HOW IS CONTEMPORARY URBAN EXPERIENCE INFLUENCED BY PORTABLE DIGITAL MAPPING? A MORE-THAN-REPRESENTATIONAL EXPLORATION OF THE UNIVERSITY

OF BRISTOL WALKING TOUR APPLICATION.

WILLIAM TREANOR JANUARY 2013

“Presented as part of, and in accordance with, the requirements for the Final Degree of B.Sc. at the University of Bristol, School of Geographical Sciences, January 2013” (Geography B.Sc.)

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School of Geographical Sciences

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Dissertation presented as part of, and in accordance with, the requirements for the Final Degree of B.Sc at the University of Bristol, School of Geographical Sciences.

I hereby assert that I own exclusive copyright in the item named below. I give permission to the University of Bristol Library to add this item to its stock and to make it available for use and re-copying by its readers.

AUTHOR William Treanor

TITLE How is Contemporary Urban Experience Influenced by Portable Digital Mapping? A More-Than-Representational Exploration of The University of Bristol Walking Tour App.

DATE OF SUBMISSION

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Full name:

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ABSTRACT:

This dissertation explores the ways the University of Bristol Walking Tour iPhone Application

works to produce meaning to inform wider understandings about portable digital mappings, an

increasingly common way of experiencing contemporary urban space. The research develops a

more-than-representational approach, incorporating elements from critical cartography, software

geographies and wider, non-representational movements in human geography. This approach is

applied through a suite of novel methodologies to analyse the iconographic aspects and practices

surrounding the app, improving understandings of how this app works to create meaning throughout

the University of Bristol campus. The research uncovers a diverse range of practices and

mechanisms through which the app is brought into being, providing extensive support of post-

representational theories that this app, in the same way as maps “[is] never fully formed and their

work is never complete” (Kitchin and Dodge 2007:343).

Word Count: 11,684

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:

My thanks go to:

- JD Dewsbury and Veronica della Dora for their enthusiasm, encouragement and confidence

in my ideas.

- The numerous people who gave up their time to share their experiences with me, especially

Mike Jones, whose insight was essential to the success of this research.

- The friends and family who proof-read my work.

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LIST OF TABLES:

Table 1: Guidelines for coding interview and focus group data........................................................18

LIST OF FIGURES:

Figure 1: A basic map communication model identifying the stages of information transfer between

the cartographer and map user..............................................................................................................3

Figure 2: Final route of journey taken by researcher during auto-ethnographic research...............17

Figure 3: An overview of the walking tour.......................................................................................22

Figure 4: The route through a building.............................................................................................23

Figure 5: The images shown at Point ‘F‘...........................................................................................25

Figure 6: Auto-ethnography route from Author’s house to Point ‘F’ of the walking tour.................27

Figure 7: Auto-ethnography route......................................................................................................29

Figure 8: Three contrasting views at point ‘N’..................................................................................30

Figure 9: Auto-ethnography route......................................................................................................32

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CONTENTS:

List of Tables......................................................................................................................................iii

List of Figures....................................................................................................................................iii

1. Introduction.....................................................................................................................................1

1.1 Outline...............................................................................................................................2

2. Critical cartography.........................................................................................................................3

2.1 Representational cartography...........................................................................................3

2.2 Post-representational cartography....................................................................................4

3. Technology and a new mode of mapping......................................................................................7

3.1 Ubiquitous computing......................................................................................................7

3.2 Augmented reality............................................................................................................8

3.3 The advent of digital mapping...........................................................................................9

4. Towards a theory of ‘more-than-representational’ mapping.........................................................11

5. Methodology.................................................................................................................................13

5.1 App choice and sampling................................................................................................13

5.2 Textual analysis...............................................................................................................13

5.3 Auto-ethnography............................................................................................................14

5.4 Focus groups....................................................................................................................17

5.5 Interview..........................................................................................................................19

6. The App.........................................................................................................................................20

6.1 Understanding through description..................................................................................21

7. Iconographic Considerations.........................................................................................................23

8. Using the app..................................................................................................................................27

8.1 Leaving the house - timeless power................................................................................28

8.2 Woodland Road - reality augmented...............................................................................29

8.3 On the tour - being guided...............................................................................................32

9. The app from the perspectives of others.......................................................................................34

9.1 Armchair travelling.........................................................................................................34

9.2 Way-finding on campus...................................................................................................35

9.3 Familiarity with the campus............................................................................................36

9.4 Geolocation.....................................................................................................................37

9.5 Differences between the application and other forms of mapping..................................38

10. Concluding remarks....................................................................................................................39

10.1 Further areas of study and limitations............................................................................40

Bibliography......................................................................................................................................41

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Appendices.........................................................................................................................................45

Appendix A: Semi-structured focus group question schedule...........................................................45

Appendix B: Sample focus group transcript......................................................................................47

Appendix C: Semi-structured interview prepared for Mike Jones.....................................................52

Appendix D: Interview transcription with Mike Jones......................................................................53

Appendix E: Field notes from Auto-ethnography..............................................................................58

Appendix F: Coding table used in analysis…………………………………………………………60

Appendix G: Example coded transcript…………………………………………………………….61

Appendix H: Recordings of all focus groups and interviews……………………………………….62

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1: INTRODUCTION:

The University of Bristol Walking Tour iPhone application (app) is a specific example of a new

breed of cartography. Its portability combining the virtual world of digital cartography with the

physical environment to “offer a fundamentally new way of interacting with, moving through and

enacting place” is yet to be explored from a geographic perspective (Graham et al. 2012:2). This

dissertation is therefore focused on exploring the ways in which this app creates these revolutionary

new encounters with space.

The research provides an in-depth analysis of the University of Bristol Walking Tour app, using the

findings as a lens through which to gain an understanding of some of the ways in which portable

digital mapping apps can be brought into being and produce meaning. In this study I will develop a

‘more-than-representational’ approach, which incorporates elements from critical cartography,

software geographies and wider, non-representational movements in human geography. Using this

more-than-representational approach and a suite of novel methodologies, I will critically engage

with the app, analysing the iconographic aspects and practices surrounding the map to explore the

usually unquestioned modes of representation that produce meaning through this app (Dodge et al.

2009).

The more-than-representational approach developed in this research regards maps as having no

ontological security, constantly brought into being and entirely dependent on the context in which

they are enacted (Dodge et al. 2009). Resultantly this research cannot provide a comprehensive

analysis of meanings produced, instead, focusing on two more achievable aims:

1. To explore the material agency of the app and in turn how this influences experience of the

university campus.

2. To explore how this app is viewed and brought into being from the perspectives of others.

By focusing on these two aims I aim to produce a rigorous analysis of a subjective and context

dependent phenomena, a snapshot through which to inform understanding of wider systems of

meaning operating throughout everyday interactions with portable digital mappings.

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1.1: OUTLINE:

The research is organised into nine further chapters. In Chapters Two and Three I will situate this

study, firstly by discussing how critical cartography has developed, providing the theoretical

foundations on which to develop a ‘more-than-representational’ theory. I introduce literature that

engages with the interactions between technology and the environment before finally situating

digital mappings within wider contexts of cartography. Chapter Four outlines a ‘more-than-

representational‘ approach to cartography, drawing on aspects of representational and post-

representational cartographic theory and Chapter Five presents novel methodologies combining

cartographic deconstruction, auto-ethnography, focus groups and an interview to explore how this

app is brought into being from this ‘more-than-representational’ perspective. Chapter Six explores

the material, political and historical context of the app drawing on an interview with the app’s

designer, Mike Jones. In Chapter Seven I study the representational aspects of the app, applying

Harleian deconstructive methods and discussing the ideological implications of many of the

features. Chapter Eight focuses on my own experiences of using the app, providing an auto-

ethnographic account that critically reflects on the mechanisms through which the app works to

create meaning and how this influences my experience of campus. These considerations are then

built upon through the experiences of others in Chapter Nine, presenting the ideas developed

through a series of focus groups. In Chapter Ten I conclude by suggesting that the ways in which

this app works to create meaning are both dynamic and constantly re-written, wholly dependent on

the experiences and contexts in which it is received and operated. The study then reflects on the

limitations and successes of the research before placing the findings in the wider context of portable

digital mapping.

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2. CRITICAL CARTOGRAPHY:

2.1: REPRESENTATIONAL CARTOGRAPHY:

Maps classically have been regarded as documents of truth, with a primary focus to represent the

world as it really is. Since the Middle Ages this had been a key aim for western cartographers, with

the story of cartography mainly being one of a progression towards truth (Dodge et al. 2009:5).

However post-war cartography in the 1950s can be regarded as a major turning point with the first

attempts being made by Robinson (1952) to reposition cartography as a scientific pursuit (Crampton

2001). Robinson’s main aim was to ensure ‘map effectiveness’, detailing map design principles

with the map user in mind in order to “capture and portray relevant information in a way that the

map reader can analyse and interpret” (Robinson and Petchenik 1976: cited in Dodge et al. 2009:5).

In his opinion, an approach to cartography that fed on the principles of experimental psychology

would be the best way to affirm cartography as a discipline and develop a set of generalisations

which could be used to further the scientific development of said discipline (ibid.). This empiricist

agenda was influenced by major developments elsewhere in Geography, namely the Quantitative

revolution, which was sweeping all aspects of the subject and research into cognitive mapping

being undertaken by Golledge and his colleagues at the University of Santa Barbara (Crampton

2001). It was in this context that efforts were made to establish cartographic communication

models as “dominant theoretical frameworks” guiding research (Dodge et al. 2009:6), a key aim

being to enable efficient transfers of cartographic information from map to map user (Figure 1).

Figure 1: A basic map communication model identifying the stages of information transfer between the

cartographer and map user (Source: Kitchin et al. 2009:6, adapted from Keates 1996).

The most notable challenge to the scientific orthodoxy of cartographic research came from Brian

Harley in the 1980s, questioning the power relations within mapping and advocating shifts from

views of maps as social artifacts to social constructions (Harley 1989). This critical turn, marked

by the publication of “A History of Cartography” (Harley and Woodward 1987) sought to question

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the hitherto unquestioned authority of the map to explore the “black boxes”, previously assumed to

be “unproblematic documents of spatial fact” (Latour 1987;; Edney 2005:713). In a series of essays

following on from the History of Cartography project, Harley (1989) argued that only by

interrogating the forces surrounding mapping could a proper understanding of cartography's history

emerge (Dodge et al. 2009). Through the application of Foucauldian and Derridian theories of

power-knowledge, Harley argued that maps play an active part in creating knowledge as well as

revealing it. From this critical stance Harley argued that the ideological mask of maps could be

uncovered through processes of deconstruction, revealing truthful statements beneath these layers

of subjectivity (Harley 1989).

