Urban Computing in Theory and Practice: Towards a
Transdisciplinary Approach
1
Hannu Kukka1, Johanna Ylipulli1, Anna Luusua2, Anind K. Dey3
University of Oulu, Department of Computer Science and Engineering
{firstname}.{lastname}@ee.oulu.fi
2
University of Oulu, Faculty of Architecture
{firstname}.{lastname}@oulu.fi
3
Carnegie Mellon University, HCI Institute
[email protected]
ABSTRACT
embedded into our everyday lived environments have the
potential to alter the meanings of physical space, and affect
the activities performed in those spaces. The common
characteristic of these spaces is that they are public and
shared – spaces that people in general have access to, as
opposed to private or semi-public spaces such as office
buildings or university campuses.
In this paper we present a multi-themed discussion on urban
computing. We call for a more transdisciplinary approach
to the field, and point out that urban computing systems are
always necessarily an amalgamation of three interrelated
components – space, people, and technology. Because of
these three elements, we argue that computer scientists
cannot expect to stand alone and create systems that would
respect the complex and messy sociocultural context in
which these technologies operate. It is only through a
deeper understanding of the existing social, cultural, and
political contexts that we can hope to build deployments
that respect and enhance the experience of living a
technologically mediated life, and this understanding can
only be achieved by including researchers from the social
sciences as well as architecture and urban design. We will
conclude by presenting our vision for a more
transdisciplinary approach to urban computing.
Researchers have previously drawn attention to the fact that
much of urban computing research views cities as quite
similar in terms of infrastructures and capital investments,
especially with “world cities” such as New York, Tokyo
and London but not Kuala Lumpur, Sao Paolo or Detroit
[16, 17, 59]. The same goes for the specific urban spaces
found within these cities – outdoor markets, walking streets,
shopping malls, and other shared urban spaces located in
any city in the world are viewed as representative of other
such locations, anywhere in the world. This has led many of
those who practice urban computing to treat these spaces as
interchangeable. However, as we will discuss, these spaces
are neither interchangeable nor are they without specific
cultural meaning – and we should not ignore the very local
and culturally specific characteristics of the location in
which a specific urban computing system is deployed.
Similarly, people in these spaces are not interchangeable,
and should not be treated as “averages” that implicitly
would represent any people, anywhere in the world.
Author Keywords
Urban computing; ubiquitous computing; transdisciplinary
research; science and technology studies; place; space.
ACM Classification Keywords
H5.m. Information interfaces and presentation (e.g., HCI):
Miscellaneous
INTRODUCTION
Urban computing, defined as “the integration of computing,
sensing, and actuation technologies into everyday urban
settings and lifestyles” [27, 49], is a research field, which
considers the use of ubiquitous computing technologies in
urban environments. The impact of computational culture
on cities, buildings, and spaces drives with it innumerable
kinds of change [20], Urban computing technologies
In this paper, we present a multi-themed discussion of the
various important aspects that make up the, at times, messy
and certainly transdisciplinary field of urban computing.
We position our discourse around the following arguments:
1. A more transdisciplinary approach to the design and
evaluation of urban computing systems is required in order
for us to understand these systems as holistic, organic and
evolving constructs that necessarily include three
interrelated components: the built environment, the people
inhabiting the environment, and technologies built into the
environment (see e.g. [19]). We argue that a large
methodological and theoretical gap exists in much of
current literature – or, put in another way, the
methodological, theoretical and practical contributions of
relevant fields of study such as computer science,
architecture and design, and social sciences do not meet in a
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2639189.2639250
658
meaningful way to build a solid basis for urban computing
research.
off-the-shelf components were used in building the urban
testbed.
2. Smart cities are primarily built for people – the human
inhabitants of these urban spaces – and as such it is the
human element that we need to concern ourselves with. We
discuss how the sociocultural processes of meaning making
build up the technological experience [14] of encountering
and living with urban computing systems. From this point
of view, embedding technologies into any environment
where humans are present without first understanding the
existing sociocultural structures of that environment leaves
many of the fundamental issues underlying the
technological intervention unaddressed. We argue that the
technologies we design, build and deploy in shared urban
spaces need to be designed to also accommodate for the less
technical members of the community – and, indeed, in
collaboration with all kinds of members of the community.
Our starting premise is that we as researchers must move
towards a truly transdisciplinary approach to the field.
