Digital Cities 7, International Workshop at C&T 2011, Brisbane, Australia.

1. Designing
Mobile
Personal
Informatics
Applications for
Urban Settings
Tamara Chahine
Martin Tomitsch
Design Lab,
University of Sydney
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2. Today
Context & problems
Mobile application
Design process
Deployment study
Key insights
Future work
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3. Context
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4. Motivation
Using public transport in Sydney is a mostly
negative experience.
Population is growing and infrastructure isnʼt
keeping up.
Traveller information systems have been shown
to enhance the usability of public transport
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5. Goals for design
Enrich the customer experience of public transport
Make information about train travel more visible
Encourage new forms of social interaction
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6. TripStats
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7. Cultural Probes Participatory Design
Prototyping Deployment
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8. Real-time information
Location
Travelled distance
Remaining distance
Time spent travelling
Time left
Current Speed
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9. Visualising trips
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10. Deployment
study
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11. 8 prospective participants, mix of full time workers
and students catching the train regularly.
Phase one
1 week without the application, paper diaries,
questionnaire
Phase two
2 weeks with the application, paper diaries,
questionnaire, interview
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12. Key insights
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13. Recording data
Physical context
User attention
Technical issues
Internal motivation
“I didnʼt see a consequence; it was hard to keep using it”
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14. Displaying real-time
data
Context
Usefulness
Integration with existing data
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15. Visualising historical
data
Users liked learning new things about themselves
Historical data integrated with timetable information
to plan travel
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16. Supporting social
interaction
People enjoy comparing themselves to others.
Incorporating social + gaming interactions
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17. Technical
implementation
Constant connectivity & GPS
Reliability and accuracy
Multitasking support
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18. Summary
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19. Future work
How can the visualisation of aggregated user-
generated data combined with existing
information such as timetable data leverage the
reliability of information?
What kind of insights can people gain from
sharing and social contrasting of personal data
about travel habits?
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20. Background
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21. Urban informatics
“collection, classification, storage,
retrieval and dissemination of recorded
knowledge in a city”
[1] Foth, M. Handbook of Research on Urban Informatics: The Practice and Promise of the RealTime City. IGI
Global: (2009) Hershey, Pennsylvania, USA.
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22. Personal informatics
“A class of tools that help people collect
personally relevant information for the
purpose of self-reflection and self-
monitoring. These tools help people gain
self-knowledge about one's behaviors,
habits, and thoughts.”
[1] Personal Informatics: http://personalinformatics.org/
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23. http://www.smh.com.au/national/off-again-on-again-the-cbd-metro-is-off-again--well-nearly-20100119-mj6k.html
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/smart-machines-on-way-but-still-no-sign-of-
tickets-20110531-1feql.html
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24. [1] OneBusAway: Results from Providing Real-Time Arrival Information for Public Transit www.onebusaway.org/
[2] Field trial of Tiramisu: crowd-sourcing bus arrival times to spur co-design www.tiramisutransit.com/
[3] TripView: http://www.grofsoft.com/tripview.php
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