert
Candy Chang
Simon Heijden
Digital Slingshot
Neighbourhood Scoreboards
Mégaphone
Tidy Street
Aim: provoke discussion and reflection on different topics relating to the Mill Road community
UBI-Hotspot Tidy Street
Come to Your Census
UBI-Hotspot Tidy Street
Come to Your Census
UBI-Hotspot Tidy Street
Come to Your Census
UBI-Hotspot Tidy Street
Come to Your Census
NEIGHBOURLINESS
COMMUNITY FEELING
HAPPINESS
SAFETY
LOCAL SHOPPING
STREET BUZZ
SOCIAL TIES
“It has obviously been a really good talking point. People have been really interested in what is going on. I have heard some rumours that it is more positive on the other side of the bridge [Romsey] than it is from over here…”
“So many people have been asking about it [the visualisation]. In fact, a guy just popped in and said ‘I just ! want to see what today’s question is’”
“It being so temporary made it feel even more special, I found myself going to Mill Road more often”.
What have we learnt?
Lessons for engaging a community
Use unobtrusive technology playfully
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Lessons for engaging a community
Distribute input devices and visualisations
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Lessons for engaging a community
Exploit the power of relative data
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Lessons for engaging a community
Live data is not always best: slowly unfolding can match the rhythm of the community more
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Lessons for engaging a community
Design displays with a finite lifetime
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Lessons for engaging a community
1) Use unobtrusive technology playfully 2) Distribute technology & visualisations 3) Focus on relative data 4) Unfold data slowly 5) Design displays with finite lifetime
What’s next?
Source: Mood Building Project
VoxBox
Thank you!
Lisa Koeman, ICRI Cities, University College London Vaiva Kalnikaitė, Dovetailed / ICRI Cities, University College London Yvonne Rogers, ICRI Cities / UCLIC, University College London !!This work is funded by the Intel Collaborative Research Institute on Cities (ICRI Cities)