WK 5 – Part 2 – Place, Location and Ubiquitous technology – Design concepts

Concept 1: DirectMe Demo

This concept involves communicating with personal devices and location sharing which your friends, which makes it easier to find each other and reduce time on texting a specific location to meet. Furthermore, it also allows the user to change position and make the meeting point more dynamic. In a way the meeting point becomes the person, rather than the specific place.

Concept 2: Sphericam 2 

This is an product idea which allows the user to interact with the recorded video by moving the view even though it is recorded. This gives a new dimension to capture your surroundings and capture experience which you later can share with others.

WK 5 – What ‘carrying your belongings’ actually tell you about people’s behavior 

This weeks chapter by Chipchase Hidden in Plain sight investigates the carrying mentality the general people have today.

The article brings up different aspects and terms including carrying behavior, range of distribution, center of gravity, point of reflection, yo yo strings and so on.

I have learnt that understanding carrying behavior can be fruitful to a designer as it affects people differently and in different arenas or places. I can see this carrying behavior in myself and also compare it to other people – in they way my schoolbag is often bigger and more packed with items I might think I will use the same day. On the same time I have friends who barely glance their items in their bags – which means in some situations – they rely on me.
think in my case, when you continuously follow these patterns, the point of reflection will thereby also change in the way you interact with people you are familiar with and how your belongings are used.

I think Chipcase brought up some good examples about the range of distribution and how it changes in public according to the physical environment and the people in the place (I like to use the terms actor-world and arenas).

Also the cultural aspect is interesting – especially the example with the Afghan Ministry and the change in payment which both had positive and negative side effects. Still, the case showed that it can be hard to change people habits or behavior which you also need to be aware of as designer (path dependency):

If you  can’t see it, you don’t own it (Chipcase, Chapter 4, p.118)

Again, I have also learnt that the carrying behavior can be seen in a more broader sence in the way we become more and more relying on digital systems and services which affect our behavior and habits. This both has an impact on our point of reflections but also how and what things you percieve as valuables.

I think it is interesting to see how digital services as Sportify, Netflix, Zipcar (In Denmark we have Drive Now https://dk.drive-now.com/en/) affect our emotional and personal attachment to items – which I believe have changed a lot through the recent 10 years.

driveNow(source: https://dk.drive-now.com/en/)

Lastly, it will be interesting to see how smart systems can predict your behavior which both can be a good and bad thing as it is hard to tell if it will be a kindly reminder or an onstacle if it can not read your mind properly.

Question 1:  With the continously digitization of items and systems how do you keep the emotional attachment to items?

Question 2: When you are relying on systems rather than personal items will you then be more vulnerable to changes? 

 

 

Walking on the sidewalks –

Part 1: Experimental Map

Visual interface board with short stories of specific locations 

Instead of having an ordinary map where you see your position and outlined places and roads, another way to guide you in a certain situation could be an interactive display in public locations; One display where the user can push on a specific area he/she wants to go – herafter the big screen will show a short guided film how to get there, from your specific location. Beside the visual aspect also sounds (music, talk, traffic etc) which is characteristic to the place will be a part of this experimental map.

Transport, Experimental map,
Transport, Experimental map,

Another way of using this interactive map could be that the specific area buttoms will connect to existing cameras in the areas, so that the person can see how the specific place look like in real time. This could include sound as well.

The last variation could be that people who agree to be a part of an community is connected to these kind of displays. In this way using smart phones they can share recorded video clips in real time to these display so other people know what happens/how people feel at that specific location on the given time as the video will capture that specific person’s impression of a place.

Afteer Reading

Annette Kim: Seen and unseen: Ho Chi  Minh City’s sidewalk life

The author Annette Kim covers how sidewalks can have different understandings, both in a physical- and in a spatial manner. In a research stage you need to keep this in mind as it can have a big influence on the design success afterwards.

An important topic in the article is the question about legitimacy, dependent on both culture, economics, social arena, actors etc. Here it is important to know that you need to be aware of the aspects and how big influence they have individually according to the specific case.

Hereby sidewalks is also an example on how you need to understand the heterogen network which has an influence of sidewalks. In other words you need as designer to actively include both the physical, social, and spatial interrelations which affect how people needs and the impact on different groups of people.

Another important point of view which I noticed during the reading was the discussion about tourist view when you do field studies in a new situation/or arena an how it affect the data as this can affect my own work in a different culture. From my perspective it is both an advantage and disadvantage as I believe it can trigger your curiosity more than in an “every day situation” but on the other you might get the wrong meaning of some signs that you notice. Therefore, I believe you always need to consolidate your data with people in your team who are familiar in the research area.

On the same time the acticle covers another understanding of maps and outline a new way of using maps, which can tell more about a place than a ordinary map.

Questions: 

1. How do you determine which kind of map is most convienient for the given place/or people?

2. How do you balance what is cultural determined and what could be improved by regulating behaviour through the design?