Blurring The Lines Between The Digital And Physical:
Designing a user-interface to create the 21st century town square
By
David Humphrey
BDesign, NSCAD University, 2003
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR
THE DEGREE OF
MASTERS OF APPLIED ART
in
Design

EMILY CARR UNIVERSITY OF ART + DESIGN

2008

© David Humphrey, 2008

ABSTRACT

Metaphors are instrumental to facilitate learning, and to the formation and maintenance of
new ideas and concepts, especially in design thinking. This paper discusses the relationship
of a specific metaphor in the design process, as well as in design outcomes of the collaborative
project titled SQWhere. The thesis explores how a town square metaphor functioned as a
creative thinking methodology and research tool throughout the design process. This metaphor
provided novel ways of looking at the complex phenomena of digital social networks and human
agency. Ultimately, this provides a detailed example of how a metaphorical approach to exploring
a concept can guide a user-centered design process in Interaction Design.

SQWhere, a mobile storytelling application for the urban pedestrian will connect people in real
time and real space in environments. The SQWhere application for mobile phones will enable
social interactions and information exchange through location-based storytelling— utilizing video,
audio, images, and text. SQWhere will make connections happen at the grassroots level creating
an environment of peer-to-peer knowledge exchange— storytelling.

Keywords
Interaction design, metaphor, town square, social networking, mobile technologies, locationbased storytelling

2

TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT

………………………………………………………………………………… 2

TABLE OF CONTENTS

…………………………………………………………………….. 3

LIST OF FIGURES ……………………………………………………………………………....... 4
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

…………………………………………………………………….. 5

HARBERMAS QUOTE

…………………………………………………………………….. 6

THE CORE QUESTIONS

…………………………………………………………………….. 7

SCOPE

….…………………………………………………………………………………………. 8

INTRODUCTION …………………………………………………………………….. 9
Project origins
…………………………………………………………………….. 11
Precedent technologies
………………………………………………………… 14
CHALLENGES
…………………………………………………………………….. 16
The digital challenge
…………………………………………………….. 16
The physical challenge
………………………………………………………… 21
METAPHOR
…………………………………………………………………… 23
The basics
…………………………………………………………………….. 23
Metaphor as an acquisition method
………………………………………... 24
Metaphor as a conceptual tool ………………………………………………………… 26
Metaphor to aid explanation ………………………………………………………… 26
Metaphor summary ………………………………………………………………….... 27
TOWN SQUARE …………………………………………………………………….. 28
Historical town squares
………………………………………………………… 28
Town squares as conversation
…………………………………………….. 29
Town squares as a research tool
…………………………………………….. 30
Town square qualities
………………………………………………………… 35
THE APPLICATION
………………………………………………………. 36
Who will use SQWhere?
………………………………………………………… 36
The SQWhere interface
……………………………………………………………. 38
How will SQWhere be used?
……………………………………………………… 40
GOSSIP ………………………………………………………………………………… 46
The role of gossip …………………………………………………………………...... 47
Gossip as a metaphorical device
…………………………………………….. 48
BOUNDARIES
…………………………………………………………………….. 50
The role of boundaries
………………………………………………………… 50
Boundaries as orientation
………………………………………………………… 52
IMPLICATIONS
…………………………………………………………………….. 56
Research and exploration
………………………………………………………… 56
Metaphor and culture
………………………………………………………… 56
CONCLUSION

…………………………………………………………………….. 57

REFERENCES

………………………………………………………………………………… 59

BIBLIOGRAPHY

………………………………………………………………………………… 61

3

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1 - The Mondrian Interface ….…………………………………………………………..
Figure 2 - Ecology of Space

13

….………………………………………………………………… 18

Figure 3 - Metaxis Experience

….…………………………………………………………….. 19

Figure 4 - Piazza San Marco

….……………………………………………………………….. 21

Figure 5 - Historical Town Squares
Figure 6 - PPS Charts

….………………………………………………………... 30

….………………………………………………………………………. 32

Figure 7a – Audience workshop .……………………………………………………………….

37

Figure 7b - SQWhere personae

.……………………………………………………….……… 37

Figure 8 - Interface screen flow

….…………………………………………………………….. 39

Figure 9a - StorySkins

….……………………………………………………………..………..

41

Figure 9b - Urban Classrooms

………………………………………………………………

42

Figure 9c - Hollywood North

….………………………………………………………………… 43

Figure 9d - Time Travel

….………………………………………………………………… 44

Figure 9e - Gossip ………..………………………………………….…………………………

45

Figure 10 – Paper prototyping ………..…………………………….…………………………..

53

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Several people have been instrumental in allowing this project to be completed. I would like to
thank especially Dr Ron Burnett, President of Emily Carr, and Dr Maria Lantin, Director of
Intersections Digital Studio (IDS), for their encouragement and support of the SQWhere project.
I thank the SQWhere development team, Jennifer Ouano, Jarrett Martineau, and early on Vida
Mas. Finally, Lawrence Meadows for bridging industry and academia and awarding this project
the MITACS scholarship.