Here, following Nicolescu [42], we use the term
transdisciplinarity to signify the positioning of urban
computing research at once between different disciplines,
across these disciplines, and beyond all discipline. The term
differs from the related concepts of multidisciplinarity,
where a topic is studied by several disciplines that are in
service of a “home” discipline, and interdisciplinarity,
where methods from one discipline are transferred to
another. Rheingold [26] has described transdisciplinary
research as going “beyond bringing together researchers
from different disciplines to work in multidisciplinary
teams. It means educating researchers who can speak the
languages of multiple disciplines.”
The over-arching message we wish to convey here is that
we, especially the urban computing researchers with
primary background in computer science, should re-think
the issues within today’s common practices around
designing and deploying urban computing research works.
In essence, this paper asserts two key values which should
be centered and respected before and while conducting
urban computing research - (1) “specificity” in terms of
place, culture, and people for every instance of urban
computing research instead of pursuit of generality and
reproducibility as in many scientific disciplines, and (2)
true “democracy” across the members of urban computing
research
teams
with
heterogeneous
disciplinary
backgrounds, leading to a transdisciplinary approach.
We will begin our discussion by exploring concepts related
to spatiality – the “smart city”, and the spaces and places it
contains. We will look at what it means for a space to
become a meaningful place, and what are some of the
relevant place building activities people perform to give
meaning to generic urban spaces. We will then move on to
the social dimension of urban computing, and discuss how
new technologies placed in everyday lived environments
have the potential to both affect existing cultural practices,
and create new ones. Then, using the theoretical framing
presented in the previous sections, we will move on to the
concepts of “user” and “non-user” of urban computing
technologies, and through this discussion demonstrate how
urban computing deployments tend to be targeted to a
specific user population, despite the implicit goal of
designing for “everybody”. Finally, we will present our
vision of a more democratic and transdisciplinary way of
carrying out urban computing research that is built on the
three main elements discussed earlier.
Breaking the aforementioned message down, we will point
out that in order for urban computing to move forward as a
field and for researchers to begin carrying out such
transdisciplinary investigations, we must first understand
who it is we are designing for and, also, who are we leaving
out; we need to understand e.g., information needs of the
potential users [31], as well as attitudes and values [62] of
both users and non-users [53, 54]. We must also understand
and address the design practices of urban technologies [56].
Further, we must understand where we are designing for,
i.e., the built environment, in order to navigate the complex
rules and roles different spaces impose on both the people
in those spaces, and the technologies we add to them [32].
Finally, we must of course also understand the technology
because without it, we would not have “smart” cities. Here,
by “technology”, we understand mostly the applications /
services layer in the technological verticality. This is
because we, as researchers, are quite often limited to
working with existing technological infrastructures – there
are only a few projects where researchers have deployed
new infrastructures in public urban locations for extended
periods of time. The one notable exception to this is our
UBI Oulu initiative [43] in Finland, but even here mostly
RE-PLACING URBAN COMPUTING
Anne Galloway has noted that with the advent of urban
computing research, the discursive construction of
ubiquitous computing as “everywhere” has shifted through
a relocation of these technologies “somewhere”, and has
thus also stressed active engagement with new technologies
to create more meaningful relations with the people, places,
and objects that surround us [21. In other words, new
technologies built into the very fabric of our everyday lived
environments have the potential to create new meanings,
allow new sociocultural practices to form, and alter existing
practices through technologically mediated living. Of
course this is a reciprocal relationship – technology may
affect places and people, but both of these may, in turn,
affect and re-appropriate technology.
Shifting the view of urban computing research from being
situated anywhere to understanding each system as socioculturally situated entity always located somewhere has
many implications for research. As Ulrik Ekman [18] puts
659
it, we need to focus on “the philosophical, sociocultural,
aesthetic, and artistic implications of a computing that is
well on the way toward operating infinitely close to human
culture and our life form”. In other words, looking at urban
computing from a phenomenological point-of-view, we
must shift our focus from the strong “doing-in-the-world”
perspective the field has traditionally followed, to an
embodied “being-in-the-world” perspective [49], and
consider the temporal, spatial and social aspects of
technology and technology use rather than simply viewing
it as a “thing in itself” [9].
the display”. While this description gives the reader
several facts – the window size, the fact that it is near
public transportation terminals, etc. – it says nothing about
the specific sociocultural context in which the deployment
is situated.
