Bonner, John V.H.

Roberts, Lisa

Wilson, Andrew

English

University of Huddersfield Repository

University of Huddersfield RepositoryBonner, John V.H., Wilson, Andrew and Roberts, LisaPublic space as a design factor in sharable technologiesOriginal CitationBonner, John V.H., Wilson, Andrew and Roberts, Lisa (2007) Public space as a design factor in sharable technologies. In: Shareable Interfaces Workshop, 19th - 20th June 2007, Milton Keynes, UK. (Unpublished)This version is available at http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/4321/The University Repository is a digital collection of the research output of theUniversity, available on Open Access. Copyright and Moral Rights for the itemson this site are retained by the individual author and/or other copyright owners.Users may access full items free of charge; copies of full text items generallycan be reproduced, displayed or performed and given to third parties in anyformat or medium for personal research or study, educational or not-for-profitpurposes without prior permission or charge, provided:• The authors, title and full bibliographic details is credited in any copy;• A hyperlink and/or URL is included for the original metadata page; and• The content is not changed in any way.For more information, including our policy and submission procedure, pleasecontact the Repository Team at: E.mailbox@hud.ac.uk.http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/Public space as a design factor in sharable technologiesJohn V H Bonner(, Andrew Wilson( and Lisa Roberts(|(Dept of Informatics                     |(Blink Media                             ||School of Computing and Engineering      |Bates Mill                               ||Huddersfield University                  |Huddersfield                             ||j.v.bonner@hud.ac.uk                     |andrew@blinkmedia.org                    ||                                         |lisa@blinkmedia.org                      |This position paper reports on some very early collaboration between an interaction design research groupat Huddersfield University (live:lab) and a not-for-profit organisation known as Blink Media, also based inHuddersfield.  Blink Media are grant funded through bodies such as NESTA and The Arts Council.Collaboration with live:lab was formed through a common interest in the design of creative userexperiences using emerging and innovative technologies with an appreciation that our respectiveapproaches were very different.  Blink Media create artefacts and user experiences that are purely novel,intriguing and engaging.  In contrast live:lab’s approach is to build an empirical and theoreticalunderstanding of interaction design in terms of novel interactive technologies and in particular pragmaticdesign techniques required to develop them.This paper reports on some initial interviews with Blink Media to understand their design and developmentapproach to interactive technologies that employ sharable interfaces.   There is a growing interest inproviding sharable displays and developing an understanding of engagement.  For example, studies haveexplored social engagement in closed public events (Brignull and Rogers 2003) or through the use ofinteractive notice boards in a commercial environment (Grasso, Muehlenbrock et al. 2003) or as a mediumfor cooperative team working (Izadi, Brignull et al. 2003) together with long term acceptance of this form ofinteractive medium (Churchill, Nelson et al. 2004).  These studies have examined how people mightengage with a public display, taking into account issues such as social embarrassment, levels of peripheraland focal awareness to the device, how to alter engagement thresholds, perceived interest, enjoyment andutility, and how to create opportunities for social exchange and improve ‘communality’.  Our emphasis,however, is slightly different.  We are keen to explore how design activity and implementation might affectinteraction design issues as well as social engagement.  Although the key criteria for success are thesame, that is, positive engagement and successful social exchange, the process of designing throughexperiential learning also plays an important part in defining eventual success.The first project, RFID Snakes and Ladders, was created for the Media Centre in Huddersfield and itspurpose was to increase social interaction throughout the building as it consisted of physically separatedSMEs and start-up companies.  Apart from a coffee shop on the ground floor, there was little opportunity tomeet other individuals from other companies who share the same building.  The game was implementedfor a month during the Summer of 2006.  Residents were provided with an RFID tag.  To play, participantsvisited a large prominent ‘dice’ object and pass the tag in front of the object in order to throw the dice.  Theobject of the game is the same as conventional snakes and ladders – the winner is the first person to landon the last square.  Feedback about the player’s own and other player positions on the board is gainedthrough web access to the snakes and ladders display.  If a player lands at the foot of a ladder or the headof a snake, then the player must visit a ladder object to climb up, or the snake to avoid sliding down withina specified time limit.  This encourages residents to visit different parts of the building which increasescorridor foot traffic and thus facilitating casual and serendipitous conversation.  