I would like to thank the many people who inspired and supported me throughout the research
and writing of this master
s thesis. First and foremost, Karolle Wall, who provided advice and
encouragement, and looked closely at the final version of the thesis for English style and
grammar, correcting both and offering suggestions for improvement. And I would be remiss if I
didn
t thank my colleagues for their friendship, support, close interest, highly valued comments
and feedback, especially Helene Day Fraser, Jamie Barrett, Nathan Winkel and Sarah Hay.

I am deeply indebted to my advisor Prof. Louise St. Pierre from the Emily Carr Institute whose
help, stimulating suggestions and encouragement helped me during the research for and writing
of this thesis. Her philosophy of education, her love of learning, and her respect for creativity have
been great sources of inspiration.

Finally, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my wife Shannon for her continuous
patience, encouragement, and support.

Vancouver, Canada. March 2008.

5

The term “public sphere” is fundamentally metaphorical. In fact, the force of
Habermas
s thesis depends entirely on the idea that what
s new about the public
sphere is that it is a virtual space. A discursive realm of imagined collectivity
where people “come together” in a sense far different from their traditional
assembly in the agora, the public square, the meeting hall, or the like. The
intimate connection between the public sphere and commodity exchange lies not
in the fully fledged “middle-class” or “capitalist” identity of its participants but in
the fact that both concepts hypostatize “places” where the circulation and
exchange of virtual entities— information, polemic, commodities— establishes an
imagined collectivity that is all the more compelling for not being limited by
actuality... the virtualization of the public. (McKeon 2004)

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THE CORE QUESTIONS
The core philosophical questions guiding the thinking in this paper:

1) Can working with the town square as a metaphor help to build an understanding of the
complexities of digital social networks?

2) What specific value might this offer for Interaction Design?

7

SCOPE

My ambition for this thesis is for it to be evaluated as an exploration into the theory and practice
of interaction design. It was not my intention that this be evaluated for the potential successes,
failures or marketability of the application itself. Furthermore, I wanted to avoid discussions that
focused solely on aesthetical judgments regarding the interface design such as, iconography,
color, composition, or typography. Instead, the focus should be on the potential user interactions
and experiences resulting from the use of the town square as a metaphor.

In my readings, I found metaphor itself to be well discussed as a tool for interaction design. Thus,
I wanted to explore and detail the effectiveness of the town square as a metaphor in developing a
digital application (SQWhere) that offers insight into the complex phenomena of digital social
networks and human agency.

8

INTRODUCTION

In the fall of 2007 the SQWhere1 development team— a scientist, a producer, a programmer, a
editor, and a graduate student (myself)— set out to address the following challenge: Social media
and networks are creating new design opportunities. How do we inspire and enable people's
ability to contribute, create, personalize, and share experiences?

I was working on a research internship that partnered Emily Carr Institute and an outside
company called Elastic Entertainment. Through the span of this internship, the team used various
design methodologies such as design research, ethnographic methods, ideation,
conceptualization, storyboarding, role-playing, audience workshops, and prototyping, to build a
better understanding of digital social networking. The research led to an understanding of the
usefulness of metaphor as a creative thinking device.

1

The project title “SQWhere” plays on the words “town square” and “where” and becomes a metaphor for the user (and
content) being specific to a geographical location. The reason for combining the words to create a single hybrid term
(SQWhere) was, simply, the lack of availability and uniqueness when searching and securing a domain name for the
Internet.

9

We had imagined that the internship would lead to the development of a product— specifically,
the design of a digital user interface. Although a number of interfaces were suggested through
brainstorming sessions, the significant discovery was how the metaphor of the town square
contributed to our design approach. The town square metaphor led to a shift in focus from the end
product (digital user interface) to the overall user experience. This holistic design approach
helped us to realize that months of research were needed to build understanding of some very
complex issues, including concerns regarding trust, reputation, privacy, usability, identity, gossip,
and boundaries. The most significant concerns (to SQWhere) were gossip and boundaries. These
make up two sections in this paper. The remaining concerns, due to their commonality and
connection to the larger constructs are threaded throughout this discussion. The paper concludes
by summarizing some of the insights, challenges, and limitations of using the town square as a
metaphor. More importantly, in the conclusion I summarize the advantages and benefits of
working with the town square as metaphor in interaction design.

There are many possible metaphorical interpretations of the town square concept. The aspects of
the town square concept we found valuable in structuring and interpreting and designing for
digital social networks are presented in this thesis. As part of this introduction I have included a
brief background summary of project SQWhere to contextualize the discussion that follows.

10

Project origins
The following is a situation many designers are familiar with: Walking into the studio on my first
day I was introduced to the existing development team Vida (the scientist), Jennifer (the
producer), Shawn (the programmer), and Jarrett (the editor). Along with this, I was given their
design focus.

