Cityware: Design and Evaluation of City-scale Pervasive Technologies Tim Jay

Contents Background and Rationale Methodology Example studies and findings The context logger Perceptions of the environment: neighbourhood and city Bluefish: A privacy probe Discussion

Cityware Research collaboration between the University of Bath, Imperial College, The Bartlett at University College London, Vodafone, Nokia and Hewlett- Packard ( Aim: To increase our knowledge and understanding of peoples relationships with urban spaces and with pervasive technologies in order to enable the development of tools and techniques for the implementation of long-term, city-scale pervasive systems.

How do people understand the city? Lynch, 1960 – The Image of the City Imagability/legibility Basic elements – paths, edges, districts, nodes and landmarks Wayfinding and Navigation Landmarks Cognitive Maps Urban Semiotics

The relationship between pervasive technologies and urban environments Urbantapestries.net, Urban-atmospheres.net, MobileBristol.co.uk (all worth having a look at) Often cover relatively small physical areas Often run over short timescales Cityware aims to address the methodological challenge of longitudinal, city-scale studies

Some issues with traditional mobile and pervasive evaluation Bias towards laboratory testing Sample bias – technologically literate participants Relatively restricted in both time and space – often out of context

The Cityware Cohort 30 participants, working with us for the 3-year duration of the project Aged male, 10 female Variety of occupations and levels of technological ability/awareness All equipped with a Nokia Smartphone and Vodafone SIM Attend regular workshops + complete other activities

Data Collected Questionnaires, interviews & focus group work Personality data Map sketching Moblogging

Example Studies The context logger Perceptions of the environment – neighbourhood and city Bluefish: A privacy probe

The context logger Developed in the Computer Science department, Imperial College Designed to inform the development of context-aware applications and services Records a variety of data generated by a mobile phone Data is automatically transmitted to a remote server using the 3G/GPRS network

Context logged Time/date and sender/receiver of text messages Time/date and sender receiver of voice calls Camera images Applications in operation Location (using either Bluetooth GPS unit, or built-in functionality) Bluetooth scans Cell ID in use Active profile Battery strength

Context logger evaluation Iterative process Local group 3 cohort members (selection criteria) Full cohort Refinement of the application at each stage Functionality Interaction with general use of phone Privacy and trust concerns

Context Logger: Discussion Different issues arise at various points of iteration There is an association between the demographic of the sample and the level of concern that arises Some issues could only have been discovered through genuine use with genuine user group

Perceptions of the environment How do city residents and visitors perceive and use the city? Some background Space syntax methods used to predict pedestrian movements. These can be compared with: Bluetooth gate counts used in order to analyse actual movements of Bluetooth device around the city (+ social network analysis) These dont give access to some important aspects that we are interested in – what meanings are derived from, or ascribed to, the city?

Methods 3 phases Neighbourhoods City Real City Long-term study with cohort Multiple methods

Methods Moblogging tour Questionnaires Landmarks City use Map sketching Boundary marking

The Neighbourhood/City Moblogging Tour GPS trail Photos Video Text notes Audio notes Analysis focuses on: Representations across formats Landmarks Effects of moblogging on perception

Differences in representation

Landmarks Rural v. Urban Traditional v. Personal Traditional landmarks Churches, schools, war memorials, parks, pubs etc. Personal landmarks (and non-landmarks) Allotments down a back lane A derelict building

Effects of moblogging on perception Change in scale between 1 st and 2 nd sketch maps

Next steps Recently completed similar set of activities in the city centre Day-to-day city use Expand dataset – including digital landmarks, Bluetooth, Wifi

Bluefish Designed as a privacy probe Previous Cityware research has shown that many people are not aware that they are broadcasting information about themselves via their Bluetooth devices Consists of a network of Bluetooth scanners public display screens, in various locations across Bath The screens represent Bluetooth activity that has been recorded by the network of scanners - Example Example

Research Questions How do people respond to their data and history being made visible by the Bluefish system? How does behaviour change – e.g. Bluetooth turned on/off, opting in/out of the system What are peoples perceptions of the data, and what are the reasons for any behaviour change?

Methods System logs can be used to analyse changes in behaviour but dont give us the reasons Interviews on location can tell us something about peoples perception of the system and any reasons for changes in behaviour But – some of the more interesting data will not be accessible through interviews Initial work will be done with the cohort

Advantages of the cohort Broad demographic Trust and investment in the project Gives us access to participants who may have concerns over privacy/security/trust issues, or who are not engaged with the system

Summary Sustained engagement of participants Helps address the problem of validity Combinations of data Mixture of methods – lab + field, quantitative + qualitative Engagement of a community Participants have ownership of and commitment to the project