Following Williams et al. [58], we echo the argument that
much of urban computing research views “cities” as generic
constructs instead of specific culturally, politically and
geographically situated entities with distinct identities and
characteristics. Understanding the human experience of the
built environment can help provide a basis for
understanding the context of activities within that space,
and thus help guide designers in building links between
people’s activities, their environment, and the social context
in which they currently operate. Hence, in order to build
systems that fit well within their physical and social
contexts, we need a deeper understanding of these contexts
and their interrelationships both from a theoretical and
practical point of view – in other words, we must situate the
technology.
Situating Technology: From Anywhere to Somewhere
Space and place are key concepts in urban computing [17,
23]; however, as these terms are often used interchangeably
in everyday circumstances, we must take care to specify
what we mean by them. Harrison and Dourish [23] have
expressed the difference between the terms in the following
manner: “Space refers to the structural and geometrical
qualities of a physical environment, while place includes
dimensions of lived experience, interaction and use of
space.” Urban computing, then, views places as settings for
social protocols, conventions, and values, as well as means
for shaping our shared conception of community and
individual concept of identity [30, 48]. In a later essay,
Dourish [17] amended his view on space and place, noting
that space and place are not “stacked” on top of one another
in a “layer-cake” model [28] but are rather related in several
complex ways making them a product of political,
organizational, economic and historical practices. Massey
[35] has described places as “articulated moments in
networks of social relations”, again highlighting the
complex relationship of physical spaces, existing cultural
practices, and social relationships between people in these
spaces.
Cultural context differs both globally and locally, and in
addition to recognizing that Tokyo is not the same as
Helsinki, we need to go down deeper – Harajuku is not the
same as Punavuori, as within cities, two neighborhoods are
not interchangeable. We also need to recognize that local
places within a neighborhood are not interchangeable
containers of “test users” – a library is not the same as a
shopping mall, and an outdoor market is not the same as an
airport. We argue that urban computing systems cannot be
viewed as placed anywhere – they are always situated in a
certain specific cultural, political, social, and geographical
context, i.e., somewhere. In order to understand these
systems as situated entities, we must also understand how a
generic space becomes a meaningful place, and how the
addition of new technologies to existing places can affect
the cultural meanings and values attached to them. A good
example of situated urban computing research can be found
in [4], where the researchers first conducted extensive
ethnographic work in a very specific place – the London
underground – to understand the pre-existing sociocultural
values and activities, and used this knowledge to inform the
design of their prototype.
Despite the centrality of the idea that urban computing
systems are always situated in a certain place, the
situatedness of technologies in space and place are often
overlooked both in the design and analysis of these systems.
Spaces and places are effectively physical locations in
which social activities occur, yet the details which
constitute physical and social contexts are not well
understood, at least in a way that would help inform the
design of new ubiquitous computing technologies [46, 47].
The cultural, political, and social context of space/place are
not seen as important considerations when discussing or
describing an urban computing deployment, but are rather
explained away by high-level characterizations (see e.g.,
[25, 39]).
In practice, our point here is that since urban computing
systems are always situated culturally, politically and
geographically, we should not expect the place and people
to be interchangeable. As discussed earlier, an urban
computing system is an amalgamation of the location in
which it is situated, the people living with it, and the
technology itself. Out of these, only the technology can be
replicated, but we can hardly expect the exact same results
when 2 out of 3 aspects of the actual system are different.
For example, when describing the well-known CityWall
deployment in Helsinki, Finland, Peltonen et al. [50]
explain that their display is located “in a central location in
Helsinki […] The site was a 2.5-meter-wide shop window
next to a café located between the main bus and train
stations. The two stations are used by 400 000 passengers
each day, and there is a great deal of pedestrian traffic past
Despite our focus on the situated technologies view on
urban computing, there are a number of applications that
can be described as urban computing systems that do not
rely on any specific location, but instead utilize population
660
density and personal proximity as their main premise. With
the proliferation of smart phones, apps such as Uber,
Tinder, Grindr, Airbnb, etc., have introduced novel ways
for urbanites to connect, communicate, and share resources
with each other on a city-wide scale. In this paper, however,
we will mostly focus on situated systems and the
relationship between place-making and technology.
technologies in public spaces. These performances can be
understood to add to the sociological and cultural milieu in
which the performance acquires its meaning and cultural
significance. Hence, place building includes an intricate
interplay between the space and the interaction with and
between people and technology, and extends it with cultural
dimensions, making it a useful addition to the tools that can
be applied when considering the deployment of a
technology in a given public setting [41].