(fig. 1) The Mondrian Interface 2.

A single image of a painting by Piet Mondrian was central to their presentation. The painting is an
early example of Mondrian's pure geometric abstraction (fig. 1). Describing how the application
would work they used Mondrian
s painting as a prop and made statements such as “this is our
interface” and “this grid will be housed within the browser and centered on the webpage” and

2

Piet Mondrian, Composition A, 1923. Oil on canvas (Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome).
Original image sourced from the following website- < http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/Arts/painting/20th-century/artsake/artsake.htm>

11

“each panel in the grid will display specific hyper-localized content and if a user clicks a panel,
more information becomes available”. They summarized the presentation with an “elevator pitch”:

The application is a Vancouver based local platform that will be made accessible
via an online website and through mobile phone browsers. The application
provides web tools that use mapping, tagging, search and transaction systems,
thus enabling social interactions and information exchange. Through this
participatory process, information and knowledge will be delivered and relayed in
creative and interactive storytelling 3 formats utilizing video, audio, images and
text engaging viewers, consumers and participants. The platform makes
connections happen at the grassroots level creating an environment of
collaborative knowledge exchange. (Humphrey)

Over the next few months through in-depth exploration, using design thinking and design
methodologies, we developed a deeper approach to the SQWhere interface. The team started to
gain an understanding of how and why people connect socially, specifically in the digital space.
The shift from thinking only about the application (interface) in browsers, to thinking more about
connectivity and experiences enabled between people, places & things drew us to the metaphor
of the town square, which quickly became a critical lens and provided the tools to distill
information about the complex phenomenon of digital social networks.

Taking a fresh look at the physical and digital space a mobile or online (Internet) user occupies,
we began to understand that the computer is no longer just a workstation but an entire lifestyle
portal. We reviewed the current affordances in mobile computing and found that users are
engaging, entertaining, and playing while in transition. Until recently, mobile devices have been

3

Storytelling involves a two-way interaction between a storyteller and one or more listeners. Storytelling, as it is used in
this paper, emerges from the interaction and cooperative, coordinated efforts of teller and audience during communication.

12

limited to simply consuming or storing images, audio, and video. With the advent of inexpensive,
haptic-enhanced touch-screens, new interface technologies, and the ability to upload directly to
social networking services, media creation on a mobile device has become a more mainstream
activity. With heightened levels of engagement, entertainment and play, mobile computing is
blurring the boundaries between the digital and physical environments. Although Augusto Boal
writes on the subject of acting, his metaxis paradigm was relevant to framing the potential
experience or “state” of a SQWhere user (when engaged in location-based storytelling). Boal
defines Metaxis as “the state of belonging completely and simultaneously to two different
autonomous worlds” (43). He has used the term 'metaxis' as it is used in drama work, to capture
the tension of the dual perception of the world that occurs for the actors, and can occur for the
audience (the spectators, the observers): a state where one can be both oneself and someone
other than oneself. This tension of dual perception holds true to bridging the physical and digital
space a mobile user occupies, as a user belongs simultaneously to device and environment. As
an Interaction Designer, this metaxis paradigm of computing raises many new design challenges,
some of which I address in this paper.

This paper builds on the convention of interaction design4. It also builds on the knowledge
surrounding metaphor (in verbal and visual communication) that has been elucidated by experts,
such as George Lakoff, Marie-Laure Ryan, George Landow, Brenda Laurel, Alan Cooper, and
Max Black. I will reflect and echo the research of these authors to create the critical framework
and discussion throughout this thesis. This thesis will concentrate on the town square as a
metaphorical device to bridge the digital and physical space (and mental space). Specifically, I
address metaphor as a creative thinking methodology, as a research tool, and as inspiration
throughout the design process of SQWhere.

4

When using the term interaction design throughout this paper, I refer to designing or facilitating or instigating interactions
between humans, mediated by an experience, in this case through a product (the SQWhere application). By interactions, I
mainly mean communication, human-to-computer (computer-to-human), one-on-one, one-to-many, or many-to-many.

13

Precedent technologies
The SQWhere team
s objective was to create concepts of the 21st century town square, a digital
solution that would socially connect the local community. This process involved multiple rounds of
brainstorming, discussion, and refinement. Part of this process involved a technology audit to
access how and where this application would be housed. The most obvious digital choice started
with the World Wide Web, but it was important for SQWhere to exist in the physical space (an
objective set by the development team). Thus, we explored interactive kiosks through
partnerships with IBM that could be placed strategically throughout the downtown city core. Due
to the added complexity, geography limitation and cost of producing a product to deliver an
application (SQWhere) we decided to investigate other alternatives. Understanding the
application was focused towards the urban pedestrian, we decided to investigate the current
affordances of mobile devices (smart phones) that most Vancouverites possessed. Thus, the
technological focus in this thesis addresses the SQWhere application as if it were to be designed,
developed, and housed on a mobile phone.

