Mark Bilandzic

CityFlocks: designing social navigation for urban mobile information systems

CityFlocks is a mobile system enabling visitors and new residents in a city to tap into the knowledge and experiences of local residents, so as to gather information about their new environment. Its design specifically aims to lower existing barriers of access and facilitate social navigation in urban places. This paper presents a design case study of a mobile system prototype that offers an easy way for information seeking new residents or visitors to access tacit knowledge from local people about their new community. In various user tests we evaluate two general user interaction alternatives - direct and indirect social navigation - and analyse under what conditions which interaction method works better for people using a mobile device to socially navigate urban environments. The outcomes are relevant for the user interaction design of future mobile information systems that leverage off of a social navigation approach.

Libraries as coworking spaces: Understanding user motivations and perceived barriers to social learning

Purpose – This paper aims to inform design strategies for smart space technology to enhance libraries as environments for coworking and informal social learning. The focus is on understanding user motivations, behaviour, and activities in the library when there is no programmed agenda.Design/methodology/approach – The study analyses gathered data over five months of ethnographic research at The Edge – a “bookless” library space at the State Library of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, that is explicitly dedicated to coworking, social learning, peer collaboration, and creativity around digital culture and technology.Findings – The results present five personas that embody peoples main usage patterns as well as motivations, attitudes, and perceived barriers to social learning. It appears that most users work individually or within pre‐organised groups, but usually do not make new connections with co‐present, unacquainted users. Based on the personas, four hybrid design dimensions are suggested to improve ...

A review of locative media, mobile and embodied spatial interaction

Highlights ► Provides a review of the history and development of locative media. ► Outlines different human-computer interaction techniques applied in locative media. ► Discusses how locative media applications have changed interaction affordances in and of physical spaces. ► Discusses practices of people in urban settings that evolved through these new affordances. ► Provides an overview on methods to investigate and elaborate design principles for future locative media.

Urban Computing and Mobile Devices

n this issues Works in Progress department, we have 12 urban computing and mobile device entries that span a wide range of computing and social areas. The first entry examines how an urban environment could operate as a large-scale, real-time control system. One project focuses on annotating public spaces and sharing the tags with others. Two projects tie together social networking in cyberspace with local urban communities. Two projects examine computing and social interactions in physical spaces. Two entries explore how to combine synthetic and physical views of urban environments. Four entries investigate how we explore urban spaces, interact with technology in those spaces, and create shared community histories.In this issues Works in Progress department, we have 12 urban computing and mobile device entries that span a wide range of computing and social areas. The first entry examines how an urban environment could operate as a large-scale, real-time control system. One project focuses on annotating public spaces and sharing the tags with others. Two projects tie together social networking in cyberspace with local urban communities. Two projects examine computing and social interactions in physical spaces. Two entries explore how to combine synthetic and physical views of urban environments. Four entries investigate how we explore urban spaces, interact with technology in those spaces, and create shared community histories.

Laermometer: a mobile noise mapping application

Creating noise maps is a complex task. They can be created using modeling approaches that take into account different data such as traffic conditions and the like. Another approach is to use stationary recording stations which provide better results but are costly to maintain. Nevertheless, the benefits of noise maps are worth the effort. Laermometer has been developed to solve the problems of creating noise maps by utilizing mobile phones and their built-in microphones. The main functionality is to provide noise information for any place in the world. Users can add further information like a noise description or comments about the location and its sound level. Every user can view the noise maps and comments, anywhere using their mobile devices. In addition Laermometer brings along a small web interface. With this web interface users can view/edit their profiles, comments and noise descriptions.

Collective and network sociality in an urban village

Our ongoing research program explores the communicative ecology of urban residents and the way these findings can inform design innovation of interactive web, mobile and geospatial applications and local communication services. This paper presents results of a study within this program that seeks to develop a better understanding of the way residents choose different types of web and mobile technology to oscillate between collective and networked interaction paradigms. The analysis of this data draws out key distinctions between collective and network sociality in place-based settings. It points in the direction of design opportunities for global web services to be translated and appropriated for local use to support everyday connections, place making efforts and participatory urbanism and citizenship.

