Playfulness and progression in technology-enhanced social experiences between nearby strangers

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Advancing residents’ use of shared spaces in Nordic superblocks with intelligent technologies

To support the sustainability of future cities, residents’ living spaces need to be built and used efficiently, while supporting residents’ communal wellbeing. Nordic superblock is a new planning, housing, and living concept in which residents of a neighborhood—a combination of city blocks—share yards, common spaces and utilities. Sharing living spaces is an essential element of this approach. In this study, our goal was to study the ways in which intelligent technology solutions—such as proactive, data-driven Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications—could support and even motivate the use of common areas in superblocks. To this end, we conducted a two-phase qualitative study: in the first phase, potential superblock residents (N = 12) shared their perspectives of sharing of living spaces in general, and more specifically of how intelligent technologies could support sharing spaces. In the second phase, two workshops with experts (N = 7) were held to gather understanding of possibilities of intelligent technologies in meeting the residents’ expectations of space sharing. The results illustrate space sharing and communality as supportive factors for one another, enabled but also complicated by social interaction. Major possibilities for intelligent technologies to advance space sharing were seen in organizing the use of spaces and facilitating social interaction in the community. As an outcome, four roles incorporating several use purposes of intelligent technologies were found. The findings can inform the Human-Centered AI (HCAI) research and design improving sustainable living in future urban neighborhoods.publishedVersionPeer reviewe

Research for Design of Playful Mobile Services for Social Experiences between Nearby Strangers

Having positive interpersonal interactions is a fundamental human need and source of well-being. While fulfilling this need is usually associated with strong ties, research has shown that meaningful social experiences are not limited to those. This research explores the largely untapped social potential of nearby strangers and ways that mobile services can be designed to take advantage of these social opportunities. Play and playfulness appear to be particularly worthwhile ways to achieve this end: play is meaningful in itself (i.e., does not require an external goal) and takes place outside the context of real life. In addition, playful design tends to make digital services more engaging. This research focuses on playfulness as a design quality and explores the social implications of playful mobile services for nearby strangers. This doctoral thesis asks two research questions: What kind of social experiences emerge between nearby strangers from the use of playful mobile services? How can playful mobile services be designed to encourage social experiences between nearby strangers? The research contributes to the field of human-computer interaction and provides insights into mobile service design through six research articles. Two of the studies charted expected experiences with early-stage mobile application concepts for playful interaction between nearby strangers. One of these concepts was further developed into a fully functional mobile application, and a large-scale, in-the-wild study was arranged to explore the actual social experiences it generated. Two of the studies investigated social experiences between nearby strangers in the context of commercial mobile games. The sixth study explored the design space of playful interactions between nearby strangers through co-design workshops. The playful mobile services investigated in this research were found to induce various behaviors that resulted in social experiences between nearby strangers. Examples of such behaviors are the active exploration of the outside world, community building, communicating and collaborating with strangers, and interacting in crowds. I found that playful and social experiences such as competition, surprise, curiosity, inspiration, and benevolence motivated individuals to use these services