Making Places: Situating Technology
An urban computing deployment should not start with the
technology – that is, the actual technical system should not
be the starting point for any urban computing project.
Putting the technology first can lead to a situation where a
prototype/system is developed in a lab, and a location for
testing it is then selected post-hoc. This in turn can
potentially lead to deploying wrong technology in the
wrong place, and instead of complementing and
augmenting the existing cultural practices and human
activities in that place, the technology may clash with them
and thus cause people to either ignore the deployment, or
even resent it (see e.g., [29]).
In order for a space to become a meaningful place, it must
be defined in relation to a wide variety of social, material,
and cultural entities. Dourish and Bell [16] note that spaces
are never neutral, and their interpretive structure frames the
encounter with urban computing technologies. Similarly,
the opportunities afforded by these new technologies allow
for a re-interpretation and re-encountering with the meaning
of space for its inhabitants, effectively making the
experience of space coextensive with the cultural practice
of everyday life. The transformation of space through the
introduction of novel computing artifacts must then be seen
in this context; the technologies transform the ‘cultural
work’ being done in space, but also become sites of cultural
production themselves. It is this cultural understanding that
then provides a frame for encountering space as a
meaningful and coherent place, and relating it to human
activities.
Hence, understanding the existing human activities, cultural
practices, and the holistic nature of a given place should be
the starting off point for an urban computing deployment.
McCullough has previously called for a “focus on habits
rather than novelties, on people rather than machines, and
on the richness of existing place rather than inventions
from thin air." [38]. In other words, we need to first explore
and understand the place in which the deployment is to
happen, understand the people and their activities in that
location, and then design a system that will support these
activities and fit the selected location – to understand the
situatedness of these technologies. To accomplish this, we
will explore theories of how space is given meaning and
place is created.
However, in addition to the re-interpretation and reencountering of the meaning of space for the people
suggested by Dourish and Bell, we must also be mindful of
the reciprocal relationship between space and technology:
Technology may allow people to re-interpret and reencounter a space by shifting and changing the existing
meanings given to the space, but it may also impart this
change on people. People use clues found in the
environment to interpret the meaning of space, and this
interpretation can be affected by changing these clues [10].
For example, consider how the friendly clerk at a local bank
who always had time to exchange a few words with the
customer created a comfortable and relaxed atmosphere.
When the clerk is replaced by an automated teller machine,
the nature of that place shifts to a busy, efficient, and
impersonal corporate setting where people line up, interact
with the machine, and leave without exchanging a word.
The nature of the place was certainly changed, and this
change was brought on by the introduction of new
technology. Hence, we suggest that it is important to
understand and respect the cultural practices and human
activities that exist in a place selected for new technology
deployment. Technology should be used to support these
practices and activities rather than clash with them, or
attempt to introduce new activities that are in conflict with
the nature of the place.
For anthropologists and for other social researchers, place is
a complex thing created by people’s interactions with each
other and their environment. It comes into existence when
the fluxes of goods, information and people meet and
separate again and when history and memory are
confronted with the present. Place is also always affected
by certain power structures that limit and create
possibilities, and it is within this framework that people
give meanings to spaces, making them places.
Motta et al. [41] note that place building activities people
employ in their everyday life are highly varied, and are as
much about appropriation as they are about the negotiation
and control of space when interacting with other people.
Miller [40] describes place building as an intellectual,
symbolic and material practice that not only enables the
production of a sense of place, but also promotes “the
human capacity to expand worlds towards other potentially
distant horizons and more complex outcomes of life”.
Further, Motta et al. argue that place-building practices
through situated technologies also involve an element of
performance, which people enact when interacting with
Elaborating on the issue of technologies supporting existing
practices and activities in a given space, some researchers
have talked about the difficulties of getting people to
661
interact with their public deployments, even framing it as a
“battle” [2, 6]. We would point out that if a technology is
designed to respect and add to the existing human activities
that occur in a given place, inviting interaction should not
be a “battle” but something that will occur naturally. When
the technology and the existing cultural practices clash,
inviting interaction becomes a battle – and when they
harmoniously support each other, the technology becomes a
natural addition to these practices and there is no need for a
battle – a good example of which is found in [41].
to understand technology not just as a tool but rather as an
integral part of everyday processes and activities. Applied
to urban computing, this concept allows us to shift our
focus from viewing embedded technologies in everyday
lived environments as simple networked objects [22], to
understanding them as part of diverse procedures or
performances loaded with more meaning than simple
technical operation or the completion of a given, specific
task. Put another way, we must begin to understand urban
computing artifacts as inherently social entities that both
affect and are affected by the sociocultural meanings people
assign them through processes such as adaptation,
domestication, and (re-)appropriation.
