Interview after Walk21 Urban Alphabets Walk (open discussion with 2 participants)

Interview after Walk21 Urban Alphabets Walk (open discussion with 2 participants) Type: group interview Place: Referat für Gesundheit und Umwelt, City of Munich, Bayerstraße 28a, 80335 München (room 1009b) Time: 1:20 pm 2:00pm Length: 36:53 min interviewer: interviewees: Suse Miessner Neil Hoskins, Southend on Sea, UK, NeilHoskins@southend.gov.uk Michał Godzisz, Gdyna, Poland, m.godzisz@zdiz.gdynia.pl (introduction to what is the interview about and what it will be used for. Asking for permission to record the interview) I m recording this just to let you know. Neil: Fantastic! (laughing) Neil: Most importantly it made you look... look at your surroundings. I think... if it was been combined with some kind of... perhaps... tourist information. It would be really really useful. Because yeah you re walking around, you re looking at things, you re taking photographs of things, developing your own alphabets, that there are some things it would be nice to know where you are if there is something of real interest just around the corner. So it would guide you there? Neil: Yeah. In this sense... Neil: You happen to be here but if you went down the alley there you would find something really fantastic. Hm... But like I mean... that might also come up because you are a tourist here. But if you think about yourself would you be using the app also into in your own context in your everyday life? Could you see yourself? Neil: I could with my daughter. Ahm... I certainly could as a way of ahm... a fun low-costactivity. Ahm... In my own town... I don t live in Southend. I live in a small old market town just outside... ahm... which would potentially have enough, and even in Southend there would definitely have enough places of interest to provide that sort of fun activity for children. Yeah, how old is she? Neil: She s 8. Ok. Just like to have some kind of idea of... Neil: Yeah. Because there is also this kind of thing that... what I m thinking about a lot is that actually only when you start reading you start seeing those letters. Before there are just like... I don t know. Pictures. Neil: They are everywhere... yes. And then you start realizing that letters are everywhere and you cannot go back to just seeing pictures because you always have to read. Neil: And even if you see some photographs I took. Which ones are yours? Are these yours? Neil: Those are mine. Yeah. Ahm. You start seeing letters in for example that is an olive but it is also an O. (Figure 01) Yes, or a 0. Neil: Ahm. And... I took some. I created an I out of the a... out of that... So that is an I. (Figure 02) looking up idea: tourist guide combined with urban alphabets use case: challenges for children seeing letters where there are no letters, but there are letters

Neil: But if you took the bottom part of it only that is also a T. (Figure 03) (laughing) Exactly. Neil: Ahm, I took a photograph of some paving gaps and you see it as an X. (Figure 04) Hmhm. Neil: You to start seeing patterns... I took a photograph of the old or the new town hall... Ahm, which looked like a W. (Figure 05) Let s look at it... It s not here... Neil: Hm... it s down. It s not here. Neil: Allright... At least I didn t download more. Neil: Ahm, the old town hall... I saw the town hall somewhere... these are your letters. Michał: Yeah, they are mine. And then there is one more device that I have found. But that are also yours... Lets... Since there are not that many people. We need just to find the right... so it s not this one... this is mine... this is yours... So if you look... there is a W there. (Figure 05) Yes, subtle but it s there (laughing)... So you basically started seeing letters where there are no letters...... but there are letters... (laughing) Ok. There is some workshop participants I had in the past who actually made alphabets just of these kind of letters. Or tried to do... in the Russian workshop. Neil: Hm... So it happens to a couple of people. Neil: And particularly for children you can start setting fun trials. You can ask them to go on a treasure hunt to find particular letters in particular locations. Neil: Which then makes them walk from one place to another. Exactly. Neil: Ahm, there is a lot of potential. Hm. But that s also for example that I haven t thought about before. So in this kind of touristy-hunting-way. I haven t been thinking about... developing. Michał: Something like city game. Neil: Yeah. Michał: You can do this in a different way. You can... took the pictures things what the name is on that letter... And you can... I I I didn t get that one. Michał: If you see a [something] you can use something or there start the letter is «P» and something... Form a P out of pencils... Michał: So yeah, this is «P». Yeah... Michał: This is a conversion of them is then... Neil: We have one particular newspaper in Britain... ahm. On the Saturday edition they do that. They have a series of pictures and you have to work out the word such out of those pictures. Ok. Neil: It could be a pen, which may be the first letters of someone s name... And then the rest of it... Ahhhh. I see... Yeah... Now I get it. Neil: So if the pen and the picture of somone s knee that would be penny. Hmhm. (laughing) Oh yeah... That s a whole different world then... idea: trials for children idea: objects represent things and the combination of different things makes up a word. example Pen + Knee = Penny

