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Interaction design for public spaces

Conference Paper · October 2008

DOI: 10.1145/1459359.1459566 · Source: DBLP

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 Interaction Design for Public Spaces
Karen Johanne Kortbek
Center for Interactive Spaces
Department of Computer Science, University of Aarhus
Aabogade 34, DK-8200 Aarhus N, Denmark
kortbek@daimi.au.dk

ABSTRACT
In this abstract I describe the doctorial research project
2. THREE MAIN APPROACHES
“Interaction Design for Public Spaces”. The objective of the
2.1 Domain: Public Spaces
project is to explore and design interaction contexts in culture
The investigation will focus on culture related spaces which are
related public spaces such as museums, experience centres and
both public and semi-public. The domain of public spaces
festivals. As a perspective on this domain, I will focus on the
challenges the interaction design in that it cannot be designed for
usage of the body as an interaction device. Furthermore, the
regular users, but must be designed for intuitive usage, and,
project will involve a dramaturgic take on communication and
moreover, it must be obtainable without prerequisites.
design of interactive systems in the pursuit of new ways to stage
Furthermore, challenges include how to design interactive
the interactive contexts.
systems for public spaces that facilitate aesthetic communication,
The outcome of the project will be guidelines and conceptual experience and active involvement of the users, and, thus, how to
frameworks which will help interaction designers when designing utilise the inherent qualities of public spaces to their full potential.
for bodily movement, and communicating and staging interactive
Characteristics to be investigated within the domain include:
content in public spaces.
social/individual contexts; large scale/small scale; outdoor/indoor
spaces; physical forms and surfaces, but also formless interfaces
Categories and Subject Descriptors such as bodily or spatial interfaces.
H.5.1 [Information Interfaces and Presentations]:
Multimedia Information – augmented reality, audio output H.5.2. 2.2 Perspective: The Body as an Interaction
User Interfaces - theory and methods.
H5.m. Miscellaneous Device
Within the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) community, there
is a growing interest in including the body in interaction design.
General Terms In HCI literature, the attempts aimed at addressing the body have
Design, Experimentation, Human Factors very different outcomes, spanning from theoretical arguments for
understanding the body in the design process [1], to more
Keywords practical examples of designing for bodily potential [3]. This
Interaction design, user experiences, culture related public spaces, project will mostly consider the latter; though, the research will
communication, staging, drama, body as interaction device, be informed by theoretical arguments.
environments, social interaction. When exploring the body as an interaction device, challenges are
how to utilise the bodily potential in the interaction context; and
1. INTRODUCTION what influence and significance the use of the body has on
When designing new types of engaging interactive installations interactive experiences. Characteristics to be considered when
for culture related public spaces such as museums, experience utilising the body include: small/large degree of bodily
centers and festivals, different challenges emerges regarding 1) involvement in the interaction; less/large accentuation of the
the domain of public spaces, 2) the usage of the body when significance of the body in the user experience (the role of the
interacting, and 3) the manner in which to communicate and stage body differs); and finally, small/large degree of user influence.
the interactive space as well as a given culture related content.
These three points of interest have been my starting points and 2.3 Take: Communication and Staging
become three main approaches in an experimental design research The project will not only focus on how to communicate a given
project. content using interaction design, but also on how the interactive
context, including content, body, space and the interaction itself,
is staged. The communication and the staging can replenish each
other as a take on interaction design, in that they both can benefit
from methods and theories of dramaturgy.
Copyright is held by the author/owner(s).
MM’08, October 26–31, 2008, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Challenges consist of how to successfully stage the body in
ACM 978-1-60558-303-7/08/10. interaction design relative to a given content; how to combine the
physical and digital spaces; and which dramaturgic takes can be In this project case, I expect to investigate how to stage the city as
utilised in the context of interaction design for public spaces. an active part of narratives; which interactive technologies can be
Characteristics to be investigated within the take of utilised, and based on which guidelines or frameworks is it
communication and staging include: social/individual possible to design interactive systems for public spaces.
participation; passive recipient/active participant; transparent A more specific challenge to address and investigate is the fact
technology/visible technology; staging to a less/great extent; and that the dramas are individual experiences. When wearing
play and experience versus contemplation. headsets, it is not possible to communicate with others or share
the experience with e.g. children. The condition of the dramas is
3. PROJECT CASES to let the audience become absorbed in the play, identifying
The research project is undertaken in the multidisciplinary context themselves with the main character. In case more people should
of the research center: Center for Interactive Spaces, and is participate in the same play, it would be necessary to assign
carried out in different projects in collaboration with external different roles to the participants. In this project I expect to
partners such as theatres, museums and schools, who have investigate these possibilities by looking into dramaturgic
collaborated on developing interactive experiences for different structures and how to integrate them with interaction design.
types of public spaces. The research method of this project is
based on an experimental design approach; and in the following, I 3.2 SoundSpots
will describe three ongoing project cases which will be part of my The SoundSpots have been developed as a part of an art
empirical research. All three cases have already been exhibition communicating inspirational material behind the art
implemented and will be further developed in my research works of Japanese artist Mariko Mori [3]. In collaboration with
project. the artist twenty-five SoundSpots were designed and located in
the exhibition next to the art works. Each spot consisted of a
3.1 AudioMove Drama visual silver circle at the floor and four meters above the circle a
AudioMove dramas are interactive audio plays that let the directional speaker and a PIR (passive infra red) sensor. When a
audience be the main character in a drama. The plays are single user would enter a circle, played back recordings with clips of
user experiments. In the plays the audience is equipped with Mariko Mori’s voice would be triggered.
mobile phones and headsets, and experiences a drama in the Only when standing inside a circle was it possible to hear the
streets of a city, where they scan semacode1 based tags in order to artist’s whispering comments on the artworks. This way, the
listen to the different scenes of the plays. Furthermore, they hearing experience was individual and somewhat intimate, even
receive simulated SMS messages and phone calls, and encounter though it occurred in an open space with constant awareness of
real life actors as part of the play. To date, two AudioMove other visitors. The audio clips were randomly selected and could
dramas have been conducted in collaboration with a local theatre, be heard independently.
and another two are being developed.