Harley’s new research agenda marked an “epistemic break” (Crampton 2001:235) in critical

cartography, leading to a redefinition of the map as a social construction and “breaking the

[previously] assumed link between reality and representation” (Harley 1989:2). Harley’s

redefinition of the map as socially produced and context dependent inspired Edney’s proposal for a

“Cartography without Progress” (1993), accentuating cartography’s shift away from scientific

positivism and proposing an evolutionary development of maps as opposed to historic progressional

views. This non-progressivist viewpoint defines map history as a series of “modes”, focusing

analytical processes on the “cultural, social and technological relations which determine

cartographic practices” (Edney 1993:57).

2.2. POST-REPRESENTATIONAL CARTOGRAPHY:

I now turn to post-representational cartography, a more recent strand of cartographic theory that

seeks to re-think the representational and ontological foundations from which critical cartography

operates (see Brown and Laurier 2005, Crampton 2003, Del Casino and Hanna 2006, della Dora

2009, Kitchin and Dodge 2007, Pickles 2004, Wood and Fels 2008:cited in Kitchin et al. 2012).

These ideas have drawn strongly from non-representational theory, moving critical cartographic

emphasis beyond representational stances focusing on production towards post-representational

philosophies of processual mapping (Kitchen et al. 2012).

Post-representational cartography moves beyond Harley’s (1989) reformulation of the map as a

social construction. Harley’s strategy of uncovering the truth beneath the ideological layers of the

map fails to engage with the ontological status of mappings. As Crampton argues, this approach

“provided an epistemological avenue into the map, but still left open the question of the ontology of

the map” (2003:90).

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One of these post-representational theorists is Pickles whose focus is on “the work maps do, how

they act to shape our understanding of the world, and how they code that world” (2004:12). His

work accepts maps as inscription and uses a post-structuralist framework, acknowledging the

complex nature of maps and therefore rejecting Harleian ideas that ‘truth‘ can be exposed through

an uncovering of ideological intent (Dodge et al. 2009:12). The idea of maps as social

constructions is furthered by Wood and Fels (2008), arguing that “maps produce the world by

making propositions that are placed in the space of the map” (Dodge et al. 2009:13). The maps

move “beyond a spatial ontology by enabling higher order propositions” (Wood and Fels 2008:cited

in Dodge et al. 2009:14) therefore linking things in places onto a relational grid.

Whilst the theorisations by Pickles (2004) and Wood and Fels (2008) discussed above utilise non-

representational approaches in their considerations of cartography, these approaches have been

criticised for their ontogenic considerations of the map. Kitchin et al. comment “the map remains

curiously static in these theorisations - it is resolutely a map. Somewhat paradoxically then, the

map remains ontologically secure at the same time that meaning and territory unfold through the

work of the map (Kitchin 2008: cited in Kitchin et al. 2012:2).

Accordingly, theorists such as Kitchin and Dodge (2007) and Del Casino and Hanna (2006)

emphasise in their arguments that maps possess no ontogenical security, “[they] are of-the-moment,

brought into being through practices (embodied, social, technical), always re-made every time they

are engaged with” (Kitchin and Dodge 2007:5). From this processual perspective, epistemologies

focus on the methods through which maps emerge. For Dodge et al. this involves studying “how

maps are made through the practices of the cartographer situated within particular contexts and how

maps re-make the world through mutually constituted practices that unite map and space”

(2009:22).

Del Casino and Hanna (2006) draw on post-structural theory to also argue that “maps are both

representations and practices...simultaneously. Neither is fully inscribed with meaning as

representations or fully acted out as practices” (Del Casino and Hanna 2006:36). They illustrate

this through a study of how tourists produce space using tourist maps with other texts and

narratives, showing how the “real is read back into the map, making it more legible” (Dodge et al.

2009:20). For them, maps are not simple objects whose meaning can be deciphered through

deconstruction but “tactile, olfactory, sensed objects/subjects mediated by the multiplicity of

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knowledges we bring to and take from them through our everyday interactions and representational

and discursive practices” (Del Casino and Hanna 2006:37).

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3: TECHNOLOGY AND A NEW MODE OF MAPPING:

This chapter will explore the increasing prevalence of computing and software in contemporary

urban experience and the ways in which this is working to mediate interactions with the world

(Dodge et al. 2009). I will situate portable digital mapping within the wider phenomenon of

ubiquitous computing and introduce efforts to conceptualize resultant “automatic production[s] of

space” that are working to shift societal behaviours, producing a geography that is “beyond living”

(Thrift and French 2002:309). Having discussed ubiquitous computing and ways of

conceptualizing geographies of the digital, I will then consider how to incorporate portable digital

mappings within the analytical purview of critical cartography using Edney’s non-progressivist

viewpoint.

3.1 UBIQUITOUS COMPUTING:

Ubiquitous computing was the vision of Mark Wesier, manager of the Computing Science

Laboratory at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center in the 1980s. This vision anticipated a ‘third age’

of computing in which users would be served by a multitude of devices, moving beyond the desktop

to become spread and embedded seamlessly throughout the environment (Weiser 1991). In today’s

society we can consider ourselves very much in this ‘third age’ of computing as digital technology

permeates throughout all forms of modern life. For example in 2005, 10 quintillion transistors were

produced and at a cheaper cost than grains of rice (LA Times 2005:cited in Dave 2007) and by 2010

there were 4 billion phones in the world, 1 billion of which had some form of internet connectivity

(Amin et al 2009: cited in Graham et al 2012). Indeed, it is the saturation of smartphones

throughout environments, linked to an ever increasingly capable internet infrastructure that is

accentuating the digital dimensions of contemporary urban experience. This new form of

experience is termed “the automatic production of space” and forms a basis of this study (Thrift and

French 2002:309).

Research undertaken by Dourish and Bell demonstrates one attempt to make sense of the spaces

into which computation has moved, exploring the “practical and cultural logics by which those

spaces are organized” (2007:415). They explore the interrelationships between sociality and

ubiquitous computing through the lens of ‘infrastructure’, referring to the structures that lie beneath

the surface of applications and interactions.

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Dourish and Bell’s (2007) experiential reading of infrastructure incorporates two different

perspectives, ‘the experience of infrastructure’ and the ‘infrastructure of experience’. ‘The

experience of infrastructure’ alludes to the increasing pertinence and visibility of infrastructure as

daily practices become more reliant on it. The ‘infrastructure of experience’ draws attention to the

embedding of infrastructures in everyday space, which shape our experience of this space and

consequently provides a framework through which our encounters with space take on meaning. As

such, we can therefore understand space as an experience of multiple infrastructures, for example

infrastructures of naming, movement, interactions etc. which are emergent from the embodied

practices of the people populating and inhabiting the spaces in question (Dourish and Bell 2007).

Dourish and Bell use this infrastructural framework to stress the importance of social context in

how ubiquitous computing is experienced. They argue that the “complex interpretive structure [of

space] will frame the encounter with pervasive computing...Fundamentally, the experience of space

is coextensive with the cultural practice of everyday life” (2007:424). Developing this

understanding of the social infrastructures that make up space marks an important development in

scholarship, principally because it demonstrates how the increasingly ubiquitous experience of

modern computing is heavily influenced by the bodily encounters and social context in which it is

received and encountered (Dourish and Bell 2007).

3.2 AUGMENTED REALITY:

The previous section has identified that computing and experiences of space are a product of social

context. The next section narrows the focus to the role played by geo-referenced data in the

relationship between technology and spatial experience.

Graham et al. (2012) use the term ‘Augmented Reality’ (AR) to conceptualize what is produced at

the boundaries identified by Dourish and Bell (2007) between computing and the environment.

They define AR as “the material/virtual nexus mediated through technology, information and code

enacted in specific and individualized space/time configurations” (Graham et al. 2012:2). It is

stressed in this approach that whilst augmentation of place by information (e.g. adverts and music)

is not new, “the visual, interactive, real-time nature of digital augmentations offer a fundamentally

new way of interacting with, moving through and enacting place” (ibid.:2). Developing existing

scholarship on the politics of spatial representation in critical cartography and more recent

geographies of software, Graham et al. developed a framework for analysing the ways in which

place is produced by digitally augmented mappings (2012).

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The movement towards digital augmentation can be traced through three fundamental developments

in internet practices and technologies; the movement towards the mobile Web and ubiquitous

computing extending to mobile technology, the growth of authorship blurring the boundaries

between producer and user (Monmonier 2007) and the emergence of a geospatial web (Graham et al

2012). The combination of these factors establish augmented content as a key component of

everyday life, “offering a means of place making that is infinitely more malleable and dynamic than

those that existed previously” (see Westlund et al. 2011: cited in Graham et al. 2012).

Graham et al (2012) develop a conceptual framework for studying ways in which the powers of

digitally augmented mappings operate to create place with a view to placing emerging ARs within

the scope of broader cartographic concerns with spatial representation. This framework draws on

work from critical cartography such as Harley (1989), Pickles (2004) and Kitchin and Dodge (2007)

to question the power relations of content represented in digital augmentations. Due to the

dynamism of augmented content through constant updates and co-authorship (best exemplified

through social networks), Graham et al. (2012) align themselves with post-representational theorists

such as Kitchin and Dodge (2007), denying the ontological security of ARs. They posit that ARs,

just like maps, are always “of-the-moment, brought into being through practices (embodied, social,

technical), always remade every time they are engaged and practiced in contingent and relational

ways” (Kitchin and Dodge 2007:335, original emphasis). Consequently, emphasis for study of AR

is to be focused on “the specific ways in which augmented realities are brought into being and

mediated” (Graham et al. 2012:4). Specifically, the role of software in the construction of spatial

representations and it’s duplicity emphasizing the power of code to “shape the urban places of the

21st century” (Graham et al. 2012:4).

3.3 THE ADVENT OF DIGITAL MAPPING:

One of the most distinct features of online mapping is their ability to make visible the spatial

relationships in maps, images and graphics, which Crampton terms ‘Geographic Visualization’

(2001). The features he argues that make this specific to digital forms of mapping is the ability to

manipulate this data in an exploratory sense, for example rotating, zooming and stripping away

layers of map mashups. These acts are discussed by MacEachren who identifies that “visualization

is foremost an act of cognition, a human ability to develop mental representations that allow

geographers to identify patterns and to create or impose order” (1992:101) which moves

visualization beyond the confines of map communication models. Increasing capabilities of

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(specifically) smartphone devices are making these new capacities to engage with spatial data

increasingly portable. Portable digital mappings act as a confluence between virtual worlds of geo-

referenced data and the real environments of daily experience and with increasing ubiquity are

becoming a dominant aspect of everyday life.

Digital cartography can therefore be seen as hugely different to other forms of cartography,

representing an ‘epistemic break’ in the history of cartography (Crampton 2001:235). From a non-

progressivist viewpoint, digital mappings are best regarded as an emerging “mode” of mapping

(Edney 1993). Using this perspective avoids privileging one form of mapping over ‘better’ forms,

instead acknowledging their differing conceptions of space and contexts and allowing critical

perspectives to encompass this diversity (ibid.).