That is more like symbol language letter thing... Neil: It is yes, but... Ahm, still it is totally related. Neil: Yeah... I see that... And ahm one question that I wanted to really ask: Did you notice that you did something... well, you always said that you look at your surroundings in a new way... or in a different way. Neil: Yeah. But also did you notice something else in your own behavior. How you walked through the spaces? Or, you know, you got run over by a bike or... because you didn t pay attention or something like that? Neil: I think the spaces we were in were predominantly save spaces. Yes, for sure. Neil: There wasn t much traffic other than being bumped into by somebody else... Yeah... But I think that is also... like for me that s kind of a really a thing it does to me that when I m walking with this I m looking up and I m kind of not really realizing the people around me any more. But I m more really like so focused on the letters that I then I don t look at the people any more. I can understand... Or at least to some extend there is also... Neil: And I found myself particularly in the market square just wondering around... Hm... Neil: Neil: And I was paying more attention to the stores than I would normally do... I would normally just glance. I m not interested because I don t want to buy anything... But I did therefore spend more time looking... looking at what... seeing in fact letters in things. Yeah. And then there were lots of colors and even smells in that market town, market place... that I wouldn t have [noticed] because I wouldn t have spend very long. I would have just looked This is really nice, move on. (laughing) Yeah... So there the letters is actually a nice experience that adds something to your experience of the place that is not just about the letters but also about smells, colors, how other people behave... and things like that.... What about you? Other kind of thoughts on...? Michał: Ahm... this is... hm... other kind of... doing the city I have... when I am in a new city I always looking on the buildings, of the road, of the architecture and there is... so I took a picture... because I take a photo camera... when I go in some new place... but I don t take care about... posters and something like this. Michał: Because... in... ah... but... there is a... when you are in a new city you looking around and... doing your pictures and in your usual go to work and in your city... this is not that kind of trip. Exactly. Michał: You are moving from place A to place B and you don t look around. You think that you... ah... know all what is around you. Michał: And if that... can be... maybe more useful to... take alphabets on a city where you live. Yeah exactly. Michał: Because... Well there is this twofold thing that for tourists it might be also really nice because they experience the city in a different way but for someone who is living a city, as you said with your daughter you would kind of challenge her to look around her... so it s also you can challenge yourself obviously to walk around and find your letters. Find letters of only one color, find only handwritten letters... there is like such a big variety of different kinds of letters that is crazy... Like for my graphic designer friends especially they are really like: Oh I have to take these letters and I only want these letters... and I only searching for letters instead of looking at people (Suse) - wondering around -spending more time than usual - noticing smells + colors =adding to experience of space - new city experience - attention to posters difference: tourist vs. inhabitant perception of space setting games/ challenges as a function of the app (not that the user has to set it him/ herself but it s a function ofthe app > points)

