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Healthy Cities Display notes and timeline

timeline: (click to jump to the item)

6/21 brainstorm
Interview development

Related reading to Healthy Cities Display

Goals:

  • build a "healthy cities" display that changes people's awareness of and behavior towards their communities
  • make it easy to sense data (streamlined, elegant, not much effort)
  • give incentives, make the system responsive
  • (added 7/10) make a new Berkeley resident as knowledgable about the city as a long-term resident (problems: it's how well you know people in the city that matters most, it seems)

what to sense from individuals:

emissions of car
food: packaging, processed or not, vitamins vs. sodium, fat vs. fiber
energy consumption meter (jeremijenko) - I assume for electricity
water usage, gas usage?
GPS: location, mode of transportation, exercise, indoor/outdoor
weight: trash, recycling, compost (weight sensors in bins)
products coming in: groceries, mail, junk mail
beeper studies or "journal" prompts:
- transportation modes, outdoor/indoor
- last thing you ... ate, threw away, spent money on, ...
- last friendly/hostile interaction
- last time you told someone you loved them, smiled, laughed, ...
pictures, webcam - too much to analyze??
(tie corporations into this study - compare them to "individuals"?)
one's sense of community or hostility

What to sense from communities:

pollution levels
garbage amounts, recycling amounts (products coming in)
flux of cars through communities/traffic levels
flux of people
flux of water, electricity, gas
cancer rates for communities (there's a website where you can put in your zipcode and get cancer rates ... tie environmental issues to cancer?)
crime rates
amount of energy expended at gyms (people, machines)

Getting data from communities - webpages and resources:

http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~jmankoff/health-data.xls
http://ecologycenter.org/
http://cat.nyu.edu/natalie/DumbMeter2.html
(from Julie)
http://www.livableamerica.com
http://homeadvisor.msn.com/homes/guides/neighborhood.aspx

interface between individuals and communities:

palms, ipacs: infrared communication with public display
anything that's more pervasive?
- web forms
- uploaded files
- kiosk (but how to deal with bogus data?)
(foster this recent obsession of comparing ourselves with norms?)
want PAIRS of individual and community data sources

how to display:

map: sources/sinks shown by colors, flux value shown by color intensity
abstract statue of a person
garden
history of products being thrown away/recycled, and future
competition between communities (cities? but there's less of an individual impact)
(make it scalable: add/delete data sources)
(how to show data that's of different granularity, and is refreshed at different rates?)
how to visualize the data?
logarithmic time scale
self-regulating system

design inquiry:

where should the display be?
what form should it take?
who does it target? how will they interact with it?
  • literature on "health of cities" or similar - architecture? (clio, scott carter)
  • what data is available? how easily? what time/space granularity?
  • interviews: audio recording plus pictures (2 hrs = $100?) consent form, anonymity
open interviews on health indicators for a city
what do you think of the health of the city?
what information is interesting?
which of the following characterize the health of a city? ...
what is a neighborhood? what makes a "good" neighborhood?
what is a "community"? what makes a good one?
how do you conceptualize a city? (map? landmarks? events? character?)
what makes a city "livable"?
what keeps you in this city?
what do you want to change?
what do you do to influence your community's "health"? what CAN you do?

{scott c.} Some references that might help answer these questions: Kevin Lynch provides a formulaic means of reading cities in "The Image of the City," sociologist William H. Whyte produced a hoard of work on what makes good public spaces and Oldenberg's "The Great Good Place" and Christopher Lasch's "The Road to Nowhere" explore placelessness in modernity. {/scott c.}

other ambient ideas:

Royal college of art
bill gaver
NYU - ITP, Danny rosin - wooden mirror; CAT - Jeremijenko
kiss communicator
hubbub
shadow interaction (projection of balls falling; collected in shadow of arms)
online plant growing community ... not ambient, but an interesting example of a self-regulating system (like slashdot, in a way) ... look up
jeremijenko's dumb energy meter
(see my Ambient Examples page for more details on these and others)

path of least resitance recycling:

one trash can, divided into trash, paper and cardboard, metal, glass and plastic, compost
make recycling easier
make transportation easier
Berkeley's recycling competition - once a year

Interview questions, as of 7/05

Health of the City Ambient Display design inquiry: ATTACHMENT #2: Interview questions

What city do you live in? (examples: Berkeley, Oakland)
What do you like about your city?
What do you wish you could change?

When you think of a city, how do you picture it in your mind – as a map? by landmarks, greenness, number of parks or public places, building size, events, type of people living there, businesses, ease of driving, ease of walking, open space, safeness, noise pollution, light levels, number of trees, look of houses, etc.?

