Today was the fourth day of the trial and ten participants took part in the trial. When people return their devices we ask them to tell us what their experience was like.
This is part of our particpatory evaluation process which is designed to be open and transparent and allow people who are interested in the project to get an immediate sense of how people are responding to the aims of the trial. The participants' feedback and response to our questions (noted above) are attached as comments to this post...
Posted by kat at December 9, 2003 12:36 PMSeems like the ideas are, as ever, running ahead of the technology. I didn't do as much as I'd have liked because the device was so slow, both to read my writing, and nto communicate with the server. It didn't help that it's FREEZING!
But having got the moan out of the way, I think the idea is fascinating. In only a few minutes it changed the way I interacted with the city ... I was much more aware of my surroundings and I wanted to use the device to ask questions, and get and provide answers ...
Instead of being an ant rushing from one oplace to another, I became part of my surroundings.
Someone came up to me while I was authoring and said:
"you can't see anything on the screen ..." I ignored him and he wandered off ... he weasn't a tramp as he was dressed from head to toe in leather ...
The map was excellent ...
I'd like another go when it's warmer and the device is faster!
Posted by: Richard at December 9, 2003 01:23 PMCertainly the project proposes quite a range of possibilities in terms of local knowledge, political activism (terrorism?), personal poetics, talking to your friends, and generally feeling a sense of involvement in urban space. Of course, there is a sense that the technology needs to be appropriated, for various methods and approaches for its applicability--what I like is that Proboscis is not prescribing usage, rather offering up a conduit for possible relationships to the city and technology on very personal levels.
Practically speaking, I found the device/interface easy to use, regardless of the at times frustrating slowness, crashing, etc. Actually authoring was fun, and engaging--there was a sense of urgency that it actually is a form of publishing, i.e. that there is an audience or fellow travelers/users reading the thread; and further, that what I am writing should have some sort of value to it--of course, I could also see such value being based completely on being in touch with friends, setting dates, flirting, etc. So, this is part of its value which I think is just as valid.
The map was cool, though wonder about its abstraction--maybe this helps stimulate the imagination... It was fun to drop in on other people's threads, read their texts, etc., sort of a process of eavesdropping.
Lastly, there was a sense of covert operation going on, which was great--sense of being part of a secret mission, with fellow participants that I only knew through the technology, the shadow city existing as data, ghosts in the machine.
using text only kinda makes it more interesting, limits what you can do. I liked the idea that u could see other threads (receive) as well as post your own (transmit).
The technology is limiting tho and got in the way of the experience - it was hard to make a series of continuous threads, or to see others, as the wireless range was limited.
you would be nice to auto receive messages/pockets as wellm, as kind of prompts.
data/information is a bit of a bugger isn't it? how the hell do you mine for relevant information in the sea of stuff out there? personalisation and mood swings are pretty hard to predict, but this is what you want. you want thre technology to know you, learn what you want and give it to you when you're in the mood for it - and to switch it off when you don't...
Posted by: david squire at December 9, 2003 03:43 PMinteresting. always good to hold hardware and put ideas to the test. As ever, frustrating, slow connectivity, times when wanted to throw machine through nearest window ( or check out shoes in the shop we're stood in front of waiting for handset to unfreeze) When did work, however, started looking at the environment differently.. watching the way people are, wondering how they relate to place, where they might be going, how they relate to each other, thinking of who may have lived and worked in the spaces. how things are different.
thought it would be a really interesting tool for narrative workshops - thought would be interesting to write a novellette where the reader has to walk through the "set "
Posted by: katz kiely at December 9, 2003 03:45 PM
At the start of the trial I was following the other threads. Some of them were intriguing and witty, but I doubt few peopl would actually follow them in reality. They could be useful amongst friends and colleagues, but I'm not sure what access you would need at this level for the general public. There is already so much data in the system that it is already difficult to make sense of.
Obvious people who might use such a system as a primary resource are tourists. They have time to invest in a visit to the city, rather than simply travelling through the city. However they are going to need and use different types of information such as route knowledge (personalised road signs) and more currated information about sites.
One of the existing trails that struck me as quite interesting and a nice bit of trivia for the bored commuter was "interesting things on roof-tops". So when I started making trails I was thinking about exploring visibility of things in the city and how this changes as you travel.
The first trail I started was a simple game (Now You Can See Me, or nycsm1 after you have to type with the really silly touch-keyboard). I marked a series of places where you can see an object, and a series where you can't see it, and I think that these places are sufficient to identify the object. A very simple game, with a school field-trip element. This was quite hard to describe to the system I really wanted to mark positions, not buildings. This was very frustrating, I would go to author something and be given a list of place names. I then had to go around checking building names to make sure that from those building you could still actually see or not see the object. When checking names I would go out of wireless cells. It was interesting that I really needed to be on the street doing this, whereas most of the existing trails could have been done with a map, although being in the city probably helped prompt memories or associations for people.
By this point I was very cold so I consider jogging around a bit to warm bit. This led to the second game thread. Joggers are one of the few groups that travel through the city without much constraint. But I think many people finding jogging boring because the route is similar. So I started writing a virtual maze on top of the city where as you got to a location you had to make a route decision. Some decisions lead to dead ends, and this can vary your route. A centralised facility can vary the route depending on your performance and target exercise time, sending you around the outside of Russell Square for example. This type of route doesn't need authoring on the street. The mazes can be automatically generated and made fiendiously hard to follow. This suggestion hints at variations of use more to do with direction and travel based information rather than static location-based information.
I wanted to be able to tag buses (so joggers had to follow buses). I wanted to see the actual taggable locations on the map so there would be less ambiguity on placement. I wanted to tag whole streets rather than just single places.
