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Computer Supported Cooperative Work (2008) 17:275
–
290
© Springer 2007
DOI 10.1007/s10606-007-9072-1
Understanding Situated Social Interactions: A Case
Study of Public Places in the City
J. Paay
1,2
& J. Kjeldskov
2
1
Interaction Design Group, Department of Information Systems, The University of Melbourne,
Victoria 3010, Australia;
2
HCI Research Group, Department of Computer Science,
Aalborg University, Selma Lagerlöfs Vej 300, DK-9220 Aalborg East, Denmark
(E-mail: jeni@cs.aau.dk; jesper@cs.aau.dk)
Abstract.
Ubiquitous and mobile computer technologies are increasingly being appropriated to
facilitate people
’
s social life outside the work domain. Designing such social and collaborative
technologies requires an understanding of peoples
’
physical and social context, and the interplay
between these and their situated interactions. In response, this paper addresses the challenge of
informing design of mobile services for fostering social connections by using the concept of place
for studying and understanding peoples
’
social activities in a public built environment. We present a
case study of social experience of a physical place providing an understanding of peoples
’
situated
social interactions in public places of the city derived through a grounded analysis of small groups
of friends socialising out on the town. Informed by this, we describe the design and evaluation of a
mobile prototype system facilitating sociality in the city by (1) allowing people to share places, (2)
indexing to places, and (3) augmenting places.
Key words:
augmenting the city, mobile computing, context-awareness, built environment,
situated social interactions
1. Introduction
s social life outside the work domain linking people to people
to places (Jones et al.
2004
). Mobile phones, and especially SMS texting, have
changed the way people communicate, interact in the physical world, and
coordinate their social activities (Grinter and Eldridge
2001
; Rheingold
2003
). By
embedding networked sensors into the built environment, adding advanced
positioning technology and short range network capabilities (such as Bluetooth,
RFID tags, etc.), context-aware mobile services are emerging that adapt their
content to both the user
’
s physical and social context.
When designing mobile services for fostering social connections and
augmenting our physical built environment, system developers and interaction
designers are faced with a series of new challenges. We need to understand better
the physical and social context of the user
’
s situated social interactions
(McCullough
2004
), the role of human activity within the built environment
’
Mobile and ubiquitous computer technologies are increasingly being appropriated
to facilitate people
276
J. Paay and J. Kjeldskov
2004
) and the interplay between context and user actions (Dourish
2004
).
We also need to understand how physical and social affordances of a place
in
uence the situated interactions that occur there, including the relationship
between people, technology and interactions. Finally, we need to de
ne useful
physical and social context in
interaction design for context-aware mobile services.
Recent work in human-computer interaction (HCI), computer-supported cooper-
ative work (CSCW) and interaction design has examined how the concept of place
can contribute to our understanding of peoples
’
interactions within their physical
environments and with ubiquitous computing technologies augmenting this
environment, and how the notion of place can inform system and interaction design.
This paper addresses the challenge of informing ubiquitous and mobile
technology design by using the concept of place as a central notion for studying
and understanding peoples
’
social activities in a public built environment. We
present a case study of social experience of a physical place providing an
understanding of peoples
’
situated social interactions in public places of the city
derived from a grounded analysis of small groups of friends socialising out on the
town. Informed by this, we describe the design and evaluation of a context-aware
prototype system facilitating sociality in the city by (1) allowing people to share
places, (2) indexing to places, and (3) augmenting places.
The paper is structured in the following way.
’
discusses related
work focusing on people, technology and interactions in place. It presents and
discusses our understanding of place, ubiquitous technology use in city contexts,
and introduces the concept and typology of situated interactions. In
“
Background
”
“
Field study:
eld study of people
socialising in public places, describing the details of our empirical method and
data analysis. In
”
we present our
“
Situated social interactions in public places
”
we present the
ndings from our study of situated social interactions in public places. To
illustrate the value of understanding social interactions in place for informing
interaction design of mobile services,
“
Designing for situated social interactions
describes the design and evaluation of an implemented
prototype system, which adapts to the user
”
s physical and social context to foster
social connections in that place.
“
Conclusions
”
concludes on our study.
2. Background
2.1. People in place
The design of the city affects how people make sense of the social complexities
of urban places. The architectural design of form in the built environment has
traditionally occurred within the context of an explicit set of social and physical
issues in respect of anticipated activities and historical expectations tied to
particular institutions and building types (Agre
2001
; Mitchell
1995
). Physical
and social affordances of a place have helped to de
ne the social interactions that
(Ciol
and understandable ways of incorporating peoples
people socialising in a public place
in public places
’
Understanding Situated Social Interactions in Public Places
277
cance and becomes place through its link to human activity.
We are located in space, but we act in place. Our shared understanding of the
physical world helps people in presenting and interpreting activity and behaviour
(Harrison and Dourish
1996
). The physical and social layers of a space form the
context of interaction for its inhabitants, intimately connected to their activities
(Donath
1996
). Accumulated experience helps people to identify with a place and
in turn gain an understanding of what is going on in that place. Understanding the
context of social interactions is an important part of designing ubiquitous
computing that delivers information to people in the places and activities of their
daily life (Agre
2001
).