Along with a technology audit the SQWhere team also performed several competitive landscape 5
audits as well. These audits resulted in many case study examinations of mobile and web
applications, products, and services. Including but not limit to the following examples; eBay,
Slashdot, Epinion, SmashFace, DodgeBall, loopt, Shiftspace, Smalltown, Walkscore, whrrl,
YourStreet, beetag, BostonSquares, Ziplocal, UrbanSquares, Gumiyo, Toronto VirtualCity, British
Columbia Travel and Tourism, Yahoo.Mobile, Original Signal, Twitter, Newser, and Facebook.
Although some of these examples are mentioned in this paper, this thesis does not delve into the
competitive landscape audit (case studies) body of research. Instead, the examples used in this
paper support the larger thesis scope of metaphor in Interaction Design.

5

Competitive landscape was a termed the team used to describe research that surveyed existing concepts, products,
applications, or services that were similar to SQWhere. The team used these case studies to evaluate potential successes
and limitations with each case.

14

The user or users play an obvious and important role developing a social networking service,
shifting the design focus to a more user-centered approach. Using design research techniques
(observations, interviews, personas, scenarios, and prototypes) the SQWhere development team
investigated users and their environment in order to learn more about them and thus be better
able to design for them. We built quick prototypes and tested them with the users to make sure
the proposed solution was satisfactory and to guide further design investigations. Although these
major steps in the design process were performed by the SQWhere team, they sit outside the
scope of this thesis. It is important to note that the SQWhere project acts as a vehicle in this
thesis, allowing and supporting a discussion of the use of a specific metaphor in design.

In summary, this thesis is an exploration of using metaphor as a device, tool, and aid in
brainstorming and throughout the design process. This thesis is an example of theory applied in a
professional context. Furthermore, this thesis examines the metaphor of a town square and it
s
usefulness as a methodology for learning, inspiration, and communicating.

15

CHALLENGES

The digital challenge
New media provides an important platform for exploring social relations and communicative
practices. As Raymond Williams suggests, new communication technology both reflects and
refracts the cultural climate in which it emerges (1975). Therefore, exploring early conceptions
and use of new media can shed light on the social environment that produces and consumes
such technology. Our exploration led us to believe that technology seems to be unintentionally
mediating and modulating social interactions and spaces. The question for us became, how do
we, as designers, deal with this complexity of culturally transformative technology? We might be
able to improve the situation (complexity of technologies and social distractions) by designing
interactions with technology to be more subtle, more integrated, more socially aware, even more
ubiquitous when appropriate. It is a delicate task, half interaction design and half social
engineering. Thus, the Interaction Designer
s task is to also find ways to facilitate transformative
interactions rather than mere moments that provide users with useful information. The need for
design considerations like these will increase in demand and complexity as technologies continue

16

to evolve. Specifically, as hardware and software continue to “morph” it will continually present
new challenges and opportunities for Interaction Design (Buxton 2008). Designed interactions
have wide human behavioral implications. Understanding that design impacts social behavior is
an axiological responsibility of the designer.

Fundamentally though, technology, in both its development and impact, is intrinsically social and
contextual. The historical effect of computing (technology) on daily social activities and the space
we occupy is summarized in the following quote;

According to [James] Moor, the computer revolution is occurring in two
stages. The first stage was that of “technological introduction” in which
computer technology was developed and refined. This already occurred in
America during the first forty years after the Second World War. The second
stage — one that the industrialized world has only recently entered — is that
of "technological permeation" in which technology gets integrated into
everyday human activities and into social institutions, changing the very
meaning of fundamental concepts, such as “money”, “education”, “work”, and
“fair elections”. (“Computer Ethics”)

Technological permeation dissolves the boundaries of digital, physical, and mental spaces.
Evolving technologies— the Internet, mobile phones, geographical positioning systems (GPS),
mobile cameras, instant messaging— are radically transforming how we connect and exchange
information. Investigating this ecology of space (physical space, mental space, and digital space)
led to SQWhere
s social network “ecology”, forming the construct of SQWhere
s social network
(fig. 2). This network ecology guided our thinking and framed how SQWhere users are connected
to and could interact with other SQWhere users.

17

18

Virtual experiences now affect the physical realm, and vice versa. The digital device, not only
affects the mental space, it can influence and shape the user
s perspective of the physical space.
For example, a user who has their mobile ring in the middle of a movie theater (or during
someone
s presentation) knows how the physical environment transforms after the mobile is
finally silenced. Also, the way we use our digital device changes from environment to
environment. Talking on the mobile in public, a person
s voice sometimes changes tone and
character, over a single conversation (i.e. when moving from a vacant bus shelter to sitting on a
crowded bus). The digital device, especially the mobile phone, constantly places a user in a state
of metaxis. Understanding Boal
s metaxis paradigm (the state of belonging completely and
simultaneously to two different autonomous worlds) influenced SQWhere
s approach to how
users could engage with content and location, through the digital device (mobile). Having the
content specific to the location, the theory is that the user, immersed in a story tailored to the
specifics of that environment, would experience a dual perception of both spaces (digital and
physical) as illustrated in figure 3.