What makes a city “livable”?
When you think of the “health” of a city, what does that mean to you – what comes to mind?
How healthy is your city?
What do you do to influence your city’s health?
What would you do if you could? What stops you from doing this?


What neighborhood do you live in? (examples: West Berkeley, Montclair)
What do you like about your neighborhood?
What do you wish you could change?

When you think of a neighborhood, how do you picture it in your mind – as a map? by landmarks, greenness, number of parks or public places, building size, events, type of people living there, businesses, ease of driving, ease of walking, open space, safeness, noise pollution, light levels, number of trees, look of houses, etc.?

When you think of the “health” of a neighborhood, what does that mean to you – what comes to mind?
How healthy is your neighborhood?
What do you do to influence your neighborhood’s health?
What would you do if you could? What stops you from doing this?

What causes do you stand for? (e.g. volunteering, businesses boycotted, community civics, recycling, PTA, political activism, women’s/“minority” rights, etc.)

How well do you know your neighbors?

How busy is your neighborhood – what major roads go through it? Are there lots of apartment buildings or is it mostly houses? Do people walk around it? Are there children in it? Are there lots of businesses? Is parking easy or hard? (Do people need permits?)

What businesses are in your neighborhood?

Give an estimate of how much paper, plastic, metal, and glass you recycle each week, and how much garbage you produce each week. You can estimate in pounds, or say how full your garbage/recycling bins are at the end of a week.
Paper:
Plastic:
Metal:
Glass:
Does your neighborhood provide curbside recycling? If so, how often do they pick up recycling, and what do they accept?

What is a “community”? (a neighborhood? a social group? etc.)
What makes a “good” community?

Do any of the following characterize the health of a neighborhood/community? ...
  • Air quality, pollution levels
  • Garbage vs. recycling amounts
  • Crime rates
  • Number of cars vs. number of bicycles/buses used
  • How well you know your neighbors
  • Grassroots civic involvement
  • Sense of community vs. hostility or apathy
  • Traffic levels
  • Usage of water, electricity, gas
  • Sickness, diseases, cancer rates
How and where do you currently find this (and other) information?


Do you drive a car? What kind?

How many miles from your home is your work?
How do you get to work?

How many miles from your home do you go for social outings?
How do you get there? Give all ways you use, and what influences your decision of which to use.

How/where do you get exercise?

Do you have a GPS unit? If so, what do you use it for?
Do you have a handheld computer (such as a Palm or iPac)? If so, how much do you use it?


If you were approached with a description of a public display that showed the health of the city and asked if you wanted to volunteer information anonymously (based on neighborhood only), where the information would only be used for the display, and would not be used by anyone else, and never in conjunction with your identity, how much information would you agree to provide?
  • Weight of trash/fullness of trash can each week
  • Weight of recycling/fullness of recycling bin each week
  • Distance car was driven
  • Distance bicycled/walked
  • Distance traveled on public transit
  • Approximate places car was driven
  • Approximate places bicycled/walked
  • Approximate places traveled on public transit
  • Car emissions
  • Amount of junk mail received every week
  • Electricity usage
  • Natural gas usage
  • Water usage
  • Amount you talk to neighbors
  • Word recognition in a public place
  • Number of hugs you give
  • Number of smiles
  • Number of kind words
  • Number of times you feel angry
  • Number of times you act on your anger
  • Awareness of global, national, and/or local politics
  • Action for global, national, and/or local political causes

Would you agree, if promised the anonymity and protection of your information stated before [above], to participate in “beeper study” that asked you questions similar to the ones above a few times a day?

Interview questions, as of 7/10

Health of the City Ambient Display design inquiry: ATTACHMENT #2: Interview questions

What city do you live in? (examples: Berkeley, Oakland)
What do you like about your city?
What do you wish you could change?

When you think of a city, how do you picture it in your mind – as a map? by landmarks, greenness, number of parks or public places, building size, events, type of people living there, businesses, ease of driving, ease of walking, open space, safeness, noise pollution, light levels, number of trees, look of houses, etc.?

What makes a city “livable”?
When you think of the “health” of a city, what does that mean to you – what comes to mind?
How healthy is your city?
What do you do to influence your city’s health?
What would you do if you could? What stops you from doing this?


What neighborhood do you live in? (examples: West Berkeley, Montclair)
What do you like about your neighborhood?
What do you wish you could change?

When you think of a neighborhood, how do you picture it in your mind – as a map? by landmarks, greenness, number of parks or public places, building size, events, type of people living there, businesses, ease of driving, ease of walking, open space, safeness, noise pollution, light levels, number of trees, look of houses, etc.?