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4. TOWARDS A THEORY OF ‘MORE-THAN-REPRESENTATIONAL’ MAPPING:

As the previous literature has identified, critical cartography has gone through a phase of significant

re-thinking and has been widely contested over the last fifty years. How maps are regarded and

approached is hugely variable and as such there is no obvious agenda for this research to follow.

Consequently, in this research, I apply a ‘more-than-representational’ approach to mapping, drawn

from debates by Lorimer (2005) in human geography and pioneered by Connor (2010) in his

analysis of Google Street View. This approach combines elements of representational and post-

representational cartography to capture “the inseparability of both representation and practice”

within mappings in a way that neither of these approaches (representational and post-

representational) can explore in isolation (Connor 2010:21, original emphasis).

Despite the developments of post-representational frameworks for map studies, it is important to re-

assert the significance that representation plays in all understandings of how maps operate and

therefore how they are studied. While it has been widely discussed that maps are never an objective

“mirror of nature”, they can still be regarded as a “way of representing the world” (Cosgrove

2008:2: cited in Connor 2010). It has been argued that mappings operate by allowing one to “make

connections to other representations and to other experienced spaces” (Del Casino and Hanna 2006:

p36) and that these representations take meaning as a “map” through individual practices (Kitchin

and Dodge 2007:338). Therefore, “what a map represents, and how the map represents spaces,

remains of crucial significance” in any analysis of mapping (Connor 2010:21. Original emphasis).

Whilst acknowledging the importance of representation, this approach also regards maps as more

than a representation. By incorporating the post-representational stance discussed in ‘3. Post-

representational cartography’;; this approach can engage with the performative aspects that surround

mapping, the ways in which all maps are “infused with meaning through contested, complex,

intertextual, and interrelated sets of socio-spatial practices” (Del Casino and Hanna 2006:36: cited

in Connor 2010:22).

A more-than-representational approach to mapping in this study is important because it avoids

“reductionist readings of the power of and in maps” (Pickles, 2004:30) and instead promotes an

analytical scope attentive to mapping’s “partial, open, and contingent qualities” in terms of

representation and practice (Cosgrove 1999:14). The ‘open’ reading of maps promoted through this

approach allows the analytical scope of this study to be broadened to incorporate other areas of

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human geography, providing a richer base from which to analyse the practices associated with

digital mapping.

By adopting a more-than-representational approach I want to take the research into new and under

explored human geographies of fast changing urban experience, increasingly defined by technology

and augmented realities. Indeed “although places have long been represented via asynchronous,

analogue augmentations, emerging digital augmentations offer a means of place-making that is

infinitely more malleable and dynamic than those that existed previously” (See Westlund et al.

2011:cited in Graham et al. 2012:3). The more-than-representational approach will allow me to

situate these new ways of experiencing place, as mediated by the app, within the analytical focus of

cartography (Graham et al. 2012).

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5. METHODOLOGY:

5.1. APP CHOICE AND SAMPLING:

The University of Bristol Walking Tour App was chosen as an example of a portable mapping app,

incorporating geolocation technology and multimedia information within an interactive map

surface. I chose this app for a number of practical reasons that would aid the ease and efficacy of

my research. The mapped area shows and contains information specific to Bristol University

campus. Being on University campus allowed me to experience performing the app, moving

through the spaces represented and also to follow parts of the walking tour. My affiliation with the

University as a student also made it easier to get in contact with the designer of the app, Mike

Jones. Arranging and conducting an interview with Mike allowed me to gain an insight into the

contexts and processes behind the app’s construction, which I would not have been able to achieve

so easily with other potable digital mapping apps.

The app contains a range of features such as University produced videos, links to the

‘MyMobileBristol’ website and Google map capabilities for local services and amenities. A

comprehensive analysis of all these features was rendered impossible within the scope of the

present study thereby necessitating a selective approach. When considering the aim of this

research, namely to explore an example of portable digital mapping, limitation of my research to the

Walking Tour aspect of the app seemed pertinent and allowed both participants and myself to fully

engage with this aspect during the research.

5.2: TEXTUAL ANALYSIS:

Whilst advances in critical cartographic theory identify the practices surrounding map use as critical

for understanding how maps produce meaning, the more-than-representational approach this study

uses asserts the importance of the representational in any study of mapping. In order to engage with

representational aspects of the app in this study I will adopt a method drawn from Harley’s process

of ‘Deconstructing the map‘ (Harley 1989), regarding the map as a “thick text” and allowing the

statements, arguments and propositions made by the app to be seen as “rhetorical devices” which

are therefore open to interpretation (Pinder 2003:175).

It was noted by Harley himself that analysing maps as texts “offers no simple set of techniques for

their interpretation” (1992:238). However, modern theorists such as Pinder have used Harley’s

14

writings to devise their own practical structures for decoding the ‘language’ of maps, which I will

use in this iconographic consideration of the app.

Chapter Six ‘The App:’ provides material and historical context, addressing key questions such as

the authorship, the immediate material and intertextual relations as well as the wider social and

political relations of the app identified in Pinder’s framework (2003:176). These contextual

understandings act as a grounding on which to base iconographic considerations through

deconstruction, provide the content for the background information given to focus group

participants and also provide the basis on which to analyse my own practices through auto-

ethnography.

The iconographic analysis closely aligns itself with the theoretical guidelines for deconstruction

devised by Pinder (2003), which initially involved a period of close interaction with the app,

followed by a detailed description of the mapped area. These ‘starter’ exercises enabled me to

begin critically engaging with the mapped area in the app. Looking at the app in these ways

allowed me to view it in a variety of forms with the aim of avoiding elements of ‘taken-for-

grantedness’ which could significantly influence this analysis. This critical engagement then

allowed me to focus my analysis on three main sources of iconographic power (ibid.):

1. Hierarchies of representation

2. Silences

3. Symbolism and decoration

5.3: AUTO-ETHNOGRAPHY:

‘2.2: Post-representational cartography’ identifies a performative turn in critical cartographic

theory. These theorizations place greater emphasis on the role of corporeal practice and

performance, arguing that mapping and spaces are co-constitutive (Del Casino and Hanna 2006:

cited in Perkins 2009:2). To research using this reorientation of theory requires a new branch of

novel methodologies which are attentive to the performance and practices surrounding mappings.

A growing trend in critical cartographies which respond to non-representational theorisations is the

use of ethnographic approaches which can also be supplemented by other qualitative

methodologies. Ethnography provides a means to move critical cartography ‘beyond the binaries’

through which maps have previously been studied. Examples of such binaries include “production

15

and consumption, author and reader, subject and object” (Del Casino and Hanna 2006:51) and

provide only a partial engagement with the possibilities of map consumption. Recent research by

Del Casino and Hanna (2006) and Brown and Laurier (2005) demonstrates how the use of

ethnographic approaches has allowed research to “move beyond dualities of representational and

non-representational theory in critical cartography” (Del Casino and Hanna 2006: 35), instead

focusing on the way representation and practice work co-constitutively.

I was influenced to use an auto-ethnographic approach in this research after exploring how it had

been brilliantly applied to areas of psychogeographic research, in particular the work of David

Pinder (2001). Pinder’s self-reflexive account closely explores the links between representation and

experience of London through the medium of an aural art form, Janet Cardiff’s ‘Missing Voice’

(1999). The self-reflexive nature of this account had a unique ability to critically reflect on aspects

such as memory and the unconscious in movements through space. These deeper embodied aspects

were something I was keen to capture in my research, in particular to explore the underlying

tensions created through my own bodily practices used to bring this app into being.

Auto-ethnography has been described as self-reflection used “as a way to understand larger social

or cultural phenomena” (Butz and Besio 2009:1665). Using this research method allowed me to

critically reflect on my own experiences of using the app as a lens through which to understand the

wider phenomena of portable digital mapping apps in contemporary urban experience. Using a

branch of auto-ethnography termed by Norman Denzin as ‘Personal experience narrative’

(1989:cited in Butz and Besio 2009:1665) was preferential for this study in place of other

ethnographic methods used in past research (e.g. Del Casino and Hanna 2006, Brown and Laurier

2005) for two key reasons. Firstly, the deeply reflexive nature of this research method allowed me

to explore “material, affective and imaginative qualities” of this app in a way that has only been

applied to maps fairly recently (e.g. Rossetto 2012) (Connor 2010:11). These qualities remain

unexplored by past research and consequently make this research very unique. Secondly, this

research method allowed me to embrace and utilise my position as a University student, presenting

myself as the principle research subject and consequently “breaking down the conventional

ethnographic distinction between researcher and subject” (Butz and Besio 2009:1663).

Section ‘8.0: Using the app’ presents an intensive personal narrative account of my first ever use of

the app in and around the University campus. The 45 minute journey through the University

campus took place on the 16th of November 2012, starting at my house at 8.45am and finishing at

point ‘F‘ of the walking tour at 9.30am. By focusing the analysis to this one extended use of the

16

app I felt the findings will be enriched by the novelty of experiences, reducing the chances of over-

looking experiences due to familiarity with the app. Presenting just one journey also allowed me to

reflect and comment on the flow of experiences in more detail, reflecting on the cumulative

construction of my opinions and experiences as the journey progressed.

Initially pilot journeys were conducted using a “Google maps’ app which I knew to be similar to the

Walking Tour app. I did this to familiarize myself with the operation of digital mappings and build

my experience of using portable digital mapping apps in varying contexts. This was done to ensure

the experiences produced by my use of the Walking Tour app would be as closely reflective of the

material agency of the app as opposed to any inabilities to operate it. These pilot journeys have not

been included in the analysis despite their utility in the research.

My preparation for the journey was conducted with the psychogeographic experiments of the

Situationists in mind (Bassett 2004). I had a rough intention of moving towards the centre of the

campus but I wanted my subsequent movements to be determined in the moment, dictated by the

agency of the app and moving in whatever direction I felt compelled to take. During the walk, the

only aim was to be attentive to the ways I was using the app and in turn what experiences resulted

from its use, perceptive to the interactions between my body, the app and the space around me.

Throughout the journey, rough field notes were made recording experiences I deemed significant

(Appendix E) with other elements of significance also emerging through periods of reflection

following my journey. Figure 2 shows a map with the route travelled on this walk.

17

Figure 2: Final route of journey taking by researcher during auto-ethnographic research (Author’s

screenshot, 1 December 2012).

5.4: FOCUS GROUPS:

A key aim of this research method was to broaden my understanding of the ways others were

engaging with the app. For this reason, focus groups were preferential over other research methods,

allowing chains of responses to be triggered in conversation thereby generating data in a

‘synergistic’ fashion (Berg 1989, Stewart and Shamdasani 1990: cited in Hay 2005:117).