19

Designing in this context equals a multi-dimensional thinking approach between the digital,
physical, and the temporal. Henri Lefebvre in his book, The Production of Space, seeks to
collapse the silos created by philosophers, scientists, and social scientists. The SQWhere
application has a similar ambition— to blur the boundaries between the digital, physical and
mental spaces through location-based storytelling experiences. Lefebvre, in a project he calls

Spatiology involves, among other things, a rapprochement between physical space (nature),
mental space (formal abstractions about space), and social space (the space of human
interaction). These different “fields” of space, Lefebvre says, have suffered at the hands of
philosophers, scientists, and social scientists, because they have been apprehended as separate
domains. Lefebvre considers fragmentation and conceptual dislocation as serving distinctly
ideological ends (Merrifield 104).

Mental space, physical space, and especially the digital space were abstractions that constantly
challenged the development team
s understanding of digital technologies. We found the deeper
we got into these abstractions, the more important using metaphor as a methodology became. To
understand new things is to think of them in terms of things we already know. Thus, metaphors
become natural models that allow us to take familiar, concrete objects and experiences and
juxtapose them onto unknown or abstract concepts, giving them structure and meaning. This
project shows how a metaphorical interpretation of a real-world concept, such as a town square,
can be used throughout the design process to provide novel ways of looking at usage situations
and to provide direction in interface and interaction design.

20

The physical challenge
One of the primary functions of a digital social network is connecting people with shared interests.
Building on this understanding we (SQWhere development team) needed to investigate why,
how, and where potentially liked-minded people gathered socially. We started by using
ethnographic techniques to understand how people use public gathering spaces, in particular, the
town square. The fieldwork consisted of photography, video recording, diary note taking,
diagrams and sketches, and immersion in many of the local public spaces in the downtown and
surrounding neighborhoods of Vancouver. What we found was that Vancouver does not have a
“traditional” or centralized town square. A good example of a “traditional” or “historical” town
square is Piazza San Marco, often known in English as St Mark's Square, is the principal square
of Venice, Italy. (fig. 4).

(fig. 4) Piazza San Marco.

21

Instead, Vancouver has isolated or alternative social spaces, such as Granville Island Market, the
Vancouver Art Gallery
s front stairs, and various garden parks and ocean beaches throughout the
metro areas. Other social spaces promoted as “town squares” in downtown Vancouver are
Robson Square and Library Square, but when explored closely they pale in the face of traditional
town squares, due to their location, design, and usage. Investigating these social spaces lead to
an understanding that the more diverse the people, places, and contexts are, the more diverse
the interaction becomes. More specifically, the interaction affects what type and how information
is exchanged. This social complexity can significantly impact how technologies are developed
and used in social spaces. Thus, the challenge is how the potential development of the SQWhere
application, using the town square metaphor, could benefit users by bridging digital and physical
spaces. This paradigm of “technology and space” is also known as mediaspace.

The term mediaspace refers to the mutual connection, dependence, and constitution of
communication technology and space. “Mediaspace, then, at once defines the artefactual
existence of media forms within social space, the links that media objects forge between spaces,
and the (no less real) cultural visions of a physical space transcended by technology and
emergent virtual pathways of communication” (Couldry & McCarthy 2). Mediaspace theory argues
that media use is inexorably tied to spatial practices, both social and physical.

In this paper, the SQWhere team explores how tying aspects of social networks to physical
locations can strengthen, modify, and rearrange how urban public spaces and social connections
are experienced. The sharing of social information through mobile computing could transform
users' experiences of the public spaces they inhabit. Thus, the SQWhere project explores how
the town square metaphor might be able to facilitate meaningful connections through locationbased information within an urban landscape.

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METAPHOR

The basics
We encounter metaphors6 every day of our lives. We use metaphors in language, in thought, and
in our actions. Our conceptual system is fundamentally metaphorical in nature. Everyday routines
and tasks— even mundane details— rely on metaphors for functioning. At the most basic level,
metaphors describe the use of a body of knowledge about one concept to understand or
comment on a second concept (Lakoff 3). Metaphors are especially powerful when used to help
understand abstract and unfamiliar concepts, which is often the case in the design process.

Designers, especially Interaction Designers, deal with a number of abstract concepts, such as
time, space, states, changes, causation, and actions— sometimes specifically and other times
innately— but the commonality in all these concepts is that they are metaphorical in nature. For
instance, we think of time as “moving forward”. We see change and motion as, “He returned to
what he was doing” or “He was crushed when they separated.” These are ordinary examples of
how people talk and, more importantly, how we, as humans, think. Metaphors are intrinsic to our
conceptual system and are seen as valuable aids in problem solving tasks. Thus, metaphors are
intrinsic to design thinking.