When you think of the “health” of a neighborhood, what does that mean to you – what comes to mind?
How healthy is your neighborhood?
What do you do to influence your neighborhood’s health?
What would you do if you could? What stops you from doing this?

What causes do you stand for? (e.g. volunteering, businesses boycotted, community civics, recycling, PTA, political activism, women’s/“minority” rights, etc.)

How well do you know your neighbors?

How busy is your neighborhood – what major roads go through it? Are there lots of apartment buildings or is it mostly houses? Do people walk around it? Are there children in it? Are there lots of businesses? Is parking easy or hard? (Do people need permits?)

What businesses are in your neighborhood?

Give an estimate of how much paper, plastic, metal, and glass you recycle each week, and how much garbage you produce each week. You can estimate in pounds, or say how full your garbage/recycling bins are at the end of a week.
Paper:
Plastic:
Metal:
Glass:
Does your neighborhood provide curbside recycling? If so, how often do they pick up recycling, and what do they accept?

What is a “community”? (a neighborhood? a social group? etc.)
What makes a “good” community?

Do any of the following characterize the health of a neighborhood/community? ...
  • Air quality, pollution levels
  • Garbage vs. recycling amounts
  • Crime rates
  • Number of cars vs. number of bicycles/buses used
  • How well you know your neighbors
  • Grassroots civic involvement
  • Sense of community vs. hostility or apathy
  • Traffic levels
  • Usage of water, electricity, gas
  • Sickness, diseases, cancer rates
How and where do you currently find this (and other) information?


Do you drive a car? What kind?

How many miles from your home is your work?
How do you get to work?

How many miles from your home do you go for social outings?
How do you get there? Give all ways you use, and what influences your decision of which to use.

How/where do you get exercise?

Do you have a GPS unit? If so, what do you use it for?
Do you have a handheld computer (such as a Palm or iPac)? If so, how much do you use it?


If you were approached with a description of a public display that showed the health of the city and asked if you wanted to volunteer information anonymously (based on neighborhood only), where the information would only be used for the display, and would not be used by anyone else, and never in conjunction with your identity, how much information would you agree to provide?
  • Weight of trash/fullness of trash can each week
  • Weight of recycling/fullness of recycling bin each week
  • Distance car was driven
  • Distance bicycled/walked
  • Distance traveled on public transit
  • Approximate places car was driven
  • Approximate places bicycled/walked
  • Approximate places traveled on public transit
  • Car emissions
  • Amount of junk mail received every week
  • Electricity usage
  • Natural gas usage
  • Water usage
  • Amount you talk to neighbors
  • Word recognition in a public place
  • Number of hugs you give
  • Number of smiles
  • Number of kind words
  • Number of times you feel angry
  • Number of times you act on your anger
  • Awareness of global, national, and/or local politics
  • Action for global, national, and/or local political causes

Would you agree, if promised the anonymity and protection of your information stated before [above], to participate in “beeper study” that asked you questions similar to the ones above a few times a day?

Interview questions, as of 7/19

Intro questions:

What is your age?
About how much money do you make every year?

City questions:


What city do you live in? (examples: Berkeley, Oakland)
Why do you live in that city?

How long have you lived there?
How long do you plan to live there?

How long have you lived in the neighborhood you're currently living in?
How long do you want to stay there?

How do you picture a city ...
  • when you're navigating in it?
  • when you're describing it to a friend who's never seen it?
for example:
  • as a map, or a bird's-eye view (what shows up - streets? trees? buildings?)
  • landmarks, such as public sculptures or distinctive buildings
  • greenness, number of parks or public places, number of trees
  • building size
  • appearance of houses
  • events
  • businesses
  • ease of driving
  • ease of walking
  • open space, plazas, public meeting places
  • safeness
  • noise pollution
  • light levels
  • type of people living there
  • diversity of people living there
  • how long people are living there
  • how busy a city is (roads, apartments, people walking, children, businesses, parking)

[give maps of city]
Color ... in your city. As you do it, describe out loud why you are coloring what you are. What do you think of these? How important are these to your city?
  • your home neighborhood
  • best-known places, places you don't know much at all
  • favorite places, least favorite places,
  • most interesting places, most frustrating places
  • distinctive landmarks
  • public plazas or other public spaces
  • safe areas
  • parks and green spaces
  • good walking areas
  • good driving areas
  • important shopping areas
  • safe/unsafe areas
  • diverse/homogeneous areas
  • noisy (or busy)/quiet areas
  • run-down/fancy areas
  • clean/dirty places

How healthy is your city?

