Mattias Esbjörnsson, Mobility Studio, Interactive Institute, Stockholm: Designing for Social Interaction in Traffic

In this talk I will give a presentation of my thesis work, which concern the study of the social and interactional aspects of road use, beyond what is needed to achieve safe and smooth driving. Based on the understanding of today’s practice among selected groups of road users, we explore how mobile services can be designed and accommodated to fit with the conditions of driving. The different activities of ethnographic fieldwork of mundane road use, design and evaluation of prototype services, all play an important role in pointing out the importance of social interaction in traffic, and provide insights on the design of future services for road users. I will present three ethnographic studies of road use, ranging from salespeople handling their work while driving; infrastructure managers taking care of the roads; to motorcyclists enjoying the company of other bikers while traveling along the roads. The chosen groups can be understood as ‘advanced’ users of mobile services in traffic, and spend a lot of time on the roads for various purposes, ranging from work to leisure and fun.

The specific conditions of road use, such as the speed, the focus on driving, the vast area, the need to be at certain geographical locations, the amount of other road users, or being closed in by the body of the vehicle, etc. are all hampering factors as well as prerequisites for performing work, alternatively social activities, along the roads. We will discuss the road users’ relationships with the roadside passing by, with others far remote, and with road users met along the highway.

The field studies have informed the design of two prototypes: PlaceMemo, developed to facilitate infrastructure management tasks, and Hocman, designed to support the social aspects of motorcycling. These prototypes are designed to fit with the conditions of driving, and they have been brought back and evaluated in their intended setting, i.e. on the roads.

The findings from the field studies, as well as the evaluations, are drawn together to argue that an increased social interaction in traffic is a widespread and appreciated practice. Seeing that road use contains a wide variety of activities other than just driving per se, covering a multitude of different social and interactional aspects, the notion of increased interaction seem to be a promising way to proceed with traffic-related research.

Seminariet hålls på svenska.

Välkomna!
Daniel Skog