Making urban data experienceable through vibrotactile feedback and engaging visualizations.

Abstract

Engaging people to actively collect, use and interpret data about their personal surroundings appears to be a promising approach which may lead to a shift in their mobility behavior. Our approach is to design and realize technology-based artefacts through a user-centered design process that motivates users to gather urban data such as air pollution and noise levels. Making the collected information experienceable for the users either bodily through vibrotactile feedback or by presenting data in an engaging, inconvenient and artful way is considered to enhance the users´ participation. This use of urban data directly connects the information with the actual place where people live and work and show citizens quality of life measurements in their own city quarter. In this paper we suggest two different approaches to achieve higher awareness towards urban data: The Vibro-Walk, which is a device that allows users to measure CO2 values and make them experienceable through tactile output. The CO2 flower is an artful and easy to use survey tool that confronts people with their actual mobility behavior and maps it to the growth of a plant.