Scope Definition
For the scope of this project, we decided to focus on the concept of how to use ubiquitous computing to enhance a “sense of place” in the urban environment. A “sense of place” is defined as “a combination of characteristics that makes a place special and unique” and “foster a sense of authentic human attachment and belonging” ("Sense of Place", Wikipedia, 2015). Our audience is focused on city dwellers who regularly interact with the urban environment of their neighborhoods, places of work, and places of leisure in their daily lives. The scope of the activity we are augmenting is is urban residents who are exploring the city in a leisurely way (we are not concerned with rushed commuters, drivers, bikers, joggers, etc.), who have the attentional resources and emotional predisposition to devote to “seeing” the city in a new light.
Motivation and Preliminary Observations
We completed three preliminary observations to increase our understanding of how people experience the urban environment. Through our observations, we discovered the following key insights:
Pedestrians are disconnected with physical space
Pedestrians are disconnected with physical space
- While walking, pedestrians look down or straight ahead. They rarely look up or to the sides.
- On a weekday afternoon, most people are “on-the-go”. They are walking quickly with a clear destination in mind. Not many people stroll or linger in a place. Many people are looking down at their phones or are wearing headphones, limiting their visual and auditory interaction with the physical environment.
- Exceptions: an exception to this theme in our observation seems to be older people, who tend to walk slower and seem more aware of their environment. People who are skateboarding or are on scooters also seem to be more connected to the physical environment and are enjoying the act of moving through urban space. Small children also seem to be more aware the environment and interact with it as they move through it, stopping to observe different objects and places.
- Design insight: how could we augment the city to increase pedestrian's connection to the built environment?
- People rarely look at one another or make eye contact while walking on the street. If they do make eye contact with one another, they would quickly shift their gaze away.
- People are talking on the phone while walking or checking their mobile devices, but do not communicate with the people in direct proximity to them.
- During one of our group member's observations, three of her friends passed her and did not even notice she was sitting directly in front of them observing them.
- Observed exceptions to this theme include: small children who look around and smile at everyone; parents of small children who are encouraging the child to interact with the outside world and others; older people who are walking slowly or sitting and watching people; homeless people who are asking for money; and interactions between drivers and pedestrians (when the driver waves the pedestrian on with his hand and the pedestrian waves back in thanks).
- Design insight: how could we augment the urban environment to increase emotional connection and interpersonal interaction between people sharing a sidewalk?
- We observed that people in Ann Arbor are more social in the evening than during the afternoon school/work rush. They congregate on sidewalk corners in groups to chat. Couples stroll holding hands. In general, pedestrians walk slower and take in their environment more. Since it is still warm out, people eat dinner outside on the street. Bill’s Beer Garden was packed with people on the evening of October 6th. People smoke outside of restaurants, bars, and cafes. People sit on benches waiting to be picked up by their rides. Although we did not observe Ann Arbor a weekend yet, based on previous experience people become more aware of and engaged in the built environment and social interactions during the weekend as well.
- Design insight: Context such as the time of day and people's schedules are important factors to consider when designing augmentations to the built environment. How could we use sensors and contextual awareness to ensure our design intervention enhances people's experience with the built environment in an appropriate time (i.e when they have free time in the evening or weekend) and context (i.e. when they feel social or reflective)?
Graffiti/Murals
- Ann Arbor has a surprising amount of street art (graffiti and murals) for such a small town.
- It is difficult to see what is underneath the top layer of graffiti, such as in Graffiti Alley, because it is so artists continue to layer over one another.
- While murals in Ann Arbor have more prominent places on the sides of buildings that visible to pedestrians from the sidewalk, doubtlessly because they are either commissioned or painted with the permission of the property owners, most of the graffiti is located in back alley ways, probably because it is less likely to annoy property owners.
- Design insight: how could we augment the urban environment so that street art can be visible or invisible to the viewer? How could we design a technological intervention to address the tension between private property and public visual expression? What if you could see all the layer underneath the current top layer of graffiti?
Ideation Process
Our group thought about possible concepts respectively based on individual observations. We came up with three distinctive concepts, brainstormed ideas about each concept, and narrowed our selection down to one idea. Since one of our key observations was that people seem disconnected from their physical environment we decided to focus on connecting people to their city by enhancing people’s “sense of place” in the urban environment. After defining the scope, we conducted additional individual observations of Ann Arbor's built environment and its residents in an outdoor context. Based on our individual observations, we individually sketched different concept ideas. We then reviewed our sketches, discussed the reoccurring themes, redefined our scope, and categorized the selected sketches under the three main concepts: Reminiscence, The Life of a Place, and Digital Graffiti.
Concept Proposals
Concept 1: reminiscence: Enhancing the experience of place associated memories
For the concept of Reminiscence, we are proposing to enhance a sense of place with digital artifacts that represent the memories from the past in urban cities. For us, a place is not only a place; it is where events take happen, where personal experiences are formed, and where emotion resides. We want to create an experience that combines memories with the a place/building/location in urban cities. The memory could be personal, like the day you graduate from college. Or it could be the memories of those within your social network that you are interested in, for example, if you walked by a fountain and could see an artifact from the day when your father proposed to your mother in front of the same fountain twenty years ago. It could also be a public memory: if you are sitting on a public bench in front of a building you could see an image of a neighborhood hero who sacrificed himself to rescue a child in that same building when it was on fire years ago. When you walk by a place or sit or stand in front of it, besides what you see in there moment, there are memories associated with that. The idea of Reminiscence is to present you with these memories from the past in the place where the memory occurred to enhance an emotional connection with a place.
We approaches this concept from 3 different perspectives:
We approaches this concept from 3 different perspectives:
- Personal memories
- Family/friendship memories
- Public memories
Personal memories
Family/friendship memories
Public memories
Concept 2: The Life of a Place: Seeing a place in the past, present, and future
As humans, our perception of our physical environment is limited to what we can observe in the present moment. But what if you could view the changes that occurred in a physical place over time and the proposed changes for that same place in the future? This concept would create a greater connection between people and a place by enriching their understanding of the transformation of the built environment. In addition, citizens could view future plans to alter the physical space proposed by urban planners and architects contributing to a greater understanding of and hopefully participation in the urban process. If a person looking at a building was wearing an augmented reality device, for example, he could see an overlay of an adjustable timeline over the building. By gesturing to the left, he could go further back in time to see an overlay of the building as it was in the past over the building as it is now. By gesturing to the right, he could see an overlay of the building as it could look in the future.
Concept 3: Digital Graffiti: Augmenting the city with digital art
In many communities, graffiti plays an important role in place-making and is often used as a way to express social, political, communal and personal messages. On a more fundamental level of the human experience, graffiti allows people to inscribe the fact that “I was here” on a physical place. Graffiti is often controversial, however, because owners of the buildings may see the graffiti as vandalism or the defacement of property. But what if artists could create digital graffiti that could be viewed through an augmented device? Not only would this limit the controversy surrounding graffiti and personal property, but it would also allow for the canvas of the building to be layered over other graffiti artists that could be seen by the viewer by changing the augmented view. If a pedestrian was wearing an augmented reality device, such as Google Glass, for example, she could see the digital graffiti augmented on the building. The pedestrian could also see different layers of graffiti created different artists and could select which layer she wants to view. An alternative would be an ambient display of graffiti projected on the building that any pedestrian could see regardless of their access to an augmented reality device.