want the... you know special typeface and things like that... Neil: So you can also play games with that... Neil: For example to keep my daughter amused in the car when we are driving somewhere we might say if you can spot a yellow car you get 5 points, if it s a gold car it s 10 points. That kind of things with typeface, particularly with colors or different styles... ahm... the more unusual letters... you might want to... you could... you can see who can accumulate the most points. So there are games that can be played... I think there is a large scope to develop this app... In different directions. Neil: In various directions. Yeah... And that is the thing that I m trying to figure out. I mean for research purposes the app is fine as it is. I can discuss with people. But to actually get into the real market there would be different ways of going and... kind having this social network that you can share the alphabet or share what you have found on your way to work today for example. That could be nice to share with your friends or like with your wife or whatever like Ok look at what I found... like the special letter I found today. Neil: Yeah. Or I write you this kind of message. Neil: Or link it to facebook. Yeah, that what everyone is doing nowadays. And you can like it or not. (laughing) I mean there is these other... there is Instagram for example, who are doing pretty much the same thing but not with letters but with photos. So I found this photo today pretty much. But I like the idea of having different games Neil: Hm... And also the tourist information is a really good idea that I haven t heard yet. So I like kind of getting new ideas of how you can actually miss-use the idea... or use or missuse the idea to do other things. And I think that is what I really... that is what I also like about the project. It is kind of... you know... you can diffuse it into various directions and kind of also can have other people do whatever with that. Like use symbols instead of letters. Things like that... Let me look of what else I have on my plan here... (pause) Oh yeah. The other thing I wanted to talk about is the relationship to walking, really. Do you feel you can use this while walking or are you actually more wondering around? Is this still walking? Could you also do it on a bike or a skateboard? Or on a car? While on public transport? Killing your time in a bus for example? Or is this really something you can actually do while walking? Since this conference is about walking... Neil: I think, taking those in term, in terms of walking... I was definitely wondering around... but I was wondering around on a sort of a defined route... That I gave you pretty much. We were going from A to B. But normally going from A to B in a tourist location I would be going from certain locations around that along that. Neil: And only really looking at those locations rather than everything in between. You said something about the posters. But ordinarily I would not have paid any attention whatsoever because first that they are not in my language and second they are not aimed at me anyway. So I pay no attention to posters ahm... whereas I have paid attention to use-case: social network walking vs. wondering around looking at locations along the way from A to B attention to posters

posters... ahm. I think you could do it on a bike (pause) but again a lot of it would need to come with just safety precautions and messages about being careful... Neil: Definitely in public transport. Certainly things like the London underground and places like that would be very very useful cause you see letters everywhere... Neil: Busses. It s a bit more difficult. Yeah, it s more maybe the transit links where you are waiting for your next bus... Neil: Yes... bus stops... Or your next metro or... things like that. But it might not be basically on the bus because you are too fast already. That s what I think... like why I m actually here... I think is because it is something you do while walking even though even though it might not be the walking straight from A to B but it might more be the kind of wondering around... waiting for something... killing your time... kind of walking, waiting... Neil: Yes... and whilst on a bus it might be a bus tricky because people might not like you to take photographs of an interesting letter of a book that they are reading. You might get yourself in a bit of trouble. Yes. Neil: But I think it definitely has scope and... it is very very interesting, very... I totally enjoyed my morning. Thanks (laughing)... ok Michał: I think that... if I used in in everyday usual life I don t try to put all alphabet in one day... and on one trip... I maybe... when I see something... hm... but only one letter or maybe something... weird or... that can be compared. So you would want to basically... work for a couple of weeks on your trips to work for example on the same alphabet and then it might be done and you get points for it and that is maybe your challenge why you are doing it is that you have some kind of reputation afterwards in a social network... that could work. Neil: Hm... But like you could work on different alphabets at the same time... you have a challenge for a blue alphabet and maybe have one for... Helvetica-font. Michał: With social network I can take the letters from other people... Yes. It is a big point I think... Michał: Use my photos and photos from other users. Neil: Yes, someone could post something onto Facebook and rather than saying an interesting photo you would say: That s a great B. Michał: Yes. When I looking at a grey B or yellow I can use it from network and yes not... So you loose the component of actually walking around in a space but you still get your letters, which isn t... I mean, I m not saying it s bad but there is the tradeoff between... only adding the letters that you actually take really as photos out there... and the letters you can assemble from other people, other sources. Neil: You could become accused of an alphabet theft. (laughing) Michał: We can have 2 different types of users. Type of people who going to the streets and take photos and people who stay in home and compare these photos... Exactly. And I also like this sort of comparing different cities and comparing different places. Neil: Hmhm. My last experience is with was actually in Las Vegas and if you go to the Las Vegas Casinos it is really crazy. You see letters everywhere, really... but also the fonts and typefaces and colors are very very different from anywhere else I have been to. So it s also pretty nice how to kind of see how the visual identity of a city is different from another city. Neil: Yes. From another country... and these kind of things. bike > safety warnings public transport: - not inside (annoyance of other passengers) - at transport links work on more than 1 alphabet at a time take letters from other people in network 2 user types comparing letters from different locations