Figure 1: The user is reading a semacode tag with the mobile

phone in order to hear the next scene in the audio drama.
The current development plans include a larger degree of user
influence; e.g. giving the users the opportunity to influence the
story line. Moreover, different types of sensors and actuators will
be utilised to enable the physical surroundings of the play - such Figure 2: A directional speaker above an audio spot marked
as the buildings and interior of the city – to “come alive”. In this by a silver circle on the floor.
manner, the surroundings will to a greater extent become an
In contrast to traditional audio guides found in museums with
active part of the play and thus give the audience interactive
earplugs or headphones, the directional speakers supported the
experiences using the city as theatrical scenery.
visitors in having shared experiences of the artworks and the
supplementary material, in two ways: 1) People standing in the
silver circles could still hear what was going on around them, and
they could maintain conversation. 2) People would share the
1
http://semacode.com/
 audio spots by putting their heads together in the listening zone, intended to be a central meeting point to support learning and
and experiencing the same audio clips. knowledge sharing among students and teachers.
By utilising SoundSpots, the artworks were gently communicated Having worked with different types of interactive floors at
without compromising the works. In this project case, I have schools, libraries and museums, I have gained some experiences
learned, that designing communication for artworks challenges on how to design interactive spaces by utilising the horizontal
the manner in which to stage the interaction space. This can in surface of the floor; and moreover, on how to design for the usage
particular be interesting when the users cannot distinguish of the body as the only interaction device. With interactive floors
between art and art communication. I wish to investigate this the body comes into play at a different level, however, one of the
issue further and, moreover, I expect to gain insights in how the challenges that I would like to look more into, is how to obtain a
role of the museum guest changes from passive spectator to active 3D interface of interaction that corresponds to the bodily
participant, and how built-in sensors and actuations in the interface, without restricting the movements of the user.
museum interior can support this. In all three of the above mentioned project cases we have
conducted interactive experiences for public or semi-public
3.3 Wisdom Well spaces, where the role of the body is significant. I would like to
The Wisdom Well [2] is a 3 x 4 meter interactive floor which is continue experimenting with manners in which the physical IT
incorporated in a central square of a local public school. On the mediated reality can set the stage for bodily experiences that
interactive multi-user working surface the children are able to use challenges the users on what the physical world can do. When the
their bodies in fun and engaging collaborative activities while physical surroundings react on the users and become an active
they learn. part of a social and interactive scenography, the users’
From the bottom of “the well” (approx 3 meters below the experiences become part of the physical world, which can be
surface) images are projected on the floor. Utilising the vision- influenced. Hereby, the manner in which to (inter)act in - and
based tracking package, RETINA [5], four webcams track the experience public spaces is challenged.
positions of the users’ limbs, which are utilised as user inputs.
This interactive picture surface can support and implement new 4. STATUS OF THE WORK
project initiatives and exiting games. This abstract has described my research project and some of the
research challenges I face. Taking three main approaches as a
starting point, I will continue experimenting with project cases in
order to concretize my focus and develop guidelines and
conceptual frameworks for designing for public spaces.
As an outcome of the doctorial symposium I would like to discuss
the three approaches and their challenges in proportion to the aim
of designing for public spaces; and further, I would like to discuss
some of the preliminary results of my research.

5. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank my colleagues at Center for Interactive
Spaces (www.interactivespaces.com) and at the Alexandra
Institute Ltd. (www.alexandra.dk).

6. REFERENCES
Figure 3: The Wisdom Well – an interactive floor at a public [1] Dourish, P. 2001. Where the Action Is: The Foundations of
school. Embodied Interaction, MIT Press.
One of the applications developed for the Wisdom Well is the [2] Grønbæk, K., Iversen, O.S., Kortbek, K.J., Nielsen, K.R.,
learning game application Stepstone, which can be used by both Aagaard, L. 2007: Interactive Floor Support for Kinesthetic
normal hearing and hearing impaired children. During the game a Interaction in Children Learning Environments. In
series of exercises are posed as questions - either as speech or as proceedings of INTERACT 2007, September 10-14, 2007
text on a SMART BoardTM2 next to the Wisdom Well. The Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Springer Verlag.
children must collaborate in order to select as many correct
[3] Kortbek, K.J. and Grønbæk, K. 2008. Communicating Art
answers as possible by placing their hands and feet on the
through Interactive Technology: New Approaches for
projected images at the surface.
Interaction Design in Art Museums. In Proceedings of
Cooperation and knowledge sharing across geographic distances NordiCHI 2008, Lund, Sweden, October 20-22, 2008.
are established – internal between the different year groups in the
[4] Moen, J. 2006. KinAesthetic Movement Interaction:
school as well as external between other educational institutions,
Designing for the pleasure of Motion. Ph.D. dissertation,
working places and culture institutions. The Wisdom Well is
KTH, Numerical Analysis and Computer Science,
Stockholm, Sweden.
[5] Valli, A. RETINA – video tracking software available at
2
http://smarttech.com/ http://alessandrovalli.com/retina/ (2004-06-18).

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