6

Metaphor is originally a Greek word that means "carrying across".

23

Metaphor as an acquisition method
One of the challenges of being a designer is working in unfamiliar subject areas. The same
challenge was true for the SQWhere development team, as we worked to develop a digital social
networking application that linked the virtual and the physical. As the team navigated this
unfamiliar subject area, we found the town square metaphor acted as a foundation and created
starting points for specific investigations that furthered the project
s research. Furthermore, the
town square metaphor set the parameters that guided our researched.

In the early stages of the design process, metaphors aid reflection and provide a way to
understand the crux of a situation. Reflecting metaphorically on a design situation can have a
strong affect on the perception, analysis, and framing of a problem (Schön 1983). For example,
using this method of metaphorical reflection in our own exploration allowed us to quickly establish
initial frameworks and research direction, such as the analysis of Project for Public Spaces
 Ten

Principles for Creating Successful Squares (page 32). Using metaphor as an acquisition method
not only created frameworks, but exposed certain complexities and led to some important design
questions: What are the limitations, constraints, or implications of using the town square concept

as a social networking application? What are the affordances? What are the political rhetorical
ramifications and assertions? These questions presented specific challenges that motivated and
fueled the need to further understand the potentials of SQWhere. Some of these questions are
addressed in the Implications section of this paper.

Globally, in the design industry, these same complexities exist and present challenges in most
design projects or problem solving situations. In his book In the Bubble: Designing in a Complex

World, John Thackara states;

24

Traditional design thinking focuses on form and structure. Problems are
decomposed into smaller steps, and these are prioritized in lists. Actions and
inputs are described in a blueprint or plan— and other people produce or
implement it. This is a top-down, outside-in approach. It doesn
t work well now
because complex systems, especially human-centered ones, won
t sit still while
we redesign them. A sense-and-respond kind of design seems to work better:
desired outcomes are described, but not the detailed means of getting to those
outcomes. Sense and respond means being responsive to events in a context—
such as a city or marketplace— and being able to respond quickly and
appropriately when reality changes. This approach implies that we develop an
understanding and sensitivity to the morphology of systems, their dynamics, their
intelligence— how they work and what stimulates them, their ability to interpret,
to see things differently, and to focus on principles of relationship, connection,
communication, and interaction. (213)

Thackara
s statements about how design is changing to address highly complex problems (or as
he calls them, systems) have never been more relevant to designers. Designers will more and
more often be thrust into domains in which they have little to no background knowledge.
Traditionally, the way to overcome this deficiency was to utilize the help of a subject matter expert
(SME) or in most cases, rely on the direction outlined in a design brief or worst, rely on secondary
research conducted by the client. This can be problematic, as the expert might have too much
knowledge and things that seem obvious to them are not as apparent to the designer. The same
can be said for design briefs and research conducted by the client. The designer could
misinterpret or fail to discovery potential user interactions and design outcomes. In short, the
process of acquisition is equally important, or more important, than the resulting data.

25

The use of metaphor to aid acquisition of information is an invaluable method to acquire an
understanding of complex subject matter. To summarize, designers can take a familiar domain
and utilize its characteristics to find similarities (and differences) between it and the unfamiliar
domain. Doing so enables designers to frame and reframe the design task that confronts them.

Metaphor as a conceptual tool
We use metaphors in a variety of conceptual ways. We use them to orient, to create “artificial”
boundaries or containers, to examine or reason about a particular thing, to personify non-human
entities (in terms of human emotions, motivations, characteristics, and activities). For example, it
is not uncommon to say, “the computer will not let me open that document”. Here we give the
computer human attributes; we anthropomorphize it. The attributing of human characteristics and
purposes to inanimate objects, such as digital devices, demonstrates how we speak, relate,
understand and interact in terms of metaphor. One of the most widely used examples of
metaphorical interaction, especially human-to-computer, is the computer desktop interface.
Where users can interact by “dropping and dragging content into and out of folders”, users “cut
and paste” as editing actions, move around and place “items” on a “desktop”, the experience is
overwhelming metaphoric. Again, the way we understand and how we interact with new things is
to think of them in relation to things we already know (to personify or anthropomorphize). This
method of thinking (metaphorical) is fundamental to design thinking and the discipline as a whole,
as it helps us to imagine and design for understandable functions (interactions).

Metaphor to aid explanation
In the design process when concepts, ideas, and project directions have been generated, the
designer or design team will often have to “sell” or explain or present those ideas to key decision
makers (project managers, third-party developers, or the client) who will ultimately implement the
design. Specifically, with SQWhere, we used the metaphor (town square) as a communication

26

tool, to convey concepts to the other members of the project team (key decision makers). This
was helpful in motivating the decision makers and continuing forward momentum of the project.