A simple contrary example can be found in a recent article
by Memarovic et al. [39]. When discussing their urban
computing deployment in the city of Oulu, in Finland, the
authors explain that their mobile application, designed for
Android phones, was not used much because “people
mostly owned [Nokia] phones running Symbian, and more
recently Windows Mobile”. However, Nokia has always
been culturally very significant to the Finns, because it is a
Finnish company, and particularly for the people of Oulu
since, until recently, much R&D for Nokia phones took
place there. People take pride in owning Nokia devices.
Understanding this cultural fact might have persuaded the
designers to implement their application for Nokia phones
instead of Android, and thus their system might have been
accepted and used more extensively.
The point we wish to make here is that the current strong
technological focus in the field of urban computing has a
major impact on the way we interpret these technologies;
that is, as if they somehow existed in a vacuum, apart from
the context in which they operate. As a consequence, our
understanding of the societal impacts of these technologies
remains incomplete and, as mentioned before, we may end
up in a situation where we are actually deploying the wrong
technologies in wrong places, thus causing a clash between
the existing sociocultural practices and the new technology.
This is why a more reflective approach should be adopted;
we should recognize our own subjectivity and limitations
when designing and evaluating new urban technologies, and
always reflect on our own decisions and practices.
Technologies are always situated, but so is our knowledge.
This, we maintain, is why understanding the existing
sociocultural practices and the nature of a place are so
important when building urban computing systems, and
why involving experts from the fields of architecture and
social sciences in the process is so crucial – it is through
this understanding that we are able to design and deploy the
right technology in the right place instead of deploying
some technology, somewhere.
On the (Coming of) Age of Ubiquitous Computing
A starting premise for our discourse presented here is that
the era of ubiquitous computing is already here. It is no
longer a vision of a proxemic technological future (a time
always just around the corner, but never quite in reach) [5],
but rather a lived reality. Today, in developed urban areas,
computing resources surround us continuously, and with
modern-day social networking services, the boundaries
between physical, virtual and social have blurred to the
point of disappearing; a person can be sitting in a coffee
shop, attending an international business meeting, and
socializing with his/her spouse, all at the same time.
RE-INTERPRETING URBAN COMPUTING
In our interpretation, a vast majority of work done in the
field of urban computing asks “how do we do urban
computing?” – that is, approaches the field through a focus
typical for an applied science with a very technological
standpoint and a strong push towards building new systems
– one prototype after another [57]. However, we suggest
that it is equally – if not more – important to ask: “what
does it mean to do urban computing?” – that is, to also
understand and reflect on these systems as a sociocultural
product and part of certain cultural, historical and political
contexts.
The augmented environment thus has potential to become a
stimulating, enticing, and rich force where the subject’s
emotional and cognitive engagement with it is characterized
by intensity, and where “mediated experience” is quickly
becoming a second nature to many [7] – or a terrifying
maze of incomprehensible technologies, inaccessible and
confusing to those without the required technical skills and
devices to operate in these environments. We wish to
emphasize that we are not making a value statement here –
that living an augmented life of “mediated experience”
would necessarily be somehow “better”. However, the
reality is that technology is increasingly pervading our lived
environments, and especially in high-density urban settings
leading an “analogue” life is becoming difficult. This is
why it is important to also reflect on the concept of “user”
Towards More Reflective Urban Computing
Technical innovation has been considered as a cultural
practice and explored within social studies of science and
technology (see e.g., [33, 55]). However, the problem of
relating these theories to technology design and everyday
life persists [22]. Mackenzie [36] introduced the term
‘transduction’ to describe a way of thinking about
technologies as a series of events rather than objects, and to
refocus investigations towards non-representational
understandings of technological practice – in other words,
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of urban computing systems. As these systems live in the
public domain, all human inhabitants of these shared urban
spaces necessarily share them but, as we will point out next,
the concept of “user” becomes a moving target that should
be explored in more detail.