2.2. Technology in place
Architectural ideas about the nature of place are being challenged as commu-
nication and computation devices begin to saturate the built environment
(Rheingold
2003
). Ubiquitous computing is breaking down the traditional mapping
between activities and place, allowing people to participate in social interactions
that are no longer tied to their current location by supporting continual presence in
every place (Agre
2001
). For example, cafés become corporate meeting rooms as
users deal with business calls over lunch, without any changes to the physical
fabric of a place. Technology is uncoupling the close relationship between
activities and place previously imposed by architectural design allowing social
interactions to extend beyond a person
s current physical location. Places no longer
ne appropriate activities by their physical design alone: now every place can be
for everything, all of the time (Agre
2001
;Mitchell
2003
).
Understanding how to design ubiquitous computing that meshes with human
behaviour and the properties of place that structure human interaction is
immensely important (Ciol
2004
; Erickson
1993
). People who are digitally
connected to each other and to the elements of the city use that technology to
deliver information that is
, to guide them to
where they want to go and inform them about possible activities. This digital
layer not only helps to structure our social interactions, but also provides a social
medium for facilitating and enriching every day interactions between individuals
(Erickson
1993
).
Mobile services are increasingly becoming a part of the way we operate in
urban places. Context-aware mobile information systems provide access to
contextually adapted information and can foster social connections by sensing
and responding to groups of co-located people in a place. In essence, they are
connected to and respond to the place in which they are operating. The design of
context-aware mobile information systems covers a broad spectrum of application
areas, many of these mobile information systems involve the user being situated
“
just in time
”
and
“
just in place
”
occur there (Gaver
1996
). Physical space plays a constructive as well as a recep-
tive role in shaping social interaction in urban places (Hillier and Netto
2002
).
Space is given signi
’
de
278
J. Paay and J. Kjeldskov
in urban public places, and yet only a few have investigated the challenges
imposed and the opportunities offered through a grounded understanding of the
relationship between activity and place.
can provide designers with a sense of the
meaning associated with user activities, knowledge about what they actually do in
a particular situation, and an understanding of people
’
“
everyday action
”
’
s experience of place. As
understanding the dynamics of interaction in a space
can help us design more effective systems in responding to behaviour and to
changes in the environment.
(2004
, p. 39) says,
“
”
McCullough (
2004
) approaches this problem with the idea of using typology
(the study of recurrent forms) as a design philosophy to provide types of
everyday situations as a way of abstracting an understanding of the in
uence of
place on interaction. Using typology as a design philosophy provides a
framework for creativity, allowing design to be based on themes rather than
arbitrary innovation. It acknowledges existing living patterns of an inhabited
place and helps designers of digital technology to recognise situated interactions
and make technology a simpler, more adaptive and more social part of those
interactions. McCullough asserts that place becomes recon
gured by ubiquitous
computing not replaced by it, and that technology then extends the living patterns
of that place. This approach to information technology design focuses on the need to
understand how people interact in place. Gaining that understanding can be used to
facilitate human-centred design of mobile services for fostering social connections.
A rudimentary typology of 30 everyday situations that may be transformed by
technologies is proposed by McCullough (
2004
). This typology classi
es
situational types, grouped to re
ect the following categories of place: workplace,
of
commuting and travel. By using this typology as an analytical lens in this study,
the concept of place becomes an organising theme for the data collected. This
also limits the focus of the
“
third place
”
for conviviality, and the
“
fourth place
”
eldwork to a manageable range of recognisable
situations, allowing for design variations to bene
t from being based on a few
appropriate themes (McCullough). As derived from McCullough, the situated
interactions associated with places for conviviality, that is, being out
on the
are: places for socializing, places to meet, places for seeing and being seen,
places for insiders, places for recreational retailing, places for embodied play,
places for cultural productions, and places for ritual.
”
3. Field study: people socialising in a public place
Exploring the interplay between people, activity and place, we conducted an
empirical
eld study of situated social interactions in the city. This study
2.3. Interactions in place
Studying people
s
Ciol
dwelling place, the
“
town
Understanding Situated Social Interactions in Public Places
279
investigated the use of McCullough
s(
2004
) typology of
“
on the town
”
everyday
eldwork for informing interaction design of a mobile
information system for a public place. The
eld study took place at Federation
Square, Melbourne, Australia (Figure
1
). Federation Square is a new civic
structure covering an entire city block, providing the people of Melbourne with
places for a variety of activities including restaurants, cafés, bars, a museum,
galleries, cinemas, retail shops and several public forums.
eld study was conducted on location at Federation Square using the rapid
ethnography method (Millen
2000
). McCullough
s(
2004
) typology focused the
eldwork by suggesting places for
observations, and contextual interviews (Beyer and Holtzblatt
1998
) facilitated
interactive observation. Three different established social groups participated in
the study as key informants. Each group consisted of three young urban people,
mixed gender, between the ages of 20 and 35, who had a shared history of
socialising at Federation Square. Each group met at Federation Square where they
were not given any speci
c tasks but were asked to simply undertake the same
Figure 1
. Federation Square, Melbourne, Australia, with surrounding skyline and river.
’
situations to guide
3.1. Participants, procedure and data collection
The
’
research scope at the beginning of the
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