The town square metaphor also helped to define boundaries of understanding, which enhanced
communication between the design team members. This was critical throughout the many
brainstorming and idea generation workshops that took place over several days and weeks.
Having a shared metaphor helped maintain common goals and understanding as the project
evolved. More importantly, this shared metaphor created the framework in which we could
explore, evaluate, and communicate other related innovations and case studies.

Metaphor summary
Metaphor is typically ubiquitous in our daily existence, embedded in everyday language and
interactions. As a tool, when metaphor is used as a technique in a deliberate manner, it becomes
a powerful cognitive design methodology. Metaphorical reasoning is an iterative process through
which designers gradually increase their knowledge of a design situation. Throughout all phases
of a design project, from initial problem definition, to concept and ideation, to execution, to project
presentation, to end product use, metaphor can be a solid asset in a interaction designer
s toolset.

Dan Saffer, a practicing designer and author on Interaction Design, nicely summarizes
metaphor
s importance in design; “If all invention comes from the juxtaposition of two unlike
objects, then metaphor is at the heart of invention. And since invention (and reinvention) is at the
heart of design as well, it stands to reason that metaphor itself is at the center of design (21).”
The capacity of metaphor to promote a more efficient facilitation of understanding is tremendous.
Using metaphor as a design device has practical applications for designers, design
methodologies, and design outcomes. Metaphors are fundamental to interaction design.

27

TOWN SQUARE

The past mayor of Bogotá, Enrique Peñalosa, summarizes beautifully the diversity of social
interaction in a town square: "Public space is for living, doing business, kissing, and playing. Its
value can't be measured with economics or mathematics; it must be felt with the soul" (“Enrique
Peñalosa”). Peñalosa led massive efforts related to transportation, land use and housing for the
poor, pollution abatement, and the critical need for public spaces. This is one example of the
depth and importance of the town square as a public gathering space. Stumbling across visions
and perspectives, such as Peñalosa, were inspirational and constantly framed our ambitions of

SQWhere. Furthermore, framing the project in this light reminded us of the responsibilities of
designing software that have social and cultural impact.

Historical town squares
The Agora was the civic centre of a Greek city. "Agora" in Greek literally means "a place of
gathering" and the Agora of Athens was the heart of Athenian life in ancient times. The Agora
was the physical place where every Athenian citizen 7 gathered to conduct their business,

7

The class system in Athens was made up of two distinct classes- slaves and citizens. These classes were rarely open
to any of the other classes; citizenship alone was given only to male Athenians. This excluded a majority of the population,
namely slaves, children, women and resident foreigners (metics).

28

participate in their city's governance, decide judicial matters, express their opinion for all who
cared to listen, and elect their city officials. For centuries the Agora served as a busy marketplace
where merchants and artisans had congregated to offer their goods to all who gathered, and it
also provided a platform for the Athenian political and intellectual life (Camp 4).

Town squares as conversation
Still today, town squares have historical roots in cultures all over the world and are being
rediscovered as a powerful means of transforming communities. The historical town square is a
place of social exchange and societal rituals (fig. 5). Squares and plazas, in their most traditional
sense, share an ability to accommodate many different types of uses and people, thus allowing
for many diverse social interactions. The challenge for SQWhere is to translate this diversity of
social interactions into the digital space.

Town squares were places where supply met demand. Buyers and sellers looked each other in
the eye, met, and connected. Town squares were not only places for exchange, where people
came to buy what others had to sell, they were, above all, a social space dominated by talk. Many
of the conversations were about the work or their craft: "Feel this leather bag. See how the
stitching is so strong." "The cotton in this shirt, where did it come from?" "Taste this apple. We
won
t have them next week. If you like it you should take some today." Conversation was the
market
s currency. For thousands of years, we knew exactly what town squares were:
conversations between a diversity of people who sought out others who shared the same
interests— a platform for connecting.

29

(fig. 5) Historical Town Squares.

Town squares as a research tool
Town squares are spaces where groups of strangers fuse into an instant community. They are
environments where people
s individual identities are challenged and merge into something larger
than themselves. Town squares are spaces for mundane everyday ritual and spaces for
extraordinary one-time events. It is this power of “shared experiences” in town squares that has
motivated and created inspiration throughout the design research and conceptualization of

SQWhere. As a result of researching town squares, one of the key findings that guided and
established the foundational framework for critical analysis (between the physical and digital
space) came from an organization called Project for Public Spaces (PPS). PPS is a nonprofit
organization dedicated to helping people create and sustain public places that build communities.
They've established Ten Principles for Creating Successful Squares (page 32) based on the
hundreds of squares (the good and the bad) that they've analyzed and observed over the past
thirty years. The PPS website states “what stands out most is that design (urban

30

planning/architecture) is only a small fraction of what goes into making a great square. To really
succeed, a square must take into account a host of factors that extend beyond its physical
dimensions” (“Ten Principles for Creating Successful Squares”). For the SQWhere team, these
ten principles were the springboard for much of the remaining research and exploration we
conducted. The ten principles also proved to be an excellent resource when distilling complex
ideas surrounding how people interact with both physical and digital social spaces. Furthermore,
the ten principles had a direct influence on the research direction and the potential design
outcomes of the SQWhere interface. Before I examine specific examples of influenced direction
and outcomes, its critical to understand the Ten Principles for Creating Successful Squares.