In order to gain a wide understanding of how this app is viewed and brought into being, I conducted

a series of 3 small focus groups with between 2 and 7 participants in each. The suggestion that

smaller groups yield more in-depth insights than their larger counterparts (Krueger and Casey 2000)

coupled with my desire to gain a close understanding of the implications surrounding the

respondent’s practices with the app led me to opt for these small group sizes.

Each focus group comprised of students from the same year of study at the University and ranged

from first to third year. I chose to form groups using students from the same year of study in order

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to foster a sense of intra-group homogeneity. Morgan (1996) has identified that such homogeneity

“contributes to a climate where participants can speak freely in an atmosphere of mutual respect, as

people tend to feel more comfortable with others whom they share particular similarities” (cited in

DeLyser et al. 2009:199). Creating a supportive atmosphere shifted the emphasis from the

researcher to the participants and afforded greater opportunity for conversations to be closely

attentive to the practices usually neglected by participants. All of the focus groups were carried out

in a university seminar room, a neutral space to avoid any hierarchies being imposed on the

conversations.

A question schedule was used to provide a rough structure to the focus groups and also to ensure

that certain topics were covered (Appendix A). As conversations developed, other factors emerged,

which further stimulated conversation into new and interesting areas I had not anticipated. After

assuring all participants they would be made anonymous in subsequent analyses, the content of

focus groups was recorded (Appendix H). Following this, the conversations were transcribed and

analysed according to the guidelines laid out in Table 1 (see Appendices F and G). The key themes

that emerged were then brought together in the analysis section.

Previous critiques of focus groups have identified bias and subjectivity as key limitations to this

method. However, through the post-structuralist stance this research takes there is no such thing as

an objective point of view, all research is created through the “experiences, aims and interpretations

of the researcher” (England 1994, cited in Flowerdew et al 2005:112) and as such all knowledge

gained through this mode of enquiry is embodied, situated and contained within the subjectivity and

experience of the respondent. This research values the subjectivity and experience of the

respondent and acknowledges the specificity of each response in the analysis.

Coding step Specific operations

Develop preliminary coding system Prepare a list of emergent themes in the research.

Prepare transcript for analysis Print out fresh copy of transcript for manual coding

Ascribe codes to text Place hand-written annotations on transcript

Retrieve similarly coded text Amalgamate sections of text that are similarly coded

Review data by themes Assess diversity of opinion under each theme. Cross reference themes to review instances where themes are discussed together. Speculate on relations between themes.

Table 1: Guidelines for coding interview and focus group data (Amended from Hay 2005:101).

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5.5 INTERVIEW:

Having conducted my research up to this point, certain gaps in my knowledge remained, pertaining

primarily to the context surrounding the app’s construction. The crucial nature of this information

with respect to provision of a foundation for the remainder of my analysis rendered an interview

with a knowledgeable source of paramount importance. Following internet research, I contacted the

app’s designer Mike Jones and arranged a conventional face-to-face interview in a nearby coffee

shop.

Using a semi-structured interview (Appendix C) I explored the processes behind the app’s creation

and focused on the motivations behind some of the design choices. Design choices were something

I had identified as hugely influential in my previous analyses and discussing these with Mike placed

me in a better position to understand the intertextuality of these features. With permission the

conversation was recorded, manually transcribed and then analysed following the method of coding

outlined in Table 1.

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6. THE APP:

This section introduces the University of Bristol Walking Tour app and discusses the contexts

surrounding its production, distribution and accessibility. The interview conducted with Mike

Jones was essential in bridging gaps in my understanding of the app; this section draws heavily

from the insight gained during this hour-long interview (Appendix D).

The app operates on an iOS platform, available exclusively for Apple iPhone, iPod touch and iPad

from the Apple App Store. Download links are widely advertised on the University of Bristol

website, mainly present on pages targeted at prospective students. During the interview with Mike

he indicated a few reasons why the app was limited to Apple products. The principle reason was

that it was very difficult to create an app that ran smoothly on different platforms such as Android

or BlackBerry. Mike had found that cross-platform development lead to clunky interfaces that

didn’t best utilise native controls. Secondary reasons were Mike’s personal interest in iOS

development and the increasing prevalence of Apple devices amongst University students.

The app includes several features such as Videos, an ‘About’ section, ‘MyMobileBristol’ links and

a walking tour which provides the focus for this research. The Walking Tour combines geo-

location technology with podcasts and pictures to provide a ninety-minute circular tour layered over

a base map of the University campus. A black dotted line marks out the tour over the base map.

This black dotted line is an Application Programming Interface (API), which was programmed by

Mike to sit atop a Google base map sourced from the Google servers. The route comprises fourteen

points of special interest, labelled ‘A’-‘N’. Each of these points brings up several pictures, a textual

description and a short narration providing information about the place. Navigating between points

is aided by a geo-location dot, showing the user’s position on the mapped surface.

The App was developed as part of the wider ‘MyMobileBristol’ movement, a collaboration between

the University of Bristol, Bristol City Council and the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC)

with the overall aim of providing time and location sensitive content to smartphones. Based on

stakeholder analysis during the project, the Walking Tour app was developed to meet growing

demands from the University for a presence on the iTunes store and also to address needs to

electronically provide prospective students with information about the University of Bristol and the

city (Bristol and Community Engagement program: Open innovation 2011). The app was very

closely based on a walking tour already in existence created by the Widening Participation and

Access department at the University of Bristol, which used a paper map and series of podcasts to

21

provide self-guided tours for prospective students. Mike described the app as an “amplification” of

the paper walking tour, using the same points of interest and narrations to provide easier and more

interactive experiences of the campus tour.

6.1 UNDERSTANDING THROUGH DESCRIPTION:

The app is opened through a dark green icon with a lighter green representation of the University of

Bristol emblem within it, labeled in white letters below as ‘Walking Tour’. Clicking through this

icon one is presented with a choice of options from;; ‘Walking Tour, ‘Videos’, ‘Mobile Bristol’,

‘Feedback’ and ‘About’. Each of these is accompanied by an emblem, the walking tour being

represented by a folding map with a dotted line running across it, ending at a point marked by a

cross. These options are contained beneath a Banner of ‘University of Bristol Walking Tour’,

represented in the same green colour as the startup icon. Clicking through the walking tour option

one is immediately presented with a view centered on and filled with the University campus.

Manual manipulation of the app interface (swiping, pushing or pulling your fingers) reveals the

whole mapped area to be changeable. The smallest scale achievable shows the outlines of

individual buildings whereas the largest scale allows one to view the world on a continental scale.

The mapped area of the ‘Walking Tour’ feature is contained within a uniform green banner at the

top and a black bottom border. Within the top banner the title ‘Walking Tour’ and ‘Back’ arrow

icon remain constant throughout app use. The bottom black banner has two icons in the left hand

corner. The first of these is a small square black button with a white cross hair in the centre whilst

the other icon is the same uniform black and contains images of white towers. Consistent with any

mapped area shown, a small indented icon saying ‘Legal’ is shown in the bottom left of the mapped

area. Throughout any use of the app, a thin black strip remains along the top edge of the screen

containing all the familiar features and icons of my iPhone such as signal bars, network provider,

Wi-Fi strength, the time, geolocation arrow and battery level.

22

Figure 3: An overview of the walking tour. [Left] Black dotted line indicates route, blue lettered icons

represent points of interest [Right] Home screen showing options within the app. (Author’s screenshots 1

December 2012).

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7. ICONOGRAPHIC CONSIDERATIONS:

I now turn to Harleian deconstructive methods in an attempt to draw out some of the key

representational features of the app and consider how they work to create meaning. One aspect of

the map content analysed was the hierarchies of representation, looking for features afforded visual

importance. A key feature dominating the representation of the campus is the walking tour route

marked out with a black dotted line. This dotted line is clearly overlain on the map, running over

the top of road names, numbers and seemingly buildings (Figure 5). The use of the colour black

provides a clear contrast against the uniform pastel colours of the Google maps base map and

therefore draws attention to the route as the focal point of this map. Indeed, this is accentuated by

its overlay atop other information. This visual dominance emphasises the practical and specific

function held by the app, a technique comparable to Harley’s ‘rule of social order’ in which the map

has an ability to provide a “commentary on the social structure of a particular nation or place as it is

on its topography” (Harley 1989:6).

Figure 4: The route through a building (Author’s screenshots, 1 December 2012).

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Another deconstructive method to analyse the app’s representation is an engagement with the

‘silences’ of the map, looking to see what isn’t included. These ‘blank spaces’ can be regarded as

positive statements and a rich source for interpretation (Pinder 2001). The mapping interface

represented is an example mashup between a Google source map and a hooked on application

programming interface (API) developed by Mike Jones. The most significant silences observed in

this representation were within the API, reflecting Mike’s design decisions. Two key examples

illustrate what Harley has referred to as ‘ideological filtering’ (1989), a less conscious process of

exclusion from the mapped representation. A first example of this was the inclusion of an image of

Biological Sciences department and an image of a staircase within the Archeology and

Anthropology department under the icon ‘F’ and heading ‘Woodland Road’ (Figure 5). The

inclusion of these two images and not of surrounding departments such as Geography and

Philosophy is interesting as both are located within 25 metres and are architecturally similar. A

second example of this is the inclusion of two images of the grounds of Manor Hall under the icon

‘L’ and heading ‘Manor Hall’ and the exclusion of two other halls of residence within close

proximity, Clifton Hill House and Goldney. In both these examples it appears that the places have

been chosen and represented for their proximity to the marked out route in preference to other

factors. From a representational perspective, this instills a rhetoric of convenience and easy access

over the design logic but also casts a partial and selective view over what is visually represented

within the app.

25

Figure 5: The images shown at Point ‘F’, examples of cartographic silences at work. [Top] A staircase in

the Archeology department. [Bottom] The Biology department (Author’s screen shots, 1 December 2012).

Another angle used within the iconographic analysis was to look at the symbolic aspects of the map

in an attempt to move beyond literal meanings (Harley 2001:46-48). This angle was especially

applicable because of the apparently plain and minimalistic design of the app interface which

Harley identifies as becoming a ‘new talisman of authority’ within the current age of computer

mapping (Harley 1992: 241). This is exemplified through the use of plain undecorated borders in

the same green as the university icon, remaining uniform through the different stages of the app

interface. The continuity afforded by these borders provides a constant reminder of the university

affiliation with this app and consequently the material contained within it.

The use of blue lettered circles to represent points of interest is a key feature of the representation,

principally because of the colour use wherein a dark blue creates a sharp contrast with the

background and instantly focusing one’s gaze to these points. The use of letters ‘A’ through to ‘L’

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also utilizes mnemonic capacities to recall the alphabet and in doing so, subconsciously imposes an

order of movement upon a user, with a logical start at point ‘A’ and a logical end at point ‘L’.