Hybrid Placemaking in the Library: Designing Digital Technology to Enhance Users' On-Site Experience.

This paper presents research findings and design strategies that illustrate how digital technology can be applied as a tool for hybrid placemaking in ways that would not be possible in purely digital or physical spaces. Digital technology has revolutionised the way people learn and gather new information. This trend has challenged the role of the library as a physical place, as well as the interplay of digital and physical aspects of the library. The paper provides an overview of how the penetration of digital technology into everyday life has affected the library as a place, both as designed by placemakers and as perceived by library users. It then identifies a gap in current library research about the use of digital technology as a tool for placemaking, and reports results from a study of Gelatine – a custom-built user check-in system that displays real-time user information on a set of public screens. Gelatine and its evaluation at The Edge, at the State Library of Queensland, illustrates how combining affordances of social, spatial and digital space can improve the connected learning experience among on-site visitors. Future design strategies involving gamifying the user experience in libraries are described based on Gelatines infrastructure. The presented design ideas and concepts are relevant for managers and designers of libraries, as well as other informal, social learning environments.

Learning beyond books—strategies for ambient media to improve libraries and collaboration spaces as interfaces for social learning

With the advent of digital media and online information resources, public libraries as physical destinations for information access are being increasingly challenged. As a response, many libraries follow the trend of removing bookshelves in order to provide more floorspace for social interaction and collaboration. Such spaces follow a Commons 2.0 model: they are designed to support collaborative work and social learning. The acquisition of skills and knowledge is facilitated as a result of being surrounded by and interacting with a community of likeminded others. Based on the results of a case study on a Commons 2.0 library space, this paper describes several issues of collaboration and social learning in public library settings. Acknowledging the significance of the architectural characteristics of the physical space, we discuss opportunities for ambient media to better reflect the social attributes of the library as a place; i.e. amplify the sense of other co-present library visitors and provide opportunities for shared encounters and conversations, which would remain invisible otherwise. We present the design of a user check-in system for improving the library as a physical destination for social learning, sharing, and inspiration for and by the community.

Connected learning in the library as a product of hacking, making, social diversity and messiness

Learning is most effective when intrinsically motivated through personal interest, and situated in a supportive socio-cultural context. This paper reports on findings from a study that explored implications for design of interactive learning environments through 18 months of ethnographic observations of peoples interactions at “Hack The Evening” (HTE). HTE is a meetup group initiated at the State Library of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, and dedicated to provide visitors with opportunities for connected learning in relation to hacking, making and do-it-yourself technology. The results provide insights into factors that contributed to HTE as a social, interactive and participatory environment for learning – knowledge is created and co-created through uncoordinated interactions among participants that come from a diversity of backgrounds, skills and areas of expertise. The insights also reveal challenges and barriers that the HTE group faced in regards to connected learning. Four dimensions of design opportunities are presented to overcome those challenges and barriers towards improving connected learning in library buildings and other free-choice-learning environments that seek to embody a more interactive and participatory culture among their users. The insights are relevant for librarians as well as designers, managers and decision-makers of other interactive and free-choice-learning environments.

A Mobile Application to Support Phatic Communication in the Hybrid Space

This paper presents a prototype implementation of the PengYo application that offers a cross-platform interaction method between an online social community and mobile users based on the “beeping” phenomenon. PengYo provides a novel interface that explicitly supports the practice of beeping, a nearly-globally applied implicit communication method of calling somebody and hanging up before the call is answered. In contrast to the traditional beeping-method, PengYo provides a custom tailored user interface and user interaction style for beeping, following the real-life cognitive model of “tapping someone on the shoulder”. PengYo builds a platform for further investigation of the beeping phenomenon and its usage patterns, that very little research has been done on so far. The results of further research studies that base on PengYo might deliver crucial information for redesigning and enhancing existing channels following the user-led communication phenomenon of beeping.