Thus, shared experience ofthe game is formed in the corridors and coffee shop of the building.Structured evaluation of the project was not carried out but informal interviews were conducted by thedesigner of the game, however the respondents knew the interviewer was also the designer which createda heavy bias in responses.  Despite this, it was evident that the game was extremely successful and manyof the residents remarked how the game provided opportunity for more incidental conversation.  Before theimplementation of the game, residents reported a sense of reluctance and awkwardness in initiatingconversation with members of other organisations as they knew little about what other organisations didand if they were competitors or not.  Another key lesson learnt from this project was the importance ofgame facilitators.  It was impracticable for the games designers to be permanently on site to support thegame and so the Media Centre receptionists were given this task.  Again this proved to be an importantsuccess factor as they could explain the rules and purpose of the game which helped encourage the morecynical or reluctant users of the game.  It also proved useful to the receptionists as a means of increasingcontact with the building residents.  Some residents did withdraw over time because it was not engagingenough for them.  The project was also successful as it used existing RFID technology already available inthe building.  Another important design factor was the need for robustness both in terms of interacting withthe objects and the web site.  Any downtime due to malfunction would have had a strong detrimentalimpact.  More practically, the dice, ladder and snakes objects needed to be heavy to avoid theft as thesewere installed in pubic open spaces.Another related project reinforces the importance of understanding the relationship between public spaceand supporting facilitation of social engagement.  Blink Media created a vending machine for mobilephones known as Bluevend.  This has undergone various iterations but began as a device to allowattendees at film festivals to download short 1-3 minute films.  This provided an alternative medium for filmmakers to advertise and promote their work amongst attendees.  The aim of the project was to encouragesharing and discussion of the short films during the festival.  This required careful design of the vendingmachine in terms of its appearance and interaction.  This was important to minimise maintenance of thevending machine during the festivals and one of the reasons why the mobile phone formed the sharableinterface rather than the vending machine. In early iterations of the vending machines, the interface designand navigation was complex but the designers quickly began to recognise that much of the hand-holdingand introductory pages could be removed because the location of the vending machine and sharedcommon purpose intrinsically defined the specificity of the device. This contrasts with the previous projectwhere common purpose and interest amongst the resident users could not be assured.The position paper hints at some of the important situated design decision making that occurred duringthese projects and how, through iterative experiential learning, part of the design of sharable interfaceswas contingent on the designers’ understanding and perceptions the intended public place and howsharing activity would occur. The designers’ needed to reduce support or maintenance during theimplementation of the sharing devices and this directly affected the design and subsequent success.Through our collaboration we hope to ensure that our interaction design understanding of sharableinterfaces, and other novel interaction styles, captures the design context as well as empirical analysis ofthe sociability of sharable interfaces.ReferencesBrignull, H. and Y. Rogers (2003). Enticing People to Interact with Large Public Displays in Public Spaces.Proceedings of Interact ’03. Zurich.Churchill, E. F., L. Nelson, et al. (2004). Sharing multimedia content with interactive public displays: a casestudy. Proceedings of the 2004 conference on Designing interactive systems: processes, practices,methods, and techniques. Cambridge, MA, USA, ACM Press.Grasso, A., M. Muehlenbrock, et al. (2003). Supporting communities of practice with large screen displays.Public and Situated Displays. Social and Interactional Aspects of Shared Display Technologies. O’Hara, M.Perry, E. Churchill and D. Russell, Kluwer: 261-282.Izadi, S., H. Brignull, et al. (2003). Dynamo: a public interactive surface supporting the cooperative sharingand exchange of media. Proceedings of the 16th annual ACM symposium on User interface software andtechnology. Vancouver, Canada, ACM Press.

Dynamo: a public interactive surface supporting the cooperative sharing and exchange of media.

Enticing People to Interact with Large Public Displays in Public Spaces.

Sharing multimedia content with interactive public displays: a case study.

Supporting communities of practice with large screen displays. Public and Situated Displays. Social and Interactional Aspects of Shared Display Technologies.

Public space as a design factor in sharable technologies

Public space as a design factor in sharable technologies

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