The cross hair and building icons that make up the two function buttons also serve as rich sources

for interpretation. The cross hair button which drags the mapped area to focus around the user’s

position creates connotations of focus and targeting, privileging the mapped areas containing the

user over others. The button represented by buildings shifts the mapped area shown to centre on the

university campus. The use of buildings connotes elements of the urban and metropolitan, linking

these ideas with the space of the campus.

Applying this classic Harleian iconographic deconstruction has identified several methods through

which this app works to create meaning. Some of the most influential were the inclusions and

exclusions of content, creating a very selective and un-representational view of the university

campus in comparison to reality. The visual dominance afforded to the walking tour route,

symbolic connotations of function buttons and mnemonic associations with the lettered icons are

also features that work to create meaning. The next section considers these features and explores

the wider webs of meaning, which are created through performing the app.

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8. USING THE APP:

This section provides an auto-ethnographic account of using the app. The account draws on a series

of key moments from a forty five minute usage of the app, which explores using the app in a wide

variety of contexts. I have broken the journey down into three steps (1) Leaving the house (2)

Woodland Road (3) On the tour. Figure 6 shows the route taken.

Figure 6: Auto ethnography route from Author’s house to Point ‘F’ of the walking tour. Marker indicates

start point (Author’s screenshot, 1 December 2012).

The aim of this auto-ethnographic account was to consider the app from a practical viewpoint,

looking for ways in which it worked to create meaning through the ways I engaged with it.

Accordingly, this next section best aligns itself with my second research question, looking at the

material agency of this mapping. I have chosen to structure this chapter around the journey I took,

allowing me to comment on my different experiences as I present them.

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8.1 LEAVING THE HOUSE - TIMELESS POWER:

Standing on my doorstep I took out my iPhone, performing the habitual motions to unlock the

phone for use. Swiping through the pages of apps I found the familiar green icon of the walking

tour app and accessed it though a light touch. Navigating the menu I selected the ‘Walking Tour’

option, bringing up the mapping interface. The map was centered on University Road, recording

the last place I had used the app (the Geographical Sciences library the night previously, studying

representational aspects). To remedy this I pressed the cross hair icon in the bottom left which

centered the mapped area on my location. Almost instantaneously the mapped area shifted to centre

itself around a blue pulsating dot on Tyndall’s Park Road, a virtual manifestation of myself within

the mapped area of the app. As I set out on my walk I followed my normal route to lectures North

up Tyndall’s Park Road towards Woodland road. My embodied blue dot shifted location every few

seconds, jumping to catch up with my current location, my movements serving to constantly re-

author the mapped representation. My real time progress represented on the map was juxtaposed

against an “otherwise atemporal landscape” (Graham et al 2012:8) within the mapped area. This

was an extremely stark example of the timeless power created within the “virtual/material nexus” of

augmented reality constructed through the app use. All other features of the app such as the the

pictures, narrations and mapped area were devoid of any form of time frame or reference, following

wider trends within digital mappings to “conduct seamless representations of place” (ibid.:8).

A key agency of my virtual presence (as the dot) within this atemporal landscape was to present an

idealised representation of the campus, not compromised by any of the everyday disturbances or

ruptures that could hinder other explorations. In this example it was mobility that the atemporal

landscape allowed me to supersede, presenting unobstructed views of buildings through the app

which were hindered by traffic and pedestrians.

29

8.2 WOODLAND ROAD - REALITY AUGMENTED:

Figure 7: Auto ethnography route. Marker indicates position discussed in analysis (Author’s screen shot, 1

December 2012).

Continuing my journey down Woodland Road and glancing down at my screen I saw my blue dot

about to collide with point ‘N’, continuing a few more metres my embodied dot disappeared

beneath the blue icon. The conjunction between the blue dot and the icon invoked my curiosity,

looking around I couldn’t see anything I would deem special or noteworthy. Touching the icon a

black speech mark popped up entitled, ‘Woodland Road’ and another blue arrow icon inviting me

to explore further. Pressing this button brought up a picture of one of the surrounding building

fronts and a following picture of a multimedia centre not visible from my position.

30

Figure 8: Three contrasting views at point ‘N’. [Top Left] The disappearance of the geo-location from the

mapped surface at point ‘N’. [Top Right] Pictures of multimedia centre at point ‘N’ not visible from the

road. [Bottom] The real view from point ‘N’ (Author’s screenshot and photo, 1 December 2012)

31

Pressing a play button initiated a disembodied narration to play through my headphones giving

details of the departments and subjects taught along Woodland Road and also explaining that the

rear of the buildings had been renovated. This came as a surprise to me having never been inside

these buildings and allowed me to spatially relate the picture of the multimedia centre which had

confused me moments before, to my current location.

What is evident from my experience is the power of the images, narration and spatial referencing in

formulating these thoughts and perceptions. I was presented with a wide range of data in the

moment, all widely available from other sources but uniquely brought together by the app under the

umbrella of a spatial location. The combination of pictures, narration and spatial location were

essential to this form of place making, however I found the narration the most influential. In

particular I found one line of the general description about Woodland Road powerful.

“Woodland road is used by thousands of students every day, either as a route to their department

or because their department is based here” (University of Bristol Walking Tour narration 2011).

This information caused a shift in my point of focus within my surroundings. Where my attention

had previously been directed at the buildings surrounding me and their practical functions, it now

shifted to the crowds of people moving up and down the pavements around me, hitherto registered

only by my subconscious. This narration therefore added an extra dimension to the app, drawing

attention to features not displayed within the blank and empty mapped surface. This shares many

characteristics with what Cardiff (1999) has referred to as ‘melding’, the practice of walking and

information layered over the top, infiltrating the unconscious to shade a user’s spatial experience.

Whilst certainly not done in a purposefully artistic way, the layering of narration over my

movement through Woodland road engineered a shift in my spatial experience, a familiar space was

“rendered new as other presences and resonances are called into being” (Pinder 2001:5).

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8.3 ON THE TOUR - BEING GUIDED.

Figure 9: Auto ethnography route. Marker indicates start of the tour (Author’s screen shot, 1 December

2012).

At the end of Woodland Road my geolocation dot moved over the top of the black dotted line

which my representational analysis had afforded such visual dominance to. My movement through

campus to this location had reduced the visual significance of this line, affording me dominance

over the route for the first time. Following the narrative directions in my ears my dot

correspondingly moved along the line neatly, as though I was sliding along an invisible groove in

the pavement, alphabetically moving from point to point. My new found visual dominance, the

neatness with which my movements were represented and the deeply situated mnemonic logics at

play during this period instilled a feeling that my movements were correct and coherent with the

maps agency, letting it guide me.

As I continued along the tour I became aware of my behaviour changing in a number of ways.

Following the tour I found myself becoming increasingly focused on the screen, aligning my geo-

33

location dot with the marked out route and abandoning my usual methods of navigating such as

using surrounding landmarks, road names or street signs. The dynamics of my movement through

campus were also increasingly being influenced by the app. Where and when I stopped or

continued was wholly dictated by my proximity to the next blue icon or the mention of something

that caught my attention in the narration. Furthermore, I found my gaze becoming

compartmentalized, flitting between the screen, my immediate surroundings to look for obstacles

and the areas indicated by the geo-referenced pictures or narrations as points of interest.

Towards the end of the journey my modes of apprehension had also shifted, heightening my focus

on destinations and affording increasingly less attention to the journeys between them. The tour

had become a series of destinations to navigate between. Della Dora (forthcoming) suggests that

processes of geo-referencing, evident in this app through the narrations and pictures, work to

facilitate memorization akin to the topological principles of medieval mappa mundi. In the mappa

mundi “the visibility of places depended on their significance, rather than their actual dimensions”

(Scafi 2006, cited in della Dora forthcoming:8). The ability of this map to spatially reference audio

and visual content can be seen as a contemporary extension of mappa mundi topological principles,

aiding memory and working to shape my geographic imagination of the campus.

This section of the journey has demonstrated the ability of visual dominance, smooth operating and

mnemonic logics to influence practices, guide me through campus and cause me to think in new

ways. This can be explained using Graham’s (2012) analytical framework of AR power,

identifying a blend of code and communication power at work. The algorithms operating in the app

responded to my spatial behaviour, consequently updating the mapped surface which in turn

influenced my spatial behaviour in a cycle powered by the initial iconographic logics of the apps

features. This complex and powerful relationship provides an illustrative example of how maps are

constantly brought into being through practice (Dodge et al. 2009).

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9. THE APP FROM THE PERSPECTIVES OF OTHERS:

This section of the research examines major themes that emerged through a series of focus groups.

The findings align themselves most closely with my second research aim, ‘to investigate how this

app is brought into being from the perspectives of others’, drawing attention to the diverse range of

practices and resultant engagements with the campus mediated by the app.

9.1. ARMCHAIR TRAVELING:

A key practice used by respondents to engage with the app was through remote explorations of the

campus from their own home. As one respondent pointed out “you could actually visit the campus

without visiting it if that makes sense” (Third Year focus group). This method of exploration is

akin to della Dora’s concept of “armchair traveling”, a process she argues “is somehow contributing

to transform the offline world” (della Dora forthcoming:10). A principle way this operated to

“transform the offline world” of the respondents was through active engagements of memory,

identified as essential to the way they performed these remote explorations. A common method

many described was imagining past experiences whilst using the app to supplement their knowledge

of specific places. As one respondent identified, this combination of memory and new information

served to formulate new perspectives of places throughout campus.

MJ: And even places you’re familiar with, the app gave really useful information about the place.

RC: From a different perspective?

MJ: Yeah yeah yeah, I mean at the sports centre it was saying something like it was opened in some

year and cost a certain amount of money. I had no idea about that even though I’ve been using it to

the last two years (Second Year focus group).

Geo-referenced pictures for specific mapped locations were identified as a crucial factor enabling

the respondents to armchair travel. Pictures acted as a point of reference between memories of the

physical world and virtual manifestations of place created through using the app. An example of

this is evident through one respondent’s virtual exploration of the Victoria Rooms (Point ‘J’ on the

walking tour).

RC: So you imagined past experiences when listening to it?

PD: Erm, yeah I’d say more actually taking the route myself and standing outside of it. My memory

of the pictures now is quite vague but they were really useful to know I was thinking about the right

35

place. They allowed me to link up what I remembered with what was being shown (First Year focus

group).

A key practice that brought the app into being can therefore be thought about as a highly subjective

interaction between the user’s past experiences, the narrations played and the pictures shown during

‘armchair’ explorations of the campus. This fusion of geo-referenced data through user

performance provided a way to extend and develop knowledge, made notably more meaningful

through spatial re-enforcements on the mapped surface of the app.

9.2 WAY-FINDING ON CAMPUS:

A common way this app was brought into being was as a way finding device. Whilst this was

raised as a key motivation for using the app in all the focus groups, its utility as a way-finding

device was regarded differentially by different groups. Discussions revealed that familiarity with

the University campus highly influenced the extent and ways in which respondents used the app to

navigate. The focus group comprised of first years considered way-finding as a key attribute of the

app and one of the main functions they used the app for. As the following statement suggests, their

unfamiliarity with the campus was a large factor in their use of the app.