Wyatt [61] urges us to distinguish between ‘real users’ in
the ‘real world’ and the images of those users and their
relationships held by designers, engineers, and other sorts
of system builders. Simon Penny [49] notes that the actual
term ‘human factors’ speaks volumes about the
‘engineering mindset’ in computer sciences where the
qualities of human embodiment and experience are reduced
to mere peripheral ‘implementation details’, and Bannon [3]
points out that the very idea of “the user” reconfigures a
multifaceted human being as an adjunct to a piece of
hardware or software.
RE-ENCOUNTERING URBAN COMPUTING
Urban computing researchers often have a tendency to treat
people as homogeneous groups of “users” divided into
manageable categories such as “young adults”, “elder
people” or “visitors” with a strong focus on “young urban
professionals” as the desired or imagined user of urban
computing systems [13, 15, 59]. Marsden et al. have
previously pointed out that these “averages” are of limited
use for design [37], and Oudshoorn and Pinch [44] have
remarked that the “very act of identifying specific
individuals or groups as users may facilitate or constrain
the actual role groups of users are allowed to play in
shaping the development and use of technologies”.
Dourish et al. [16] note that with ubiquitous computing
systems in urban environments, many design efforts focus
their attention on young, affluent city residents, with
disposable income, a penchant for gadgets, and
discretionary mobility. Following Rogers [51], we use the
term technological aristocracy to refer to the people with
the right set of skills, devices and interests to live a truly
augmented life. Rogers compares this group of people to
the aristocracy of Victorian England, with a raft of
(technological) servants at their beck and call, ready to
satisfy their every want and need.
Hence, as we will discuss next, the whole concept of “user”
is a difficult one especially with urban computing systems.
With more “traditional” computing systems meant for e.g.,
office or production environments, identifying the “user” is
much easier – these systems are built for a specific purpose,
to be used by people whose job it is to accomplish certain
tasks. The “user” is known, and people can be trained to
use the new system. With urban computing the situation is
different. People from all walks of life serendipitously
encounter urban computing artifacts, and most often will
not have received any type of training in their purpose or
use. They are required to determine what the particular
system is for, make a decision to actively engage with the
system, and learn to use it on the spot, often in a stressful
public setting. The implicit notion designers often have is
that their system is meant for everybody – when in fact they
are actually designing for an idealized user who represents
the designer in both skills and interest. This is called the Imethodology, and we will return to the concept a bit later –
but first we will discuss the underlying concept of “user” in
more detail.
Foth et al. [19] note that “the main challenge to bring about
significant changes in societies is to ensure equal access to
technologies and associated literacy skills.” We heartily
second this statement, and point out that in order to move
beyond the current status quo and understand
technologically mediated urban life not only from the pointof-view of the technological aristocracy but as a whole, it is
important to also take what Susan Leigh Star has called
‘non-standard users of information technologies’ [52] – a
term used to highlight the differences in power relations
among the multiple actors involved in the development and
usage of technology – into consideration.
The vision of urban computing called for the computer to
live in the physical world with humans, and now that it
does, people get exposed to these technologies whether they
want to or not, thus making non-technical people
effectively (unknowing) victims of these technologies [44].
Adele Clarke refers to this group as implicated actors,
“those silent or not present but affected by the action” [12].
She further divides the implicated actors group into two
categories: “those not physically present but who are
discursively constructed and targeted by others” and “those
who are physically present but who are generally
silenced/ignored/made invisible by those in power” [11].
Computing Everywhere – Just not for Everyone
The word ubiquitous comes from the Latin word ubique
meaning everywhere - but there are no connotations to the
word that whatever is ubique would also be omnes - for
everyone. If we maintain the assumption that ubiquitous
computing is a modern-day reality instead of a revolution
looming in ‘proxemic future’ [5] and accept the fact that
computing is already ubique but not omnes - everywhere
but not for everyone - we must ask ourselves: who are the
users we are designing for.
Satchell and Dourish [53] identify six forms of non-use:
lagging adoption, active resistance, disenchantment,
disenfranchisement,
displacement,
and
disinterest.
