This is the location from which the studio will be working for the next 2 months on a couple of connected objects research projects. Answers on a postcard please.

Its been a busy week with the feeling that the constant push of the studio is starting to create some significant motion.

There were some great responses to the Urban Interface Safari walkshop and the studio is in dialogue with a couple of organisations about some pretty damn exciting projects for networked objects and cities. Let’s see what develops.

On Sunday 11 March 2012 a group of designers and a digital journalist toured Cologne for an Urban Interface Safari ‘walkshop’ (in collaboration with Bottled City) to find, document and discuss interfaces in public space. You can retrace our tour via either this Flickr map or this Google map and see all of the photos here.  Below is a summary of the findings and discussion. I’d like to thank everyone who took time to join, take photos and inform fresh thinking on how we can integrate public interfaces into our city to be more accessible, pleasant, unobtrusive and convenient : Martin Beyerle, Marcus Bösch, Andreas Echterhoff, Jan Güra,  Katharina Schlösser and Jan Schröder.

The open data, low input, remote access future of public interfaces

Today our cities bristle with networks of  cameras, sensors and displays we barely notice.The designers, planners and manufacturers of these public interfaces shape our experience of the city.

Cities and services project  public, perception forming and long lived artefacts into the urban sphere. These organisations must make these interfaces effective for the citizens and customers who use and ultimately pay for these interfaces. For cities and services to fully serve the public we must design public interfaces for  minimal user input, open data, clear information design and remote access via mobile devices

Release open data from public interfaces to citizens

Some public interfaces clearly display their functions – information displays, clocks and digital thermometers but many of the sensors  are anonymous – perching quietly on walls and cornices. What data are they collecting? Where is the data going? Who is using it? How can we access it? Public sensors rarely declare their function – who uses the information from a sensor and how we can access it.  Public sensors could have IP addresses attached to access their data via a mobile device- eg. one could access the atmospheric conditions for the corner one is standing on via the nearby wind speed  and barometric pressure sensors.

Public interface APIs can also be made accessible via the internet for personal use and re-appropriation via services like Pachube.

CCTV cameras were a prominent feature of our walkshop with a taxonomy of sizes and shapes related to civic, corporate and private use. Some cameras attempted to camouflage themselves adopting the colouring of their surroundings.

Again there was no declaration of what data was being collected or how the public could access that data. Perhaps it is this lack of declaration of the use of CCTV surveillance which makes many of us so paranoid about its presence.  To this extent CCTV permeates popular culture as a counter-culture icon from a music video composed of CCTV footage, to its presence in street art. Walkshoppers in London can look out for flying CCTV drones during the London Olympics this year..

Design public interfaces for minimal input and touchless interaction where possible

In the discussion following our walkshop some of us unexpectedly bonded over a shared fear of contagion through touching public interfaces from ATMs to transit, from the unpleasantness of an ATM on a Saturday night to commuters sneezing onto surfaces.

This fear of touching public objects was contrasted with an enthusiasm for touchless interfaces like Near Field Communication (NFC) which we saw at the central train station or even QR codes (despite their many poor deployments as highlighted on WTF QR Codes)

This desire for touchless interfaces makes sense in the urban context as seen in existing successful interfaces like motion and pressure sensors.

These interfaces ‘fade into the noise of the city’. The desire for touchless or gesture interfaces also calls into question the idea of large scale interactive outdoor public displays with the problems of ‘multiple inputs and potentially thousands of users sharing the same surface as observed by Sami Niemelä of Nordkapp.

A preferable model may be towards  calmer, more ambient interfaces like the automation of flushing, taps and paper towels in public bathrooms as observed by Dan Saffer.

Provide clear information design for public displays and extend interfaces to mobile devices

Faced by a lonely and unloved public wifi kiosk complete with touch screen and web camera we discussed why such interfaces are not used. The conclusion was that as a public interface it adds no value to the user. The required functionality is already available in a more personal, private and hygienic form in a smartphone. There is no need to use public communication devices or even public wifi.

More value is added by interfaces like a NFC touchpoint via the mobile phone where the phone acts a ‘remote control’ for interacting with the city – ‘checking in’ on train journeys and car sharing services.

Although access to remote information like train times is greatly valued there is still a real need for clear prominent well designed public displays. When dashing through the station  there is not the time nor co-ordination to start up a smartphone app and research the departure time and platform for the next fast train. Of course there is potential for more predictive design of such smartphone applications, sensing the context of use via location or an intimacy with the user’s daily routine and calendar.

Conclusion

As public interfaces permeate our cities and further inform our direct experience of the city care must be taken with their design, development and deployment. Public interfaces must be designed for minimal – preferably touchless – interaction, developed for open access to public data and deployed as clearly designed information systems extending their interfaces contextually to mobile devices.

Sunday 11 March 2012  is the first Urban Interface Safari in Cologne – it should be an interesting and fun tour!

A few reminders:

• We meet at 14:00 (2pm) outside the Cologne Hbf in front of Zeitcafe (look at that big arrow in the picture!).
• We wait until 14:15 for any latecomers and then start the tour.
• If you get lost you can call me on 0162 25 48 422 !
• If you are taking photos with your smartphone please turn on location information. This way we can look at the location of photos on a map later.
• Bring a pen
• It will be 11° C tomorrow so wear some sensible clothes
• I look a bit like this…

Finally the worksheets (walksheets?) are back from the printer so we are all set. See you tomorrow!