What do you do to influence your city’s health? (political AND lifestyle things)

What would you do if you could? What stops you from doing this?

What makes a good neighborhood?

How do you currently find out about the ... in your city or neighborhood, if at all?
  • Air quality, pollution levels
  • Garbage vs. recycling amounts
  • Crime rates
  • Number of cars vs. number of bicycles/buses used
  • How well you know your neighbors
  • Grassroots civic involvement
  • Sense of community vs. hostility or apathy
  • Traffic levels
  • Usage of water, electricity, gas
  • Sickness, diseases, cancer rates

Personal/ecological questions:

What causes do you stand for? (e.g. volunteering, businesses boycotted, community civics, recycling, PTA, political activism, women’s/"minority" rights, etc.)

Give an estimate of how much paper, plastic, metal, and glass you recycle each week, and how much garbage you produce each week. You can estimate in pounds, or say how full your garbage/recycling bins are at the end of a week.
Paper:
Plastic:
Metal:
Glass:
Does your neighborhood provide curbside recycling? If so, how often do they pick up recycling, and what do they accept?

Do you drive a car? What kind?

How many miles from your home is your work?
How do you get to work?

How many miles from your home do you go for social outings?
How do you get there? Give all ways you use, and what influences your decision of which to use.

How/where do you get exercise?

Culture probe:

I'd like to leave you with some postcards or send you an e-mail question once a week for 6 weeks with questions similar to the ones above, to see how your attitudes change over time and when you're involved in different things. Here's an example -
[show examples]

Would you agree to send a reply once a week for 6 weeks, to further our study?

Privacy:

What sort of information would you provide anonymously, if the information was only going to be used to show the health of the city, and nothing else?
  • Weight of trash/fullness of trash can each week
  • Weight of recycling/fullness of recycling bin each week
  • Distance car was driven
  • Distance bicycled/walked
  • Distance traveled on public transit
  • Approximate places car was driven
  • Approximate places bicycled/walked
  • Approximate places traveled on public transit
  • Car emissions
  • Amount of junk mail received every week
  • Electricity usage
  • Natural gas usage
  • Water usage
  • Amount you talk to neighbors
  • Word recognition in a public place
  • Number of hugs you give
  • Number of smiles
  • Number of kind words
  • Number of times you feel angry
  • Number of times you act on your anger
  • Awareness of global, national, and/or local politics
  • Action for global, national, and/or local political causes

Would you agree to participate in "beeper study" that asked you questions a few times a week similar to the ones I've asked during this interview, if your answers would again be anonymous, and only used to show the health of the city?

Culture Probe information:

Culture probes are whimsical yet powerful sociological tools for capturing fleeting impressions and feelings, or at least when culture probe maven Bill Gaver does it. Here's a better description of some of what he's done with them.

I want to hand out a stack of pre-stamped, pre-addressed postcards to willing participants, asking them to fill out and send one a week for 6 weeks (maybe I'll send e-mail reminders, or maybe I'll send a postcard every week). I'll hand-make the postcards, which will probably have a map, image, or quote/question on one side, and space to write additional comments on the other side.

7/19 Culture Probe question ideas:

1- map colorings:
   a- where in the city did you have a good experience lately? describe ...
   b- what places have felt hostile to you in the last week? describe ...
   c- when is the last time you smiled at a stranger/a stranger smiled at you? where was it? describe ...
   d- trace the paths of all the places you walked/biked/drove in the last week.
2- Send a newspaper article that made you glad to live where you do.

7/24 interview questions

Where do you live? how long have you lived there?

general visualization of a city

1- How would you describe your city to a friend who has never seen it? What aids would you use? (visual, navigational, etc.)
justification: how participant conceptualizes a city, what features stand out (non-map-based; doesn't constrain image to a map)

map-based visualization

2- (SKIP IF #1 IS SUFFICIENT)
If your friend asked you to draw a quick map of the city, what would you draw for them? describe what you're drawing and why you're putting it on as you go. [note order they draw things, and prompt for explanations - how do you know these places? what do you do in them? how much time do you spend in them?]
justification: have a record of how participant conceptualizes a city as a map, what features stand out (possibly tells where to put a display)

on this map, outline:
3- your neighborhood [what are its boundaries? how are they boundaries? describe what you like about your neighborhood, and what you don't like.]
justification: information about neighborhood, what a neighborhood is, and what makes a neighborhood healthy. (only neighborhood question)

4- (SKIP IF #1,2 IS SUFFICIENT)
the places you know best in the city [how do you know these places? what do you do in them? how much time do you spend in them?]
justification: more information about what features stand out the most in a city (possibly tells where to put a display)

POSSIBLY SKIP 5-7, DEPENDING ON TIME
5- the places you don't know well [why don't you know them - do you never have the occasion to pass through? do you avoid them? do you want to know more about these areas?]
justification: get a better sense of what areas of the city are unmemorable or undesirable, and what makes them that way - for what??