Neil: You could compare letters from Las Vegas with letters from Southend... being very very different. Yes, and it just shows you that there is also some specificity of place in those letters... where you take those letters. Neil: Neil: Yes. And also for me that is kind of a big point of the whole project that you also kind of compare. That s why when I m posting the things... I don t know, have you looked at the website? Yeah, but only on my phone and it s quite small. Yeah, for that is quite small. (interruption from conference organizers - short break) Michał: I know... there is a... when I put the alphabet on the session blog to describe this... alphabets where are the photos? Where do I take the photos, where from? That is one of those questions... but technically what I was thinking about is that you just geotag the photos when you take them... I mean, most of the applications do that anyways already... and then you can also display the photos on a map for example like where exactly in that city they are. Michał: Ok. And you could be searching for... Hey, I want all letters from... London and it s going to make automatically an alphabet for you with letters from London or blue letters from London or something like that. Neil: If you link that to GPS... Yeah, that is what I was just saying that you could actually show it on a map, really all the letters show them on a world map and you could go to see... and I mean if it is a really good thing people might start walking and looking for the same letters take them themselves if they know exactly where they are... then it really gets a bit into the kind of treasure hunting, geocaching basically. Neil: Yeah... if you can tab into that social networking kind of thing... somehow... and you can then capture people s imaginations. Neil: I think then... it can almost go viral or what is a better word. (laughing) Neil: Ahm... but really encourage people to walk a huge amount more. (pause) I m thinking that I will skip the individual interviews since we are doing kind of individual interviewing anyways... Michał + Neil: (laughing) So that s why I was already starting to ask you a bit more... like... (pause) Well, we have been talking a bit about difficulties but maybe we can also talk about usability a bit more. Like you have been talking about crashes, so apart from the crashes any other difficulties? or anything that you think it would be easier to do it like this or just something that you re confused about? Neil: There were 2 main things: the ability to zoom Neil: So if you saw a great letter but it was on the side of a building you could zoom in rather then it being very tiny. And also the cropping... ok the way you do it is fine but you can only crop it in a very specific... you cannot make the... Ahh, you cannot change the kind of... the kind of... ahm, relationship... Neil: Yeah. You cannot change the ratio... so So that is something you would like to do? Neil: Yeah, because there were some when I wanted to get much tighter or I wanted go down rather than... but it wouldn t let me... Yeah ok... anything for you? You can also repeat things so I know 2 people have the map functionality + search + automatically generate alphabet from a search term / location > feature wanted appreciation more walking zooming wanted variable aspect ratio of cropped letters

same problem. Michał: Ahmm hm... I have a problem with the... working application but maybe... ahm... because... ahm... you want to do this... if you take the pictures and you can see were is this place on the map Yeah... Michał: And ah... how can I find this function on this app? Well, at the moment you cannot. It s not in there yet. It s one of those future things that should be in there. Michał: Ah ok. And did anyone write something with those letters? No, because it always crashed before, right? (pause) I did. I can show you. No, but because there is also maybe something that... this is my end result alphabet, which is almost full... (Figure 06) well I did a Hello Walk 21! and there we have a problem with the line breaks still. (Figure 07 1 ) So actually you have to manually add one more space... That s how I m doing it at the moment to kind of increase readability... but I think you can see that it is not easy to read. Neil: No. And then I think I did one more... Neil: Neil: But I think if you could do that is perhaps simple or at least sounds simple to me but how you actually make it work on the screen I don t know but if you put a black line around each letter... Yeah. That might higher the readability. It does. I have tried... (laughing) But I think there are other ways also... you can take the color away for some time... so that it is easier to read... in black and white it is really easier to read. Because the red for example always kind of jumps into your eye first and the blue stays away and that is why it s harder to read. Neil: The part of fun could be trying to decypher. Sorry? Neil: Part of the fun I think would be trying to decypher what has been written. Yeah, yeah. Neil: Or even part of that fun would be having those contrasting colors. Yeah... Neil: Neon, contrasts and so on. Yeah, for sure. It s also about kind of decoding or... Neil: The point I would have thought of sending a message like that would be to challenge the reader. Neil: Otherwise we would just send them an ordinary text message... (laughing) very true. Ok and we have already talked about how would you see yourself using the app. You didn t say anything about that part, did you? Michał: Oh I... Or like how would you see yourself in future if you had the device you could using it on? Either in everyday life or somewhere else on a tour or...? Michał: Ahm. I don t use a social network. Ok. Michał: I m not a user... I don t have. That is totally fine. I m not judging on that! Neil: You are probably one of the 4 or 5 people in the world that doesn t. Michał: Yes, yes, yes. No, it s totally not true. There is a lot of those people! Neil: If you believe Facebook... Michał: That can be a poster from some place where you are... Michał: It really can do this some MMS message. Yeah exactly, there is other ways to share... 1 Actually the text of the shown postcard is Hello from Munich, Hello Walk21! -postcard disappeared. - line break (Suse) - black frame around photo to increase readability - temporarily into blackwhite (Suse) decoding messages as part of fun send as MMS (not just through network)