MJ: ...I can really see why new students and prospective students would want to use it, especially at

the beginning of term it was such a big transition from school to university so I found it useful in

that sense, just help you find your way, stop you getting lost in the crowd, you will know where you

are going (First Year focus group).

The focus groups conducted with older and more familiar students didn’t reveal as heavy an

emphasis on way-finding. It became apparent that their greater familiarity with the campus meant

that either they had no need for a navigational device in day-to-day movements around the campus

or that their activities which required maps could not be fulfilled by this app. As one third year

respondent pointed out, “I’d be more interested in having all the social things, like where to eat and

stuff like that” (Third year focus group). Indeed as the following statement suggests, this app has a

very specific function in comparison to other portable digital mappings such as ‘Google maps’.

AJ: We might as well use Google maps if we want to go somewhere now. there is no advantage to

using this map over other maps

JB: Apart from the narrations?

36

AJ: But why would you need to narrate, to find out how to get to the Biology building? Us as third

years, I don’t really think it matters (Third Year focus group).

9.3 FAMILIARITY WITH THE CAMPUS:

Familiarity with the campus was a key factor influencing the uses of the app across the focus

groups, I therefore decided to explore which other ways familiarity with the campus influenced how

the app was brought into being. When asked to comment on their experience of the campus, an

obvious trend emerged with first year students having limited experience of the entire campus and

both second and third years having a comparatively greater familiarity with the campus. This level

of familiarity appears to have had wider significance on the methods used to explore with this app

and the experience consequently gained. A key trend amongst the unfamiliar respondents was to

prioritize their detailed explorations of campus to places they were already familiar with to increase

knowledge, areas unfamiliar to them appear to have been afforded less attention as suggested in the

following statement about the selection processes behind exploration.

PB: Well I was wondering, it takes you through all the buildings, like the maths buildings and

things like that, I was wondering actually how relevant that is to everyone? (First Year focus

group).

The greater familiarity of the respondents in Second and Third year appears to have instilled more

critical considerations to their approaches to the app. For example, a key consideration that was

discussed widely in the third year focus group was the selectivity and cartographic silences evident

in the walking tour. Participants also identified how this selectivity could create a distorted

experience of the campus:

JB: I think it’s interesting because a lot of stuff is left out, if you didn’t know Bristol you wouldn’t

know it was there (Third Year focus group).

Considerations such as these exemplify the role of familiarity in how the respondents engaged with

the app. As discussion developed, the role narrations played in shaping experiences became a

significant point of conversation. Through discussions about the ways respondents were using the

app, it became apparent that the degree of familiarity with certain parts of the campus was also a

key motivator behind their opinion of the narrations. A common opinion amongst many

37

respondents was that the narrations accentuated their experience, adding information to a place

rather than redefining it as exemplified in the next statement.

RM: The narrations were useful for random facts, i.e. the costs, expenditure. Yeah I know these

places reasonably well, I’m not using it to help me find things, it was useful to find things out about

places (Third Year focus group).

9.4 GEOLOCATION:

The ability to geo-locate and spatially reference oneself on the mapped surface was a key feature

influencing many respondents’ engagement with the app and their consequent movement through

space. One of the most common behaviours influenced by the geo-locative capacities was the

selection of points by many respondents when moving through the campus. As the following

statement suggests, many respondent’s proximity to points of interest was their main justification

for selecting them over other forms of logic.

RC: Can you think of any of the ways the geolocation dot influenced how you used it?

JB: It was useful in relation

KL://Yeah I clicked on the things closest to me

JB://Thats how I worked out what blob was what, by seeing where they were in relation to me

(Third Year focus group).

It also became clear that a key use of geo-locative capacities of the app by many respondents was

facilitating links between the virtual campus of the app and their position in the physical campus.

This trend was especially prevalent amongst respondents whose knowledge of the campus was still

limited; these respondents placed specific emphasis on how this feature allowed them to fill in the

gaps in their knowledge by relating their current positions to points on the campus, evidenced in the

following statement.

MJ: Yeah it was using my current location, which was nearest, good to find checkpoints and

therefore familiarize yourself with locations, say like you get off at the bus stop at Woodland road,

where all the languages departments are, you can see you are there and then where you need to go.

RC: So a way of referencing yourself?

MJ: Yeah you can make those checkpoints in your head, If I’m here I need to go there for this

lecture or seminar (First Year focus group).

38

As respondents discussed their use of the geo-locative capabilities, many placed emphasis on the

unique way in which being represented on the map allowed them to engage with the app. Indeed,

one respondent summed up this relationship by saying:

MJ: I followed the map but at the same time let it follow me (First Year focus group).

The app and the respondents were working in a mutually re-enforcing manner, the actions of one

affecting the other in a co-constitutive relationship made distinct to portable digital mapping

through geo-locative capacities.

9.5 DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE APP AND OTHER FORMS OF MAPPING:

During every focus group, respondents made comparisons between the app and other forms of

mapping they had used in the past. These discontinuities ranged from representational features

through to practical engagements and highlighted the novel ways this app is brought into being.

Features were identified such as: the audio dimensions, geo tagged pictures, close zoom, panning,

pre-determined routes and geo-location. It became clear that these features afforded the user a more

interactive and personalized experience than could be offered by paper mappings. The ability to

follow a pre-determined route using geo-location was one of the features most commonly raised by

respondents and created a unique experience through several dimensions. One dimension was the

ease and simplicity through which this route could be followed, as one respondent put it:

DR: It was easier than a paper map because with paper maps you have to decide where to go

(Third Year focus group).

Another dimension through which respondents found the app was brought into being correlated

strongly with my own experiences of using the app, experiencing the campus as a series of points as

opposed to a continuum as evidenced below:

RC: How did the app provide an experience of campus that a paper map couldn’t?

JB: Quite a detached experience I would say, because you spend the whole time looking at your

phone, trying to find out where you are in relation to blob number ‘M” as opposed to where is

actually Wills memorial building (Third Year focus group).

39

10. CONCLUDING REMARKS:

In the course of my research, I have aimed to ameliorate understanding of the systems of meaning

through which this app operates. Adopting a more-than-representational approach to mapping, I

have explored the representational and practical ways in which this app is brought into being

through both a close analysis of my own experiences and wider discussions with others.

In Chapter Eight, I conducted an auto-ethnographic journey to study how the app was brought into

being through my own usage. In this self-reflexive study, I identified three key ways in which the

app exerted its influence. Firstly, the presentation of the campus as an atemporal, idealised

representation operating through systems of timeless power (Graham et al. 2012) accentuated

meaning. Secondly, through augmentation of the reality of my campus experience. The layering of

spatially referenced multimedia content atop physical entities altered my perception of the places I

encountered. Lastly, an astute combination of iconographic features subconsciously guided me

through the campus and unwittingly influenced my movements through this space.

In Chapter Nine the use of focus groups enabled me to extend my understanding of the ways in

which the app is brought into being. Crucially, here again, there was a clear preeminence of three

key themes. Firstly, many brought the app into being through remote exploration, a process reliant

on the user’s memory as the external referent and comparable to della Dora’s (2009) concept of

‘Armchair traveling’. Secondly, on campus , a key use of this app was as a navigational device to

facilitate movement between points on the mapped surface. The third way the app was brought into

being was through its geo-locative capacities, which acted as an axis between the virtual world of

the app and the real world. This allowed users to relate themselves to features in the app and

worked to integrate the experience of the online and offline worlds. A very influential factor for all

of these practices was the user’s familiarity with the campus.

Throughout this study, the range of practices and meanings that have emerged through my own and

others’ use of the app have been both considerable and diverse, providing extensive evidence in

support of post-representational theory that maps “are never fully formed and their work is never

complete” (Kitchin and Dodge 2007:343).

40

10.1 FURTHER AREAS OF STUDY AND LIMITATIONS:

In an attempt to engage with discussions of “and” encouraged by Dewsbury et al. (2002) I will now

push for further considerations and questioning. A main limitation of this study was my conduction

of a lone auto-ethnography, which captured my experiences during my first use of the app.

Conducting more walks, increasing my experience of the app, using the app at different times and

for different things are all ways in which this analysis could be extended. Similarly, the focus

groups I conducted were all formed of students at the University of Bristol, all possessing some

level of familiarity with the campus. Using a range of younger and older participants, perhaps

unfamiliar with the campus is a way this research could be extended. Research such as this would

better explore whether the interface really is universally accessible or whether age and any

associated technological ineptitude presents a barrier unwittingly overcome by younger generations.

Using a more-than-representational approach has combined elements of representational and post-

representational cartography to explore “the inseparability of representation and practice” in this

app (Connor 2010:21, Original emphasis); something which much research to date has failed to

engage with. This research can be regarded as pushing a new frontier in cartographic research,

embracing a new epistemology for cartography to uncover aspects barely touched upon in previous

approaches. Indeed, this approach has demonstrated a way of analysing increasingly popular and

pervasive ways of experiencing place mediated by technology.

The University of Bristol Walking Tour app is just one example of the plethora of portable digital

mapping apps in existence or being developed, all of which are pushing the boundaries of spatial

representation and all of which are amenable to the more-than-representational approach. Applying

similar analyses to future innovations would provide a way of further understanding the

mechanisms through which urban experience is increasingly being mediated. Understandings such

as these pose potentially exceptional commercial value to both the design of ubiquitous computing

and the design of urban space, showing that the study of cartography still has much to offer

contemporary urban experience.

41

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APPENDICES:

Appendix A: Semi-structured focus group question schedule.

Introduction statement:

Thanks all for coming. The research I am doing is a focused study on the Walking Tour app which

you have all had a chance to look at and use. In this research I am analysing the app from a critical

perspective to try and understand some of the ways this app works to produce meanings around

campus. What I’d really like you all to focus on and try and explain how you experienced the app,

what ways you used it, what you used it for and what you thought of it. I’ve got a few questions I

want to ask but this should be a really informal discussion so feel free to talk about anything you

think is important.

Opening questions:

1. Firstly how did you all get on with using the app?

2. Did anyone look at the paper map instead?

3. Did you all find it useful?

4. Who did you think it was mainly aimed at?

5. What do you all think are the best features of the app?

6. Were there any features you didn’t feel work so well?

Key questions:

How much of the campus have you visited or seen since you’ve been here?

1.1 Are there any parts which you haven’t seen?

2. I want you to think back and describe the ways that you used the app to familiarize yourself with

the campus.

2.1 Here I'd really like to know about the methods you used to use the app (whether you

meant to or not)

2.2 An example might be to search for a place you knew...

2.3 Did any of you use it whilst walking?

46

3. Another focus of this is to try and understand how useful you found the app for exploring the

campus.

