hello everyone my name is mayank and i'm
here to present the work that we have
been doing to inform the design of
location aware mobile guides to support
embodied and place based experiences
during outdoor heritage walks using a
user-centered approach before i get into
the details of our study let me give you
a little background
at outdoor heritage sites cultural and
historical narratives are intertwined
with not only the specific points of
interest but also with the material
social and atmospheric aspects of the
entire space these sites provide spaces
for visitors to immerse themselves in
and walk through to form personal
interpretations of the past thus walking
plays a crucial role in shaping visitors
embodied an aesthetic experience of the
side as it provides people an
opportunity to not only see the points
of interest but observe the entire place
absorb multi-sensorial information
interact with tangible elements and
engage in social interactions
thus in order to support rich outdoor
heritage experiences location-aware
mobile technology should not only be
seen as a tool to provide information at
points of interest but also as a means
to encourage and facilitate patterns of
walking that are slow exploratory and
performative
considering this in our work we
specifically investigate and compare the
influence of two different display
modalities on activities that people do
while visiting outdoor heritage sites
such as walking engaging with the built
heritage and social interactions we
asked ourselves how smartphones and
their screens which are configured for
private use cause heads down interaction
and do not blend the digital information
with the physical world influence
people's attitude and engagement with
their surrounding during the heritage
walk and how alternative display
modalities like handheld projectors that
provide shared display and blunt digital
and physical information influence the
actions and experience of people during
the heritage visit though handheld
projectors can only be used in low light
conditions in this work we consider
their use as it allows us to study the
effects of these features within the
context of heritage box to study how the
users interact with the space and people
in outdoor public spaces we designed a
short heritage walk on the high street
of canterbury city in uk the map depicts
the route and points of interest which
were included in the walk the high
street was chosen because it is a
popular tourist destination with many
historic buildings and could provide
participants with a sense of
authenticity during the heritage walk
for the planned heritage walk we also
developed a location-based android
application the image depicts the layout
and the content of application while the
users were walking and after the
information was triggered at points of
interest a portable projector was linked
wirelessly to a smartphone to make the
prototype of the projector guide both
devices were enclosed in a custom case
so that users could perceive and operate
them as a unified unit we conducted the
field study with 42 individual
participants together in sites to study
how people interact with their
surroundings while using mobile
technology during outdoor heritage walk
researchers shadowed the participants to
record in-situ video observations we
conducted post walk interviews to
understand their attitude and feelings
and we asked them to draw their most
memorable movement with themselves
included in it to understand their
somatic awareness and perception of
their surrounding
as seen in the image on the left we
analyzed the video recordings for
qualitative aspects like participants
walking path movement and orientation at
the heritage building and device use we
also derived quantitative information
from the videos the plot on the top
right shows that projector users took
longer to complete the heritage work
than smartphone users and the plot on
the bottom right shows that projector
users spent more time at each location
as indicated in the image on the left we
analyzed the drawings in terms of
representation of body posture gesture
orientation and location in relation to
their surroundings and representation of
space in terms of whether the drawing is
3d or 2d exactness of scale and level of
detail on the right you can see some
examples of the drawing made by the
participants
interviews were coded for aspects like
awareness embodied engagement experience
of using the device and experience of
the heritage work let me read a quote
from one of our participants it's
literally another way to look at the
world because you are projecting
something that you have you can control
something that's there that you can't
change but you can change it for a
second when you put that thing on top of
the real thing the quote highlights
aspects that emerge while using handheld
projectors such as agency control
augmentation and creative play
we combine the data from these different
modalities and categorize results into
four themes walking pattern and behavior
awareness and feeling of being there
embodied engagement and meaning making
and social engagement and experience let
me give you a brief overview of findings
under these themes as seen in the image
on the left with respect to walking
pattern and behavior we observed that
smartphone users were often focused on
reaching the destination while walking
they said i would just read as i went
because i had the information with me i
didn't have to stop this resulted in
them missing the opportunities to make
their own discoveries and connections
with the site as seen in the image on
the right projector guide users were
engaged in slow and exploratory walking
they noted it might have slowed me down
a little in a good way or i was going in
this zigzag motion this resulted in them
having more time and opportunity for
observing and processing the
multi-sensorial information received
from the whole street
with respect to the awareness and
feeling of being there as seen in the
image on the left we observed in the
drawings of smartphone users that they
remained in their own bubble instead of
being there on the street
they expressed i don't know whoever is
passing me and what building i pass
through as seen in the drawing on the
right projector users were more aware of
the material and geometric qualities as
well as the social activities of the
street they said i was more conscious of
everyone else around me
with respect to embodied engagement and
meaning making smartphone users said i
felt a bit distanced as i am distanced
from the actual thing we observed that
they remained disengaged with the
surroundings only making mental
connections on the other hand projector
users said you could position it where
you want it and then from that join it
with the site as seen in the image on
the right the device became an extension
of their body they were able to use
gestures and movements to bridge the gap
between the digital and physical world
and engage with the heritage site as a
place for exploration discovery and play
similarly with respect to social
experience smartphone users said i
wasn't really aware of the people around
me and it felt pretty isolating in a way
as seen in the image on the left
smartphone users missed observing people
as seen in the image on the right
projector users had increased
opportunity for social engagement with
strangers this led to a sense of
satisfaction for some they said it was
good when all these people are trying to
ask me what you are doing however few
projector users felt uncomfortable due
to the attention from the passersby
based on our observations we proposed
five considerations for the design of
portable technology that can support
embodied experience in heritage context
i am not going to discuss all the design
considerations in this presentation but
i will talk about two of them so you get
a sense of what they look like we
suggest that designers of mobile
technology and interactions for heritage
should look beyond designing
interference free interactions they
should design for an embodied
relationship between technology and user
we observed that handle projector which
was an embodied relationship with the
user became a mediator of users actions
towards the physical surroundings it
facilitated performative and playful
actions of exploration on the other hand
smartphone remained a device to interact
with instead of becoming an interactive
artifact through which people could
mediate and express themselves
we encourage designers to conceive
mobile technologies and interactions
that bring the surroundings into play as
the projected display was always
integrated with the space it entangled
the user's action and perception with
the surroundings use of projector
allowed the users to form an explicit as
well as emotional connection with the
environment the ability to project on
and manipulate the space increased their
sense of agency and aesthetic experience
of the heritage site the phone's screen
however operated as a barrier between
body and space interfering with the
natural coupling between people and
their environment this prevented
smartphone users from making a
connection with the heritage sites i
encourage you to read the paper to
explore the other considerations
overall in this paper through the review
of literature we established the need
for designing mobile technology that
encourages and facilitates slow
exploratory and performative patterns of
walking to support embodied experiences
during heritage visits following that we
provide insights into how different
display technologies influence users
action movement and experience during a
heritage walk finally based on our
findings we present a set of design
considerations for developing new mobile
technology that can provide people with
an embodied and aesthetic experience
during a heritage walk
and that's it from me if you have any
questions please feel free to reach out