Similarly, Wyatt [60] identifies four categories of such nonusers: resisters (people who have never used a certain
technology because they do not want to), rejectors (people
who do not use a given technology anymore because of lack
of interest or due to cost, or because they have alternatives),
the excluded (people who have never used a technology
In accordance with Dourish and Mainwaring who have
argued to ban the term “user” entirely, we conscientiously
surround the word with quotation marks to signify that the
entire term “user” (or “non-user”) automatically positions a
person with respect to “our technology” or “our service”,
instead of looking at that person’s own concerns [13]. Sally
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because they cannot for a variety of reasons), and the
expelled (people who have stopped using the technology
involuntarily because of cost or the loss of access). We
would add another sub-category to the excluded, namely
neglected users; people who might be interested in using a
certain technology but are not aware of the possibility, or
do not have the right tools or skills to do so.
different image.” [24]. New technologies can —and will—
alter the existing hierarchies and rules, and therefore their
possible effects, both good and bad, should be considered
carefully [10, 32].
This discussion should point to an important if often
overlooked fact: more often than not, the imagined user of
urban computing systems is portrayed as “everybody”
instead of “somebody”. This, as we will discuss next, leads
to a situation where the individual is lost in favor of an
“everybody user” who is in fact an idealized personification
with certain specific skills and interests, and represents the
designer more than an actual user.
While Clarke writes from a feminist sociologist point of
view, these characterizations reflect the situation with urban
computing and it’s “(non-)users” as well. Those in power,
the designers of urban computing systems, have a tendency
to silence/ignore/make invisible those who are ‘not in
scope’ of, or ‘down with’, the new technology
developments – or this might happen despite the designers’
best intentions. As an example, in an early “digital city”
project in Amsterdam [45], the designers of the digital city
first decided to include public access terminals in several
urban locations including a café, the city hall, a library and
a senior citizens home in order to ensure democratic access
to their service. However, the terminals were removed some
time later, mainly because the owners of these spaces
complained about the terminals and the people they
attracted: “they sat there for hours without ordering
anything”; “they gave a tramp-image”; and “they made the
surroundings look untidy”.
The ‘Everybody’ User
Looking at the majority of work performed in the fields of
ubiquitous and especially urban computing, the “user” of
these systems is more often than not framed as “everybody”
– with the underlying assumptions discussed earlier, where
“everybody” actually includes people with the right skills,
interests and technologies to become “users”. In their
discussion, Oudshoorn et al. [45] point out that despite the
goals of designing for “everybody”, the “everybody user” is
often lost along the way as designers (due to several
reasons, conscious and/or unconscious) revert to using the
I-methodology, where the designer creates a user who
actually represents the designer in skills and interests.
Akrich [1] describes the I-methodology as the “reliance on
personal experience, whereby the designer replaces his
professional hat by that of the layman”. An illustrative
example can be found in Memarovic et al. [39], where the
authors demonstrate their (unconscious) use of the Imethodology and their portrayal of the “user” as everybody:
This is well in line with Law and Bijker [34], who note that
technological artifacts always contain implicit models of
their intended users, including certain rules about the
expected activities to be performed, resources to
accomplish those activities, and assumptions about user
characteristics [8]. However, as we see from the case of the
digital city in Amsterdam, the issue is not quite as simple as
that, and the characteristics of e.g., a certain physical space
may also contain such implicit (or explicit) models of their
intended users. If the expectations of the “user” of the
physical space and the “user” of the urban computing
system do not meet, as in the example, a conflict arises and
can only be solved by either i) modifying the “user” model
of the space; or ii) modifying the “user” model of the
system. In the case of the digital city the conflict resulted in
the system being removed from the space, and with it the
unwelcome types of people.
“Yet, for a general audience, textual descriptions or explicit
help buttons might be required. As a solution we tried to
use a QR code […], which featured a surrounding text
‘Take this fun fact with you’. Apart from the QR code itself,
no other explanation […] was offered as we assumed that
users would be familiar with the codes. However, most
users ended up trying to click on the code” (emphasis ours).
As we can see from the discussion above, the “everybody
user” is often a misconception – an ideal yet elusive
personification of a user who represents the designer in
skills, interests, and access to / willingness to use
technology. We call this approach into question, and would
challenge researchers and practitioners to reconsider
framing their work in such general terms. Who was the
system really developed for, and why was this group of
people selected? What implications does this selection have
on the results – and would the results truly generalize to all
people, everywhere? Instead of portraying “users” as
averages and composites, could we actually learn more of
the complex amalgamation of place, people and technology
by focusing on the individual – somebody – rather than an
anonymous composite person made up of a number of
people falling into a given demographic category, and on a
specific place rather than a random space? We argue that
Thus, we need to consider also the power dynamics and
hierarchies that define people’s behavior in public urban
spaces [22]. Sociocultural, sometimes very local, rules
determine how we are supposed to behave in relation to
public installations but also in relation to other people; what
kind of actions we are allowed to take; who is welcomed in
public places and who is not; this is something David
Harvey has called ‘the right to the city’. He writes: “...but
new rights can also be defined: like the right to the city
which is not merely a right of access to what the property
speculators and state planners define, but an active right to
make the city different, to shape it more in accord with our
heart's desire, and to re-make ourselves thereby in a
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this is indeed the case, and that in order for us to reach such
an understanding, researchers must work together over
disciplinary borders and contribute their expertise in a
democratic way. This will not happen by a single researcher
or a group of researchers from the same background
borrowing methods from other disciplines, but through true
transdisciplinary collaboration.