3.1 Which features did you use most often when using the app?

3.2 How did you find these useful for what you were trying to do?

4. What did you think about the features of the app?

4.1 Did anyone listen to any of the narrations?

4.2 Did listening to the narrations tell you anything interesting about the places?

4.3 What effects did you feel having the information layered over the top of a physical

experience have?

5. What influence did the geo-location dot have on your experience?

6. What ways was this app different to paper maps?

47

Appendix B: Sample focus group transcript.

A transcript of a semi-structured focus group conducted on 20/11/2012.

RC = Research conductor.

Participants: RC, PD, HP.

RC: Thanks all for coming. The research I am doing is a focused study on the Walking Tour app

which you have all had a chance to look at and use. In this research I am analysing the app from a

critical perspective to try and understand some of the ways this app works to produce meanings

around campus. What I’d really like you all to focus on and try and explain how you experienced

the app, what ways you used it, what you used it for and what you thought of it. I’ve got a few

questions I want to ask but this should be a really informal discussion so feel free to talk about

anything you think is important. How did you find it went?

PD: Really well, I think most people in terms of our age group are quite familiar with using the

apple system, how to use an iPod touch, its pretty much using the same system so fairly easy to use

HP: // Yeah I mean its simple to use, even for people that aren’t to familiar with the system, you can

just hop onto the app and get going.

RC: So quite intuitive?

HP: Yeah

PD: I’d say so.

RC: Did you get a chance to use it outside? What methods did you use to explore with it.

PD: I used it walking to this, but that’s the first time I actually used it around campus, erm but it

wasn’t really tracking my location very well...

RC: Oh how come? What were you using it on?

PD: iPod.

RC: That’s really dependent on Wi-Fi access isn’t it?

PD: Oh that’s probably why.

HP: I used it on an iPhone, in terms of location services and stuff it pin pointed really well, I

haven’t really wanted to use it outside much. I can see from the way it routes you, you can find out

the quickest way to get there, to a lecture or something.

RC: The main reason I’m asking this is because this app has been developed for a specific purpose,

a really clear purpose for providing walking tours. But obviously it still works for people who

aren’t going on tours, and it’s quite likely that a lot of people download and use it who don’t go on

48

self guided tours. What I really want to find out and see is how this app works for people. Did you

find it useful?

HP: Yeah definitely, I can really see why new students and prospective students would want to use

it, especially at the beginning of term it is such a big transition from school to university so I think it

will be useful in that sense, just help you find your way, stop you getting lost in the crowd, you will

know where you are going.

RC: Ok...so what sort of things were you looking for?

HP: Geography, that was the first thing I looked for, looking for the geography buildings on there.

[laughter]

RC: Haha that’s what I looked for as well. Were there any features you didn’t think worked so

well?

HP: Well from my perspective using it on an iPhone I was using the geolocation services and I can

see where people would find this problematic. When my battery is running low I turn my location

services off and I suppose quite a lot of people might not want to be tracked. They’ll turn their

location services off, in that sense it won’t be as...[pause]...how it works is very dependent on the

user and their preferences.

RC: This is all good stuff... So those were some nice opening questions to get you thinking about

the app quite critically, now I have couple more questions to ask to get a better idea of the sort of

things you were doing with the app. So how much of the campus have you visited or seen before

you came to Bristol?

PD: Not a lot really.

RC: Or before you used the app?

PD: All I’d seen was the Geography department and up the road towards the gym.

HP: Yeah same here.

RC: Do you have all your lectures in Geography?

PD: No we don’t have any, too many people to fit in there.

RC: Seriously? Where do you have your lectures?

HP: In the closest ones, Chemistry, Biology...Berkeley square.

RC: What I really want to know is whether the app allowed you to explore the campus in any new

ways that you probably couldn’t have done just by walking around. I really want you to think back

to when you first used the app and the ways you used it to explore the campus.

PD: Well it’s labeled A, B, C, D so I just flicked through to one I knew about.

RC: Ok.

PD: It’s quite interesting about the whole tour concept really. Well I was wondering, it takes you

through all the buildings, like the Maths buildings and things like that, I was wondering actually

49

how relevant that is to everyone? I mean I’m coming here to do Geography, how relevant is Maths

to everyone?

RC: That’s interesting; I know I have never been there.

HP: I used it in sort of the same way, using the letters to look at the route.

RC: So more to look at the route than anything else?

HP: Yeah.

RC: So now another focus of this is to see how useful you found this app for exploring the campus.

Which features did you use most often when using the app?

HP: The routes, because yeah...

PD:// I didn’t really use it for anything else, I mean I don’t even know how much it includes, I

didn’t scroll out or anything.

HP: Yeah I was just checking out routes, how to get from A-B.

RC: In terms of where you were?

HP: Yeah it was using my current location, which point was nearest. It was good to find

checkpoints and therefore familiarize yourself with locations, say like you get off at the bus stop at

Woodland road, where all the languages departments are, you can see you are there and then where

you need to go.

RC: So a way of spatially referencing yourself?

HP: Yeah you can make those checkpoints in your head; If I’m here I need to go there for this

lecture of seminar.

RC: So did you use any of the buttons or features?

PD: There’s a button at the bottom which is sort of like buildings, I was clicking on that and I

wasn’t sure what it was doing, it didn’t really seem to change anything.

RC: Yeah I found that interesting as well, I mean buildings don’t really elude to anything in

particular to me, but as a function it brings you to the centre of the campus, one thing I’m picking

up on in my analysis is that it centres you on the campus but not all people may agree with where

this centre is.

PD: Oh ok.

RC: Some of the other focus groups identified the campus centre around Geography or their

department, it’s interesting to see the app placing this assumption on you. Did you guys listen to

the narrations, what did you think?

PD: Yeah I listened, not in that much detail. So I literally picked the first one I saw, the err

building of arts, nice looking place. I didn’t take in much information first time, there was a

moment when the narration was playing but the time cursor was on 0. That was the only problem I

was having with it, it worked perfectly the rest of the time.

50

RC: What did you think? [Directed at HP].

HP: I just didn’t think to be honest. Erm, at the same time I can understand why people could find

them useful.

RC: Why do you think you didn’t find them useful?

HP: I don’t know, I really have no clue I just didn’t think to listen to them. I was using it for one

purpose.

RC: What was that?

HP: It was the routing, finding my bearings,

RC: Would you say that’s because you are still quite unfamiliar with the campus?

HP: Not anymore, but thinking back to the first couple of weeks and being lost, walking up and

down and not knowing where you are, being able to familiarise yourself with a certain type of

location, and then make links, that’s really useful.

RC: That’s what a lot of people call way finding.

HP: Yeah that was it.

RC: What kind of effects did you find listening to things over the top had on what you did or

experienced?

PD: I was trying to imagine the route and listened to the narrations while I was doing it.

RC: So this was in your room?

PD: Yeah, they are like 3 minutes long, I guess that is a suitable timespan for one place.

RC: So you said you were imagining going round, can you expand on that a bit more?

PD: Like I said in terms of relevance, if I turn up to a tour and go to the Maths building I’m not

interested in listening to a narration about it, so I suppose its useful being able to choose, you don’t

have to listen to the narrations, it’s a choice.

RC: So you chose to listen to the arts narration?

PD: The one with the fountain outside at the roundabout...

RC: Music, the Victoria Rooms

PD: Yeah that’s the one!

RC: So you listened to this narration, interesting?

PD: Yeah it was but I didn’t feel the need to listen to all of it, I gained a lot of information at the

beginning.

RC: So you imagined past experiences when listening to it?

PD: Erm, yeah I’d say more actually taking the route myself and standing outside of it. My

memory of the pictures now is quite vague but they were really useful to know I was thinking about

the right place. They allowed me to link up what I remembered with what was being shown.

RC: Ok cool, can you think of any ways the geolocation dot changed the way you used the app?

51

HP: Well it showed the easiest and applicable routes to where I wanted to go, the shortest time to

get there, letting the map follow me. I followed the map but at the same time letting it follow me.

As opposed to me doing things constrained to the map, I identified quicker routes.

RC: Did use the arrow button much?

HP: Yeah it centered the map on where I was, it was really useful again just to see exactly where

you were. Something I used a lot actually.

RC: Yeah me too, so one last question, can you think of any differences between this app and paper

maps?

PD: Not particularly, in terms of maps I’m more familiar with using digital ones, in terms of

relating the two; it’s different but not unfamiliar in any way. As I’ve said I used digital maps a lot.

RC: Was it easier then?

PD: A lot easier to navigate obviously, if you’re in a small space you can scroll around easier and

move around.

HP://It can follow you, you can see if you’re making a mistake, using a paper map you can’t see.

PD: There’s no feedback at all with a paper map, it’s a really different process.

RC: Yeah, using the app is more of a to way thing I found. That’s everything I wanted to go

through. Thanks for your time guys.

PD: No problem, cheers.

52

Appendix C: Semi-structured interview prepared for Mike Jones.

1. How did you get involved with the app?

a. What is your background?

b. What was your role in the creation of this app?

c. What parts did other people play in bringing this app together?

2. What were the processes that went into this app’s creation?

3. How does the app actually work?

4. How much influence did you have over what went into the app and what didn’t?

5. Do you think that making and using this app have changed how you view or experience the

campus?

a. Do you ever think about the app when you reach specific places or do certain things?

6. Can the app compare to a real tour of the campus?

a. What do you think the main differences are?

7. Do you think of yourself as a programmer, a cartographer or a geographer?

53

Appendix D: Interview transcription with Mike Jones.

Interview took place on 13/12/12.

Participants: RC and MJ.

RC: Hi Mike, thanks for meeting me I know you’ve had a really busy few weeks so it’s great

you’ve managed to fit me into your schedule.

MJ: Absolutely fine, Will.

RC: Let me tell you about the research I am doing and how this interview fits in with it. It’s very

human based, focused around the app, drawing elements from critical cartography to investigate

how apps can influence the way people engage with the campus. I’m using this application very

much as a lens through which to understand wider interactions between portable digital mapping

and engagements with space.

MJ: So is it just the walking tour that you did?

RC: Yeah just the walking tour, mostly because it was a very accessible case study to research and

provided all the characteristics that I wanted to look at.

MJ: Oh ok. This will be really interesting because we don’t really get much feedback.

RC: Well I think you will find this interesting because what has emerged through the research and

the focus groups is that quite a lot of the students used it in ways different to the ways it was

properly designed for. What my ethnographic study draws out is a different way that the app

allowed me to view the campus.

MJ: Oh ok, I’ll be really interesting to read it. So how can I help you with this?

RC: I have a few questions that I want to get through which will really help me get a greater

understanding of the context behind how you made this app. So the first one is what were the main

processes behind the creation of this app?

MJ: So I was working on a project called ‘MyMobileBristol’ and that was a really weird project, so

it was funded by...

RC: //JISC?

