Edinburgh Napier University

  With the vision of ubiquitous computing becoming increasingly realized, a new technological layer in the form of sensors, urban screens, smartphones and smartwatches is being added to the existing infrastructure of the city. This opens up new possibilities for people to experience, interact with and augment the urban environment. However, how to investigate and understand the triangular relationship between people, technology and the urban environment is an ongoing challenge. Unlike typical smart city projects, this PhD project takes a human-centred, bottom-up design approach. The aim is to identify how people’s personal stories and emotions connected to places in the city that are meaningful to people on a personal level, could potentially inform the design of future technological devices and services. Examples of personally meaningful places could include the place where a person met their partner, or the childhood home where a person grew up.

A mixed methods approach consisting of a combination of evaluative map techniques, Walking & Talking interviews and the measurement of arousal levels will be used to elicit the personal stories and emotions connected to such places in the urban environment. A Critical Design approach will be used to investigate the potential for sharing that data with other people. Design Fictions will be used to create and evaluate innovative concepts for potential future technological devices and services. The expectation is that this PhD project could potentially inform the design of new technological devices and services that enable people to explore and experience the urban environment in novel ways, and improve the emotional and social wellbeing of people living in a city