6- your favorite places [why do you like them?]
7- your least favorite places [why don't you like them?]
justification: perhaps gives a sense of what places in the city are healthy, and which aren't (map-based, though, not overall sense ... so why?)

comparison

8- Where else have you lived? for how long? why did you move?
What are the differences between those places and here?
What is better about here? what's better about the other places?
justification: how natural is it to contrast cities, what factors influenced the move (do they factor into city health)

time

9- How has your area changed since you moved there? Is it better or worse than when you moved in?
In other places you've lived, what changes did you notice from the time you started living there to the time you moved? Are those changes good or bad?
justification: how much are gradual changes in neighborhoods noticed; which changes contribute to health, which take away

10- How long do you have to live in a place before you feel like you "know" it? what things do you notice when you've been living in a place for a while that you didn't when you moved in?
How important is it for you to know the area you live in? do you like to see the changes a city goes through?
justification: how much does familiarity (over time) influence perception of city; how important is familiarity

health of city

11- If a friend was considering moving to your city, what advice would you have for them? where would you tell them to live, and why? what areas would you tell them to avoid, and why?
justification: getting closer to what makes a city a good place to live; again, non-map-based

12- based on your opinion and on what we've said, what do you think makes a city healthy?
13- what do you do to influence your city's health - for better? for worse? what do you want to do more of?
justification: cuts to the quick, after setting the stage with the previous questions

optional: (these don't contribute anything to the health or image of a city, but it's personal information that may be useful ... ??)
how far from home is work? how do you get there?
how far do you often go for events or social outings? how do you get there?

7/24 culture probe questions

1- Trace in red the places you drove, in blue the places you bicycled or skated, in green the places you walked, and in yellow the places you took public transit in the last week. [include colored pencils]

2- Relate a piece of news that made you feel good about where you live. Where did you read or hear about this? How does it make you glad to live where you do?

3- What information would you anonymously share?
  • How much trash you produce each week
  • How much you recycle each week
  • Amount of junk mail you receive every week
  • How much electricity or gas you use
  • How much water you use
  • Distance you drive every day
  • Distance you bicycle/walk every day
  • Distance you travel on public transit every day
  • Approximate places you drove
  • Approximate places you bicycle/walked
  • Approximate places travel on public transit
  • your car's emissions
  • How much you talk to your neighbors
  • Number of hugs you exchange
  • Number of smiles you exchange
  • Number of kind words you exchange
  • Number of times you feel angry, or act on your anger
  • Your awareness of global, national, and local news and events

7/31 Culture probe ideas from Tim Brooke:

1) Camera
You may wish to include a disposable camera or polaroid izone (they make tiny polaroid pictures). Then ask the participants to photo scenes in their neighbourhood such as:
  • form of transportation (ie BART, car, feet)
  • what they carry with them when traveling (empty bag and photograph)
  • a quiet place in their neighbourhood
  • a busy place in their neighbourhood
  • a place they really like
  • a place they really hate
  • a healthy part of their neighborhood/city
  • a sick part of their neighborhood/city
  • a photograph of their trash can/rubbish bin
  • photographs of things that spoil their neighborhood (graffiti, neigbours?)
  • photographs of things that improve their neighborhood (parks, ...?)
Supply people with a list of picture nos.. 1 to 24 for people to write down a description of what they took and to match it up to the photos you are asking for.

2) How initimate do you wish the people in your neighbourhood were? how intimate are they?
Give sticky labels with touch icon (a hand?),see icon (an eye), chat
icon(lips), hear icon (ears). Then supply a list of people in your neighbourhood:
  • Shopkeeper
  • Postal worker
  • Homeless people
  • Neighbour
  • Cable installer
  • Co-workers
  • Others...?
People need to attach a sticky label to the indicate do they see, touch, hear and chat with people in their neighborhood.

3) How do you feel about doing a cultural probe?

4) What do you do to escape your neighbourhood (wear a walkman, drive to work) What do you do to be included in your neighborhood? (volunteer, sit in a park, hang out in a cafe)

July 2003

hc-ubicomp-paper.doc
healthycities-paper-poster.pdf