MJ: //Yeah JISC, it was a business community engagement thing, so a really weird project where I

got to go to workshops, open days, companies but I also got to work on the mobile Bristol website.

A part of this was stakeholder analysis, meeting with student recruitment team, they said they’d

done some work with the mobile Bristol website but they’d also been doing work with a new

walking tour.

RC: So had they been doing it separately?

54

MJ: Yeah yeah yeah so they had done a paper counterpart and they were going to do these MP3

files which people could download, so I said I’m sure we could do something a bit more interesting

with that. Obviously this project could yield something interesting. We decided to do a more

interactive better version than we could do with paper. There was some discrepancy with the

platforms so we went with iPhone.

RC: Is it very difficult to get something which is widely available across all platforms?

MJ: Well basically the iPhone, iPod, and iPad all share the same platform, iOS. Err so blackberries

and androids are different platforms, there are development kits that allow you to program cross

platform. I didn’t do that for this for two reasons: firstly because this is very map based I preferred

to use the native controls of the phone because they are a bit quicker.

RC: It slots in.

MJ: Yeah, and secondly I was doing it in my own time mostly and I was more interested in the iOS

side of it anyway.

RC: So would you have had to redesign it for other platforms?

MJ: Well you don’t have to redesign it but you then get issues if you don’t, the problem is, many

designers argue about this. If you use iOS people expect an app to behave in a certain way, whereas

on android it is different. On iPhone when you are using it you often navigate using a back button,

well this doesn’t make much sense on an android because you have a physical button so this doesn’t

transfer well across. So we just went for the one platform.

RC://A pilot?

MJ: Yeah yeah, so just yeah I created it. So we had discussions about how best to do it, Ben Hayes

suggested we go straight into it, but the public relations office wanted to have the videos. But I also

wanted, because we were promoting ‘MyMobileBristol’, to have links to that information.

Consequently when you are using it, it doesn’t go straight into the map. There’s weird things which

I have had problems with like the tiles changing.

RC: The Google base map?

MJ: Yeah so the tiles change, the Google ones were replaced by the apple ones because the actual

tiles come from their server.

RC: So that’s been updated since you used the app?

MJ: Yeah yeah.

RC: So the base of the map is separate from what you put on?

MJ: Yeah yeah so basically…

RC://And that’s changed since you did it, you have no control over what goes into that?

MJ: No I have no control over the tiles.

RC: Interesting...

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MJ: So basically there is an SDK, I have control over what I layer over the top.

RC: The API?

MJ: Yeah, so with iOS6 apple produced the new maps which have been criticized. The phone links

back to a server to get the tiles. The phone and routes seem to have aligned ok since the move.

RC: So in an unbelievable scenario if that server went down would the app be left with just the

route?

MJ: Well for a period the title of the Bristol Museum was in Japanese. So I mean yeah the first

time I submitted the app it got rejected by the App Store, what I hadn’t realised was that the app

was contained within this bit here [identifies the button banner of the app]. But what I hadn’t

realised was that the bottom bit was hidden by this bar which contained the Google copyright part.

So that was a bit like ‘oh’. So yeah we also changed how to do the audio.

RC: Was this through piloting?

MJ: No because we trying to do this quite quickly, I was just playing with it. I basically used this

website called ‘Test pilot’, its crowd sourced basically. So one criticism was that it was quite

clunky. Things like this chevron etc., quite native to iPhone users. Around all this I then basically

had to work out the route listening to their [Student recruitment] audio.

RC: So you were trying to mirror the audio?

MJ: Yeah make it better, match the route as closely as possible to the audio as possible.

RC: So on their audio did you include all the points?

MJ: Yeah so on the audio there are some choices, like “you can go off here at this point” for

example. I didn’t do stuff like that. I just did the core bits. I ended up getting Google maps out,

working out a series of points, getting the latitude and longitude and then putting them in.

RC: How did you choose those points?

MJ: Well by listening to the audio.

RC: Oh so you chose these points because that was what they had done, no selections from you?

MJ: No I didn’t make a conscious effort to add additional stuff. No so that’s why I spoke to

Lorraine, I was just trying to mirror and in respects amplify what had been represented in the paper

counterpart.

RC: So this is the app version of the paper map. Do you know if they made the paper map with this

in mind?

MJ: No not at all.

RC: That’s interesting.

MJ: Yeah all I knew was that they were doing the paper map, we approached them in the

stakeholder meeting and suggested we could do it as an app.

RC: Are there any plans to do anything else, move it on?

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MJ: Well they’ve updated the audio. It’s the same points, they haven't actually changed the

locations just some of the audio.

RC: So will that come as an update to the app? How do you feel about that app?

MJ: They did talk about doing AR (Augmented Reality), I’m not sure how good that would have

been walking around. I’m just not sure how effective it would be. Things like the accuracy only

comes down to about 30 metres via GPS, so using a video with AR you wouldn’t get a great

experience.

RC: It’s good at the moment in the ASS library, it pins me in a corner of the library.

MJ: That’s mainly down to the Wi-Fi access; there are plans to make it better across the whole

university.

RC: So do you think there will be improvements to the app.

MJ: Well most of the feedback on the iTunes store has been fairly useless; I mean one said “this is

really biased towards Bristol University’. So obviously that hasn’t been overly helpful in trying to

improve the app.

RC: So one big part of the analysis I am doing is about the selections of the map maker.

MJ: Yeah definitely interesting, this is I suppose what Student recruitment feel Bristol is all about.

Well one thing this was really aimed for was for students who couldn’t get to the open days.

RC: Yeah, they place a lot of emphasis on that on the open day website. So in terms of the app

itself how did you select things like the icons?

MJ: So basically it was a website from this guy, he has a free version or paid version of different

icons you can buy. I chose the ones for around $20, nice icons. One thing that is interesting is we

can find out where all the downloads are coming from as well as how many. I can send you the

stats if you want, for the downloads that is. Lorraine asked for some updated stats, there are

definite peaks around the open day, around 700 ish.

RC: Oh really.

MJ: Yeah, a lot of downloads at the beginning from Asia.

RC: That’s interesting because another feature I am focusing on is remote exploration with the app.

MJ: I think there’s potential for a lot more information here [in the app]. Another thing I’m

working on is making the prospectus a lot more online friendly. I think the videos with the app

[opens up the videos on his own phone], these are pulled from an xml file, not from directly in the

app. I would say that because the phone knows where they are, the phone could order the videos,

based on whose using it.

RC: Oh ok, there’s quite a lot of literature on this which refers to it as ‘software sorting’, all about

politics of code, uneven distributions of data for example.

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MJ: Well I think ideally we could include everything, however it is more appropriate and

interesting to tailor it to different markets.

RC: Absolutely.

MJ: I think it would also be cool to do an iPad specific version, high quality pictures for example.

RC: This is great thank you, I’ll just see if there’s anything major I’ve missed from my schedule.

[Consults schedule]. Ah yes. So in your opinion do you think this changes how you or others

move through campus?

MJ: I don’t know, because obviously I’m a member of staff, I really wouldn’t know. I really wish it

would though, when I was at university it was very different. Another angle I really would love to

include would be to put additional stuff in like links from Temple Meads, maybe put in some

historical information as you moved along.

RC: Well there is one app which is quite close to that called ‘Time traveler’s guide to Bristol’

which provides that historical aspect. That historical aspect is something people in the focus groups

did identify as finding really interesting. So quite a broad question. During this project did you see

yourself as a programmer, member of staff, cartographer?

MJ: Definitely a programmer, not a cartographer. I’m interested in maps and apps, but definitely it

was the goal/technology orientated. Student recruitment had created this paper version which I was

using as a guide.

RC: Trying to replicate as best as possible.

MJ: Yeah I would say I was trying to amplify what had been done.

RC: That’s all my questions really, thanks a lot Mike.

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Appendix E: Field Notes from Auto ethnography.

Research conducted on 1/12/12.

8.45: Stood on doorstep setting app up. Geo-located to move from geography library to my

location. Notable: Woodland road closest place on the walking tour route..

8.47: Started walking, took route north up Tyndall’s park road, normal route to lectures.

8.49: Geo-location dot movement not smooth, v jerky, not in time with my movements.

8.51: Half way down Woodland Road, reached point N. Dot gone, under icon.

8.56: Thorough exploration of features at ‘N’, had a look at everything included.

Points to note:

- Can’t see multimedia centre.

- Didn’t know there was one there.

- Narration created links with other students.

- 3 different views of the same thing, novel.

8.57: Carried on walking along Woodland road, can see Senate House in reality (at end of road) and

on app as point of interest, decide to head there.

9.01: Standing outside Hawthorns opposite Senate House, very busy with students. Geo-location

dot is on top of the black line.

9.03: Listen to narration, start following narrative directions. Moving from point ‘A’ to ‘B’.

9.04: Geo-location dot staying on the black line, testing movements side to side to see if dot stays

on. Using geo-location for navigation more than usual ways.

9.06: Listening to narration about Library. Lots of noise from building site opposite.

9.12: Point ‘C’, stop to listen to narration of Physics.

- More interested because never been inside.

- Some pictures showing inside.

- Directed by the audio back down the road.

9.13: Start walking to Royal Fort House, never been there before, map shows need to head back to

Senate House and turn left.

9.15: Have to re-listen to narration for directions. Use geo-location to match up dot and line. Work

out left turn up side road. Not clear on the app.

9.19: Arrive at Royal Fort House, listen to narration.

- Interesting information

- Mainly historical information.

- Descriptions of landscape gardening, clearly evident in surroundings.

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9.24: Move through smaller paths and archways to get down to Medical sciences. Only been here a

few times.

9.27: Skip Maths department narration. Carry on walking, use app to see there is another point of

interest at end of Tankard’s close/University Walk.

- Not quite sure which is which because both labeled as same road.

- Follow black line, route follows road.

9.35: Reach point F: not sure where to stand.

- Notice absence of Geography department from pictures and description.

- Find Geography information in Audio. Interesting pictures showing inside of Archeology

building.

9.41: Choose to finish tour here. Next point is chemistry, comparatively long walk down and

doesn't loop round in the same way the last sections did.

9.42: Re visit some of the locations using the app, consolidate memory.

9.45: Decide to head to the Geography library, very close to current position. Want to write clearer

notes on what I’ve just done.

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Appendix F: Coding Table used in analysis.

Theme Sub-Theme Code Remote exploration Perspective RE1

Images RE2 Narrations RE3

Imagination RE4 Navigation Knowledge of

campus N1

Appropriateness N2 Social functions N3

Narrations N4 Familiarity Level F1

Curiosity F2 Awareness of ‘silences’

F3

Narrations as new perspective

F4

Geolocation Selectivity G1 Link between

virtual and real G2

Relative location G3 Referencing device G4

Mutually co-constitutive

G5

Disparity Ease D1 Detached

experience D2

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Appendix G: Example Coded Transcript.

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Appendix H: Recordings of all focus groups and interviews.