Today our cities are full of cameras, monitors, sensors, antennae, wifi networks, cables, signals and displays. Devices and interfaces collecting, displaying and acting on information.

As citizens we often don’t notice these devices in our streets and neighbourhoods. We rarely think about what information is being collected or how that information is being used. Let’s take a closer look at our city and examine how technology responds to and influences our experiences.

You’re invited to participate in the first Urban Interface Safari on Sunday 11 March 2012 in central Cologne. You will join a group to take a free unusual walking tour of your city, meet interesting new people and contribute to building a collection of photos of urban interfaces throughout the world. The event is a collaboration with Bottled City – a community focussed organisation who seek to involve people to actively participate in the cities they live in.

A walking tour

Urban Interface Safari is an unusual guided walking tour of your city to find interesting examples of how technology and information are integrated into our cities. The tour takes 90 minutes at a leisurely pace around a central part of the city exploring an area of about one or two square kilometres. The important thing is to observe – its not a race!  Free maps of the city ‘grid’ we will walk will be available with a checklist of things to look out for.

Participants are asked to pay particular attention to:

- Places where information is being collected by the network.
- Places where networked information is being displayed.
- Places where networked information is being acted upon, either by people directly, or by physical systems that affect the choices people have available to them.

The walking tour is based on the guidelines for a ‘walkshop’ pioneered by Adam Greenfield and Nurri Kim of Do Projects. You can download a pdf or read it online here.

Meet new people

The Urban Safari connects you with interesting new people in your city. The group will be  about 8-15 people. The tour is aimed at citizens, technologists, urbanists, architects, developers, designers, dancers or anyone with an interest in this topic! After the tour we will regroup in a friendly local cafe and discuss what we observed, share photos and review our maps. Hopefully we can make some friends too!

Build a collection of photographs

The Urban Safari involves you in building a collection of photographs of urban interfaces throughout world cities, getting a credit for your input and adding to our understanding of the networked city experience.

To get a better understanding of the hidden role of technology in your city register for the Urban Interface Safari today!

Sign up

Sign up via the Facebook event page

Logistics

Total time: 3 hours

Date: Sunday 11 March 2012

Meeting point. Outside “Zeitcafe” , Köln Hbf 

Meeting time: 14:00

Tour: 14:00 -15:30

Cafe discussion (location TBA but probably quite designery/hipsterish) : 15:30 – 17:00

End

Equipment you will need

Shoes you can walk comfortably in.
A digital camera or camera phone (optional)
A pen.

Language

Tour and discussion in English.

Cost

Free!  (You will need some cash to pay for your own coffee and cake though)

Contact

hello@neilclavin.com

About the organisers

Neil Clavin Studio

Neil Clavin studio is a practice for the strategic design of networked places, things and experiences. The studio wants to involve the public to collect, discuss and document examples of ‘urban interfaces’ in the city. The goal is to raise awareness of the networked city, connect with like-minded people and collectively build a collection of ‘urban interfaces’ throughout the world.

Bottled City

Bottled City is a collective of makers, growers and changers who notice that it’s easier to consume a city than to be part of it.

Opportunities to buy things are everywhere. And you don’t need to know anyone, speak a local language or try very hard to find them. But opportunities to take part in a local initiative or learn something from a local expert can be hard to tap into.

So we’re bottling them. We create experiences that make it easy to be part of the city. Join us.

Week 6 has looked mainly like this….

The purpose of this studio is to work on projects which genuinely interest me in new areas. Areas which I find more fertile and fun than some of those which are so heavily mediated at the moment like mobile phones, social media, interactive TV. The studio’s focus is broadly on networked places and things.

Of course there is a need to make the studio sustainable. This will be done by a mixture of consultancy, contract work and creation of small products which explore an area or represent a proof of concept. It is intended these products will also have some commercial value.

This week has mainly been devoted to hacking out a proof of concept for a project which has been on the ‘someday maybe’ list for quite some time. Like any idea at an early stage it is very delicate. I prefer to build on the idea with actions rather than talking about it at this stage. Suffice to say its something to do with feedback loops and its currently under the working title of ‘Atmosphäre’.

Just so you know its not just coffee and croissants here…

In the  city the net effect of our actions can be difficult to perceive. As conscientious citizens we strive to be positive, to regulate our power consumption and choose low emission transport for ourselves and the public good. How do we know if our efforts are making a difference at all? Can others be encouraged?

According to Dr Agneta Fischer, who specialises in ‘emotional contagion’, positive collective activity encourages others to move towards that behaviour also. By visualising the invisible activity of the city, its mood, its power consumption its emissions as public landmarks we can create positive feedback loops to improve our quality of life.

Current happiness based on random public captures and facial recognition software. (Public Face I)

Current energy consumption based on output of power plant. (Nuage Vert)

Current pollution level based on environmental sensors. (Eco Halo)

In the quest to make our cities more efficient, functional and sustainable there is a danger that the softer emotional aspects which can make cities so compelling become overlooked.

In the same way that mobile devices can measure our speed and efficiency, mobile devices can also measure our emotional responses to places  (Emotizer / Mappiness).

Once we can map the emotional topography of our cities what do we do with this information? How do we cultivate desirable areas? How do we convert unpleasant areas?