I met one tourist who wanted directions (there are no road names on the map though so I couldn't help).
I met one colleague whilst I was searching for a wireless access point. We had a five minute discussion about the trial (he is also interested in wireless).
I found finding wireless access easy enough. It was very patchy around Victoria Building, but the access point that is marked as opposite 73 Southampton Row, gave me a signal all the way to Russell Square (making me think its marked incorrectly on the map as just south of 73, I couldn't get a signal).
Where was I? In some sense I felt I was on the map at the centre of the screen, but sometimes I wanted to look around on the map without moving myself!
Technical issues:
- Starting a new thread is confusing - you have to create a dummy entry and then go back and do the real first entry (the body text gets lost the first time).
- I had to reset four times. If it isn't necessary to log in again, can it be bypassed? Perhaps the login should be set up once before giving out the device and persist until reset.
- Several locations generated icons in the same place, making selecting the one you want difficult (e.g. Barclays is hidden under a hotel).
- If you are following a trail it is easy to lose because the lines between anchors disappear if neither anchor is on screen.
- I lost a couple of posts because wireless changed whilst I was stationary (beware the big lumps of metal going past!)
- I had to re-type this blog entry after the browser lost it first time I entered it!
concept of making a thread was easy except for the slow speed of input. Because each letter you type in the pda goes back to the server it quickly becomes tedious to enter data.
did follow a thread but the wi-fi range was quite short so couldn't explore very far. so liklewise the experience of using the map was not possible as could only really go within a few yards of the base. Would be good if one could zoom out to see more of theh map area.
Became a bit concerned using the device in the street as it was so obsorbing (partly due to the technical issues) and input was lengthy that one could not notice what was going around.
Created a thread about 'clothes' and observations of what people were wearing:e.g. how many wearing hats, scarves, dark clothes etc. Might be interesting for people to read who only came in the summer to read what people wore at different times of the year.
wrote comments in the park but it would only recognise a point to attach comments as in the underground car park. so would be good if one could make comments at any point rather than attached to buildings.
as input process was so slow would have preferred to make comments on paper and enter online with robust connection and keyboard that responded immediately!
rather than using wi-fi to add comments might be easier to use a mobile phone and send in the comments by sms with a keyword
a very interesting concept that once the interface issues have been sorted I expect to see in wide use for both tourists and locals alike.
Difficult - the time delay and making sure that annotations were published. Actual making of a thread was fairly straight forward. Reading my own threads was fine - as long as I could see that "My Threads" was on screen. Nope didn't get a chance to follow a thread - technical issues ;) Map was clear and easy to read from the screen - on the move - only one had to remember to physically move "oneself" on the screen as well. I could see that as someone really gets into writing threads, that they may 'lose' their location in relation to their location threadwise - if that makes sense! Got around my apprehensiion of using technology in the street by folding up the antenna map underneath the ipaq so it looked like i was either looking at an AtoZ or just making notes on a paper pad. Also had to make sure i stood out the way whilst annoting - again getting into the 'thread act' one can become totally unaware of their immediate surroundings - an easy mugger's target I tell ya!
Type of threads created were an 'urban knitter's journal of exotic sights' another was a fictional stakeout of bank robber's targets ... to be continued perhaps!
Didn't get the chance to explore others threads - the way the system is currently set up (to my experience) one has to mentally step out of one's own thread and activate "All Threads" at the current location I think. As you move around other threads didn't pop up as I re-located.
Can I have another go ... please Giles!
Posted by: Edgar Aromin at December 9, 2003 06:05 PMI think in terms of concept and the way Urban Tapestries work is wonderful. There are some software and design issues but as this only a prototype, it is good enough to give the user the experience of sharing information and creating connections as well as adding to local knowledge.
I was able to follow the threads and I think it integrates very well with the underlaying map. Provided hardware and software were faster, the overall speed increase could make this one of the hottest fun as well as learning applications around. I was fairly add couple of locations and at the same time find out more information about the buildings that I was always curious about but did not know the past history of.
Overall, Urban Tapestries project trial I would rate very highly and I think there are quite a number of potential areas it could integrate well with.
Posted by: Alpay Beler at December 9, 2003 07:23 PMCreative use of mobile devices. Really like being empowered by the authoring tool to allow my own self-expression. Would like to be able to see the threads online and other personal journeys
Posted by: Ann Borda at December 9, 2003 07:42 PMI didn't know what to expect really - I had read about it, and thought I had some idea that I would be running around trying to label a map with information.
Beforehand, I had a think about what I could use it for, and thought I could annotate the map with interesting typography examples- I've started going on typewalks where I walk and photo type and signs. Which I did - but I also, thanks to the chat beforehand about wanting people to explore creative things too - so I added some personal stories too, about alternative careers (of a sort). The other threads helped me torealise that they could be of varying usefulness and quality!
The technology? I can see the potential, and have used a similar technology before (Blast Theory's Uncle Roy All Around You). The practical applications are huge - from city planners and architects collaboartively working on urban redevelopment (if there was GPS accuracy especially), to creative arts projects. I'm also thinking there could be links to the BBC's local activism website, whose URL I've forgotten).
I would have liked to add photos. The typing was really slow - I'm impatient, so voice annotation or snaps would have been quicker - I could have run around if I was doing that. I also wasn't sure why it had to regenerate every time I moved the target - if it moved on the same screen, did it need to redraw? But I can see that being solved and moved on.
I didn't try accessing my own pockets - but eventually saw that I had some lines of my own.
Using the technology on the street? I ws a bit nervous about potential muggings, or dropping it, but did neither (honest)!
Overall, interesting and fun. I didn't mind the cold too much either ;->
Posted by: Scott Keir at December 9, 2003 07:51 PM