Thursday, July 17, 2008
Interactive Ubiquitous Maps? Not yet.. Charlotte recently spent 3.8 million dollars on STATIC city maps!
Not too long ago, I took this picture of an information and map display in uptown Charlotte, N.C., my home town. This sign is located near the basketball arena, near one of the new light rail stations.
As I approached the display, I was hoping that it was a digitally supported interactive map, since it was so shiny and new. I was disappointed to see that it was static. The display contained information appropriate to the setting, but wasn't nearly what I had expected.
I later learned that the cost of this project was 3.8 million dollars, mostly in the form of a grant from the federal government. Perhaps some of this money could have been spent on a system of interactive wayfinding displays, with multi-touch capabilities. In my dreams....
Designing and implementing this sort of system is complex, but in my opinion, important. If you are interested in this topic, take the time to read The invisible city: Design in the age of intelligent maps. The article, posted in the Think Tank section of the Adobe Design Center website, provides an in-depth exploration of the issues related to ubiquitous, interactive, information-rich maps. The authors, Kazys Varnelis and Leah Meisterline, are from from Netlab, the network architecture lab at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture.
I guess I should be happy that the folks at the Charlotte City Hall understand the need for wayfinding solutions:
From the 7/3/08 Charlotte Observer:
"The pedestrian signs are part of a larger program to increase signage throughout the center city. The bigger chunk of the project is aimed at signs directing motorists to destinations as well as parking. Those signs are projected to go up in 2009 and 2010. Total cost for all: $3.8 million, much of which is paid through a federal grant. The city's portion is $780,000. .... "We wanted to make sure we could direct pedestrians getting off light rail," said Kimbler, the city's project manager for the wayfinding program... The first signs went up on streets, such as College, adjacent to the Lynx Blue line. A second set of signs was placed to direct people to uptown destinations, such as museums, libraries, The Square and the Charlotte Convention Center. Now 51 signs are up." -Amy Baldwin, Charlotte Observer Link
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Airport Technology for the Usability Hall of Fame, if only it worked!
Albrecht Schmidt is the director of the Pervasive Computing and User Interface Engineering Group at the Universitat Duisburg Essen. When he was traveling in Seoul, he took some pictures of embedded information, which he uploaded to his blog post, Embedded Information: Airport
I was excited to see the pictures that Dr. Schmidt posted of an active computer display with a list of names of people who should contact an information desk, right in the middle of the baggage on the luggage belt.
This ALMOST made it to my Usability Hall of Fame. Unfortunately, the display was broken!
High-tech example
Low-tech example
I will give this an "A" for the concept, "E" for usefulness, since it the display wasn't working at the time it the picture was taken.
I think that Dr. Schmidt's key criteria for embedded information are important components to consider for information systems encountered in public spaces:
- Embedding information where and when it is useful
- Embedding information in a most unobtrusive way
- Providing information in a way that there is no interaction required*
Related:
[1] Albrecht Schmidt, Matthias Kranz, Paul Holleis. Embedded Information. UbiComp 2004, Workshop 'Ubiquitous Display Environments', September 2004
I especially like the following quote from the Ubicomp 2004 article:
"We investigate how information can be provided to users – exactly when it is needed. Our approach is based on a variety of information displays unobtrusively embedded into the user’s environment. We place the information displays in context."
Pictures and a discussion of airport technology I've recommended for the Usability Hall of Shame can be found on my previous post:
