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Design ideas for IT in public spaces

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Abstract

This paper examines the usability issues involved in ticketless travelling with an airport train. The main contribution of this paper is that it describes actual use situations in detail. We show how users’ intentions are difficult to anticipate, unless in explicit communication, e.g., with people whose job it is to help out with using the system. Being conspicuously assisted, however, only aggravates a situation where users usually prefer anonymity. Given a “private in public” type of design, users had little chance of learning from watching others. Moreover, users were quickly annoyed when they struggled with the machine. They seemed to treat it as an agent for the provider rather than an assistant or tool for themselves. At the end of this paper, we outline and illustrate some new design ideas, which we think ought to be considered for future designs of IT in public spaces.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the airport train company for access and assistance in doing the fieldwork. Although we may not been able to incorporate all the advice we received from our reviewers as well as it deserved, their comments were nevertheless much appreciated and will be helpful for our further research. This paper combines material from papers presented at the Ubicomp [28] and NordiCHI [1] conferences in 2008.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Østfold University College, 1757, Halden, Norway

    Steinar Kristoffersen

  2. Mamut ASA, Pilestredet 75C, 0354, Oslo, Norway

    Ingunn Bratteberg

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  1. Steinar Kristoffersen
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  2. Ingunn Bratteberg
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Correspondence to Steinar Kristoffersen.

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Kristoffersen, S., Bratteberg, I. Design ideas for IT in public spaces. Pers Ubiquit Comput 14, 271–286 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-009-0255-2

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