Thesis Proposal, Public Draft
Topic Statement
I want to make a better map for people who want to explore the city around them—to discover a city they never knew.
This map will expose to its owner data which is not typically present in maps, and in doing, connect them with the people who are physically around them.
Experience and form
I think an appropriate place to start with this is public space. People in a public space typically have time to spare, are open to meeting strangers, and are willing to provide information about themselves. The specific type of space I keep thinking about is a public park or city square. Definitely urban, definitely a place where a critical mass of people inhabit.
Public space broadly defined is a social space open to all. Some examples include not only parks and town squares, but building plazas and street corners. The accessible nature of the space and the variety of people who inhabit it—for a large range of times of day and durations of visits—make it the ideal setting for my project.
I envision a suite of interactive devices embedded within the environment. Someone near a device would notice and interact with it, or simply walk on by. Those who choose to engage would enter a conversation with the device regarding the nature of the local environment: the demographic makeup of the space, what people have done there recently and what effect that has had, or other data point which may become clear during research.
Contemporary online maps have begun to use the term “layers” to define the way they merge data with their representation of the physical world. These maps have become sources of utility, learning, and entertainment; they become virtual social spaces built upon and mirroring the physical world.
The majority of these maps are accessed in a web browser or through an application on a mobile phone. However, I don’t think my project necessarily has to be screen-based. The current arena (see the below section on Market Context) is too full of these kinds of applications to make any sort of impact. These products have more or less traveled down a path well-trodden and the current focus on mobile applications has created an opportunity for other elements for user presentation can be applied.
Paper is extremely portable. Bespoke devices can be site-specific and offer a high level of immersion. A display in situ has a sovereign and an authoritative presence, and does not necessarily negate a technical solution. These are only the most obvious alternatives.
In the end, maps are built to display the data their owners require. A road atlas has streets, gas stations, and geographic boundaries. A structural blueprint outlines windows and electrical fixtures. A restaurant website cares only to define a specific location for the owner to go. All maps have an agenda, and it is expressed though the data it presents. I’m trying to figure out what my agenda is.
Market Context
There are museum exhibits that have given me the sense of connection with other nearby strangers. I have been to outdoor festivals where a piece of art has been the catalyst for conversation and debate. As a tourist, I have discovered architecture so arresting, the building’s memories remain with me today.
There are a variety of locations (that is, an address, a set of coordinates) and within those locations, places (that is, a city park which hosts a softball game one night and a concert the next) where the interactions between the people who inhabit them could be improved.
Others who are thinking along those lines may include:
- foursquare connects people to locations in the context of a social network.
- Groundspeak is a geocaching services provider, if that is a thing.
- Historypin let’s you composite old photos in front of Google maps.
- Invisible Cities displays social network activity upon a map.
Background Research
I can think of a few projects that are banging around in my head at this point:
- A Read/Write Urbanism a manifesto for a new strata of human-city interaction.
- Polygonal map generation with Voronoi diagrams!
- Availabot presents your status on instant messenger as a 10cm plastic figurine.
- 14 Cities Dan Hill’s account of 14 fictional cities in a near-future Australia. Some good, some bad, but all tell the tale of a land transformed by people and their methods of adaptation.
- The Museum of the Phantom City a catalog of visions of New York City, as expressed by the architects who created them.
- Microprinter “an experiment in physical activity streams and notification, using a repurposed receipt printer connected to the web.”
Interestingness
While I have loved city living for as long as I can remember, my appreciation for architecture, landscape, and urbanism has grown significantly in the last few years. If interaction design is working at the intersection of people and the digital products they use, I hope to be able to work at the intersection between people and and the places they inhabit.
I have a desire during my thesis studies to take at least one concept and turn it on its head. Since about the inception of online services, people have been talking about “building communities,” or systems for massive amounts of users. While that is good and all, I think the potential of experiences designed for a user base of one or two has been neglected.
With so many people living in cities (and more to come) it seems to me that this project has the basis to be something much larger.
Project Plan
There is still a large number of gaps in this document which need to be filled in. The exact spaces where this will occur, the data I am trying to expose, and the people I am exposing this to are all still nebulous thoughts.
The best way I know how to fill in those gaps is through research. I will seek out and interview people who have done similar projects, I already have subscribed to a number of blogs on the topics of location, software, and architecture & infrastructure. I have begun to collect anything relevant on my blog and delicious account.
Additionally, I plan on devising a number of small experiments to test the findings of my research. Small experiments will let me take a specific slice of the problem and boil it down to what I can act upon. I imagine some of the first experiments I will be performing revolve around how people use maps: the context of their use, the information they hope to learn, and more. In order to be pragmatic about things, keeping these experiments low-tech is essential. That means paper and not screen, and three hours instead of three weeks.
These small experiments have a secondary benefit: when something goes wrong, it goes wrong right away. It is my hope that with limited amounts of time available to me, I focus on the right things.