Neil: Yes but that is the old instant messaging generation ahm yeah... would perhaps find this fun... And what about just writing real postcards? Like you know writing them digital and what I was telling in the beginning of it like making the digital postcard but have a printing service and you can just send it to print and then pick it up in the next shop? Neil: I... And then you send it to your grandma for example because your grandma is not going to use an MMS. Neil: No... I personally I don t send postcards when I go on holiday. (laughing) Neil: But I might even be inclined to send a digital one to somebody... spending ages sitting there writing out Have a great time, weather is lovely, wish you were here. Kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss (laughs between) is... yeah... time consuming and bores where you could write the same message once and send it to many people. (laughing) Smart people! Michał: So am I... I don t even take addresses to people. I always do that. Personally I really like writing postcards, just personally. It s not that everyone asks me like send me postcard from anywhere but I just do it because I like to do it. But I m old fashioned on that maybe... Ok. Then finally, I have a little survey. idea of physical postcards not very welcome (both participants) (A few words about the survey.)

Legend: changes in space: perception, action,... future development possibilities single functionalities (that I already thought about before) modes of transportation, where app can be used user types urban postcards comparing letters other important Notes: - People might not know what geotagging is. (depending on background) - Confusion between implemented and future features - Not all people like to use social networks (actually it is fun that the guy who doesn t use any wants to use other people s letters...) > thought: is it possible to make it usable in both ways?) Learnings for the next interviews: - Group interviews can be hard: Group discussion after workshop can be short and do more individual interviewing. - Talk less youself: If you continue with this in-depth-interviewing method a more or less natural flow of the conversation is fine. Also in individual interviews the atmosphere changes. - Stop sharing your own insights so much. - Give survey before the interview/ group discussion.

looking up seeing letters where there are no letters, but there are letters searching for letters instead of looking at people (Suse) - wondering around -spending more time than usual - noticing smells + colors =adding to experience of space - new city experience - attention to posters difference: tourist vs. inhabitant perception of space idea: tourist guide combined with urban alphabets use case: challenges for children idea: trials for children idea: objects represent things and the combination of different things makes up a word. example Pen + Knee = Penny setting games/ challenges as a function of the app (not that the user has to set it him/ herself but it s a function ofthe app > points) work on more than 1 alphabet at a time map functionality + search + automatically generate alphabet from a search term / location > feature wanted zooming wanted variable aspect ratio of cropped letters send as MMS (not just through network) walking vs. wondering around bike > safety warnings public transport: - not inside (annoyance of other passengers) - at transport links looking at locations along the way from A to B attention to posters more walking use-case: social network take letters from other people in network idea of physical postcards not very welcome (both participants) 2 user types comparing letters from different locations appreciation decoding messages as part of fun - line break (Suse) - black frame around photo to increase readability - temporarily into blackwhite (Suse)

Figures Figure 01: The olive can be seen as an O or a 0. Things start to appear as letters. Transcription of interview at Walk 21 10. Sept 2013 11

Figure 02: The May pole (is it one???) can be seen as an I as a whole. Transcription of interview at Walk 21 10. Sept 2013 12

Figure 03: But the lower part of the May pole is also a T. Transcription of interview at Walk 21 10. Sept 2013 13

Figure 04: Paving gaps often have an X form. Transcription of interview at Walk 21 10. Sept 2013 14

Figure 05: An element of Munich s New town hall can be seen as a W. Transcription of interview at Walk 21 10. Sept 2013 15

Figure 06: The end result of Suse s device during the walk. Transcription of interview at Walk 21 10. Sept 2013 16

Figure 07: Urban Postcard from Suse s alphabet. (The postcard with the text Hello Walk 21! discussed in the interview disappeared while transferring from the devices.) Transcription of interview at Walk 21 10. Sept 2013 17