Urban User Experience: Seamless Interactions with
Information in the City of the Future
Diogo Almeida
Diogo, from Portugal
MSc Environmental Engineering? A little bit of everything:
Energy, Climate Change, Air, Soil, Water, Pollution, Zoology, Botanics, Microbiology, Economy, Chemistry, Physics, Health, Mathematics, Sanitation, Urban Planning…
Lovely and potentially more fulfilling, but HCI is just so cool.
background
Myself
background
YDreams (3 years)
IT+ Design: NUIs for Education, Advertising, Stores, Museums
User Studies and Usability of NUIs / Concepts for Sales / Game Design / Robotics / Interactive Paper / FabLabs / Getting Funding
Change the way people access information.
Worked at...
background
New University of Lisbon
Environmental engineering Undergrad & Masters (1 semester):
Ubicomp / Collective Intelligence / Flash / DIY / 3D Modeling
Dharamsala / Himalaya
Tibetan Monks & Community (2 months)
Computer skills (Basic + Advanced) / English
Taught at...
currently
Keio University, Graduate School of Media Design
PhD program - the edge of my T
UX
Many disciplines / understand the complex system as a wholeEnvironmental Eng. (Study)
Thesis (Study)
YDreams (Work)
Keio (Research)
Depth
Breadth
background
Aikido (10 years)
Interaction and deep study on how the human body moves
Travelling (22 countries / Japan, 35 Prefectures)
Backpacking, no guides, interact with local people, cultures
HHI – Human Human Interaction?
Passionate about...
Information Age: information is the most valuable asset today
Recent explosion of different ‘Natural User Interfaces’: a steptowards Ubiquitous Computing
Designers’ conceptual models ≠ Users’ mental models
New research area: where design, psychology, IT and environment meetThere is little research on how to better integrate information intourban fabric and citizens’ daily lives
why?
Driving Forces
To Address UX Problems
Information overload and inaccessibility: terabytes generated daily, but are unavailable or in unusable form;
Context: information lacks metadata, context. Underperforming;
Multicultural adaptiveness: not designed for international users (e.g., same color, opposite meaning);
Standards and seamlessness: lack of integration in the urban fabric No interaction standards (e.g., e-ticket interoperability);
objectives
The city as an integrated“System of Products”
Connected nodes Hypermedia
Each place studied as anInteractive Productby itself
‘Information System’ concept
researchplan
New Concept
Tokyo, Japan
Make it attractive(Richard Florida)
Apply Brand Experience
researchplan
If the city is a product...
Define its usability, flaws and where and what is in need of redesign:
Usability Heuristics
Iterative Cycle model
(Kaizen改善)
Apply to where information…
…is being collected
…is being displayed
…is being acted upon
Results in tune with
people’s needs
Requirement Analysis
Design for Requirements
Prototype
Evaluate with Users
Innovative Approach
researchplan
Describe how citizens use their city - ethnographic perspective:urban behaviors (e.g., IC card, keitai), mobility (e.g., study crowds with fluid mechanics)
Evaluate usability of existent urban information systems:
using interactive application evaluation heuristics
Develop design guidelines using previous studies:specific to urban technologies, improving interaction with information
Assess guidelines’ usability with real users:in order to certify that developed guidelines are better suited to citizens’ needs
Apply research in influential project(s)
Main Tasks (derived from the Iterative Cycle)
researchplan
To limit the scope of my research. For that…
Trying to find the main problems to solve. For that…
Trying to understand what is happening in urban areas now.
recentfocus
Earbuds Various gradients of privacy in public space.
Not responding to what’s happening around her/him.
Deflect attention. Means “I’m already busy”.
City Soundtrack.
Tool to organize space/time and the boundaries around the body in public space.
recentfocus
recentfocus
Earbuds Various gradients of privacy in public space.
Not responding to what’s happening around her/him.
Deflect attention. Means “I’m already busy”.
Tool to organize space/time and the boundaries around the body in public space.
“Smart City” Is it good? Ethical implications.
Analyzing and matching patterns to predict.
“Too Smart City”? Where to stop?
recentfocus
Envelopes of the city: Boundary between privately owned andpublic space.
A platform for information sharing,interface to inform citizens.
Where to place interfaces?: Flux of humans. Engagement.
Scale: Macro -> Micro. Quantitative -> Qualitative
recentfocus
Space Sharing:
How people sit.
What are the rules of space sharing.
Where/Which places are preferable.
Why does it happen the way it does. Psychological/social/environmental reasons?
Choice?Always next to someone.
t 2D:1D:
People distribution through space – math model?
Where do people agglomerate?
recentfocus
Illusion of separation
After knowing the primary reason, other, seemengly differentspaces can be better designed.
Same rules may apply.
Sitting in a train = sitting on a bench in a park / lining up for ATM = lining up for a restaurant
recentfocus
Two kinds of experiments:
Pre-existing urban digital or analog artifacts 1st - observe users and requirements (people interacting with something pre-existent);
2nd - design for those requirements;3rd - prototype (several different designs);
4th - test with real users
nextsteps
After: Experiments
New innovative design from scratch
1st – formulate hypothesis (e.g.: use other ways of communication other than visual representation? Unobtrusive and location-based sound, light, haptics);
2nd – design;
3rd - prototype (several different designs);
4th - test with real users
nextsteps
Mapping patterns of urban cognitive activity using Brain-Computer Interface - University of Texas, Austin
Comparative study, Portugal / Japan Urban UX- CENSE (Center for Environment and Sustainability Research)
SBST IRIS project, Integrated Urban Model to simulate behavior/mobility- SMART (MIT-Singapore Alliance for Research and Technology).
nextsteps
Potential Collaborations
Ultimately:
Make the city and information systems
easier to understand
pleasant to use
responsive to society’s needs.
summary