Edinburgh Napier University

  Urban Interaction Design addresses the question of how we, as physical beings, will interact with the technologically augmented, data-rich urban environments that increasingly characterize cities. As an emergent field very little analysis has been conducted so far from the point of view of the Industry on this topic. In the present work we describe the Industry landscape, briefly introducing the current design approaches to the Smart Cities and discussing the need for a new wave. Moreover we present the results of a survey we conducted making direct contact to over 100 experts worldwide, aimed at assessing their opinion on the introduction of Interaction Design for innovating the urban context. The outcome represents the first to our knowledge market analysis of this field, covering challenges and opportunities, and describing the most successful best cases already drawing upon it.