Spaces & Stories Personal navigation as personal experience

1. Spaces & StoriesPersonal navigation as personal experience Alan Blackwell

2. SENSE OF PLACE

3. From Kevin Lynch (e.g. The Image of the City) • How do people experience urban spaces? • Accessibility is psychological, not just physical • The sense of a place links elements via coherent representations of non-spatial concepts and values • Perception of space is a creative act, not just reception • People learn islands of activity, oriented by iconic structures, with axes/routes between them • Anyone can ‘read’ a place, but they see different things: • comfort, identity, meaning, stimulus, attachment ...

4. SITE LINES

11. “Site Lines”… Considers how spaces become structured with landmarks and orientation axes Exploits visual cues to integrate immediate perceptions and experience into a cognitive map

12. “I’M OVER HERE!”

15. “I’m over here!” … Expresses navigation as a personal problem Exploits existing ecology of SMS usage Provides a quick win for the ‘site lines’ scenario Could be right time to develop novel opportunity for 2012 Olympics

16. “WHERE WAS I?”

21. “Where was I?” … • Addresses a common pedestrian navigational challenge - back-tracking • Provides a connection to narrative cognitive representation of journeys • Can be pitched to technologists in terms of familiar location service scenarios • Finding car in car park • Looking for lost key • Offers opportunity of simple play/rewind metaphor

22. LOCAL SECRETS

25. “Local Secrets” … • Emphasises the intimacy of personal devices • Supports social currency and community, but less crudely than ‘friend-finder’ applications. • Connects to experiences of space such as stimulus, comfort and attachment • Can be pitched to technologists in terms of familiar location service scenarios • Geogaching • Location-specific advertising • Customer loyalty schemes

26. “WHILE YOU’RE THERE ...”

29. “While you’re there …” • References social obligation and/or recommendation • Is casual and informal, suggesting serendipity • Acknowledges varying priorities and interpretations of possible navigation ‘goals’ • Major directions with local branching corresponds to the axis and island models identified by Lynch

30. A DESIGN SKETCH

31. “heads-up” “head-down”

32. “head-down” “heads-up”