of computing, sensing and actuation technologies into
everyday urban settings and lifestyles”.
Our suggestion for a new definition is: “Urban computing
is the amalgamation of cultural practices, everyday
activities, and implicit values of specific people situated in
a unique urban location that is defined both in terms of
architectural qualities and cultural meanings. These are
augmented by one or more technological systems that
respect and support the aforementioned practices and
activities in a non-intrusive way that enhances rather than
redefines that given location”.
RE-IMAGINING URBAN COMPUTING
As often highlighted in the previous sections, urban
computing, by its very nature, is not a purely engineering
subject. Unlike other “hard” sciences where researchers
strive to minimize external effects such as location, time of
day, season of the year, etc. on their experiment in favor of
a stable, predictable and controllable laboratory setting,
urban computing deals with the messiness of everyday life
on a day-to-day basis. Therefore we cannot expect
laboratory-like control and predictability when working in
such highly public, at times chaotic environments. Further,
as we have stressed previously, urban computing operates
at the intersection of places, people, and technologies, and
this complexity clearly illustrates the need for experts from
various fields collaborating in a meaningful and democratic
manner.
To conduct urban computing research as imagined in the
proposed definition, it becomes crucial to understand a
given deployment as a whole – that is, encompassing all the
elements mentioned before, situated in a unique context and
used by unique people. Research must not start from a
particular technology but rather from a given place, located
in an architecturally specific built space and in a
geographically located specific cultural setting. We must
look at the people inhabiting that space, and understand the
meanings they give that space to make it a meaningful
place. We must observe the activities people perform, and
consider the effect any technological deployment will have
on those activities and the sociocultural meanings
associated with it. Then, and only then, should we start
designing the technological intervention, keeping in mind
who it is we are actually designing for, and what it means
for the people we are not designing for to continue
inhabiting the to-be-augmented environment – that is, to be
mindful of our users and non-users alike, and not attempt to
design for the everybody user.
The triad of place, people, and technology is certainly not
new, and has been suggested as a research nexus for
instance by Foth et al. [19]. In their discussion, the authors
have opted to use the term urban informatics rather than
urban computing to steer the focus away from technology
and more towards the human element and the softer aspects
of information exchange, communication, and interaction.
The Urban Informatics research group in QUT, Australia, is
a wonderful example of a transdisciplinary undertaking
with a strong focus on issues related to technologically
mediated urban life. Unfortunately, it is one of the few truly
transdisciplinary (or even multidisciplinary) research teams
in this arguably important field of study.
We envision a future where urban computing becomes a
truly transdisciplinary undertaking. In our vision social
scientists, architects, and computer scientists come together
in a meaningful and democratic way, building the right
technology in the right place for the right people. This will
hopefully lead to better understanding of the complex
human-city-technology relationship, and consequently give
people from all walks of life a more democratic possibility
of participating in a technologically meditated life – should
they so choose.
Generally speaking, even in cases where researchers from
different fields collaborate, computer scientists nevertheless
seem to lead the process, make the final design decisions,
disseminate the results, and even apply methods borrowed
from other disciplines. Specialists from other fields, when
involved at all, tend to act as consultants, leading to a
superficial application of these methods. Dourish [17] has
previously discussed the issue of asymmetrical co-operation
practices between ethnography and HCI. Its roots can be, at
least partially, found in the academic and funding
structures: the ones with better resources are the ones
making final decisions. As this hierarchy is caused by
funding decisions and structures, a possible way forwards
would be joint funding applications and projects designed
as transdisciplinary and democratic from the very start.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support
received from the Academy of Finland, Carnegie Mellon
University, and the Urban Interactions Research Program.
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