In cities around the world, the widest possible variety of everyday urban experiences are now conditioned by hard-to-see technologies like RFID, GPS and WiFi. Most people, of course, experience these technologies through interfaces — and only in some places do the details of interface design support ease of use, clarity of understanding, and quality of life.
The rest of us? On a daily basis, we’re forced to deal with the consequence of bad design decisions, decisions that burden our lives with hassle, confusion, wasted time, and occasionally even physical danger. Given the speed with which municipalities adopt technology, too, these unhappy circumstances can persist for years…and sometimes for decades.
It strikes us that the time has arrived for someone that understands the domain to draw a bright line between design that works for people and design that doesn’t. That’s why we’re proud to announce that Urbanscale is partnering with Dentsu London to do just that: together, we’ll be producing a series of white papers that will identify, establish and promote best practices in urban interaction design. (The first two will concern domains that are obviously of intense and ongoing interest to us, urban screens and RFID farecards.)
We’ll be building the white papers on the same program of interviews, field research, empirical validation and analysis that informs our own design work. You’ll have access to the exact same sources that we rely upon.
And in contrast to the usual industry practice — where such research documents are locked behind pay walls, and priced in the hundreds or even thousands of dollars — we’ll be releasing all of our findings for free, under a Creative Commons license.
We’re excited by this collaboration, and even more so by everything it might lead to. Our hope is that, by working together, we can give people around the planet tools to demand better from the design of their urban environments, and ensure that the networked cities of the twenty-first century support the hopes and dreams of the people who live in them. Do us a favor and let us know if there’s anything specific you’d like to see covered, either at a granular level or as a theme.