The following chart (fig. 6) outlines PPS
s Ten Principles for Creating Successful Squares for
creating a social gathering space (town square) in the physical environment. The right hand
column juxtaposes this to our research cross-referencing the digital environment. This research is
a direct outcome of our workshop sessions during the internship phase and has not been altered
or revised during the writing of this paper:

31

32

(fig. 6) PPS
s Ten Principles for Creating Successful Squares.

33

Sometimes, the hardest part to any design project is getting started. Once we understood and
used these ten principles as a critical lens to explore and define what the potentials of the digital
town square could be, the project quickly started to gather momentum. Each principle created,
what we called a “research silo 8”. For example, principal #4 addresses the issues of “flexibility”
regarding both the amenities and the usage of the town square (physical space). We treated each
of the ten principles as one “research silo” and investigated further how and what behavioral
changes it created and how it influenced people in a social space. As a result, principal #4
exposed serious interface and interaction design questions surrounding information architecture
and menu navigation. Building on typical or universal interaction design concerns (i.e. content
flexibility, menu and information hierarchies, user preferences, and customization) were specific
questions such as: 1) How will users delve for information in mapping and geography-based

interface environments? , 2) What functionality affordances (i.e. buttons) in these environments,
specifically the town square interface metaphor, would users intuitively understand and engage?,
and 3) How could geography-based content translate from the device into the physical space to

mentally bridge the digital space, mental space, and physical space and provide a metaxis
experience?. These types of questions required new ways of looking at traditional problems in
interaction design.

Each principle led to its own research silo, that led to several specific design issues and
questions. Using the PPS
s established research ( Ten Principles for Creating Successful

Squares) and then layering our own research proved to be a valuable tool and method to frame
multiple design potentials and to resolve the questions and issues that surfaced.

8

The term research silo is used to describe a localization or framework of content within a particular segment of data that
allowed the SQWhere team to explore possibilities and constraints of inherited situations by applying critical thinking
through qualitative and quantitative research methods.

34

Town square qualities
After researching the history, design, usages, and purpose of town squares, another significant
finding or framework started to take shape. We distilled four “qualities” of town squares that
consistently surfaced as being the essence of or essential to the town square experience (social
interaction). The four qualities that were established are knowledge, connection, transaction , and

entertainment. Although these are words that often rely on metaphor to convey a meaning, we
used these qualities to frame (and reframe) the SQWhere project as it evolved through the
various design phases and concepts. What was more interesting, when we cross-referenced
these qualities to the digital space, specifically social networking websites (i.e. Facebook, Twitter,
MySpace, Flickr, Linkedin, YouTube) we found they remained equally relevant as principles,
standards, or attributes of social networking interaction. For example, social networking sites are
commonly used as a vehicle or a means of knowledge exchange (typically through gossiping).
And with this information exchange comes a sense of connectedness, not only from being
informed, but being included as a member of a specific network. Thus, recognizing knowledge
and connection as consistent qualities across these media was important when shaping the
design and use of SQWhere. Equally important was transaction and entertainment: transaction
through the exchange of knowledge, emotion, and in some cases monetary value and

entertainment, most often through the experience of interacting with social networking software
s
features, such as photo and video sharing, posting to message walls, and through various
informative widgets (i.e. weather updates). The four qualities helped to build understanding of
social networks and from a design perspective, allowed a filter for editing potential content,
aesthetical treatments, information layouts, use case scenarios and further research silos.

35

THE APPLICATION

SQWhere will be a mobile storytelling application for the urban pedestrian. SQWhere will connect
people through location-based stories, in real time and real space, in urban environments.
Through this participatory and collaborative approach, information and knowledge will be
delivered and relayed in creative and interactive storytelling formats utilizing video, audio, images
and text (media items). The platform will make connections happen at the grassroots level
creating an environment of peer-to-peer knowledge exchange— storytelling.

Who will use SQWhere?
To help realize user requirements, designers often use tools such as personas 9 (personae) or
user profiles that are reflective of their targeted user group. The SQWhere team conducted a
“bullseye” audience workshop to help define potential user demographics. The exercise started
with concentric circles (or rings) on a large sheet of paper mounted on a wall. After a brief
discussion of the SQWhere application and potential use cases, the group was instructed to write
the names of potential users (groups or individuals) on self-adhesive notes. These notes were
placed into circles in order of importance (the center bullseye is the most important expanding
outward to the last ring being least important) (fig. 7a). The “importance” and “audience naming”
were subjective and varied with each participant. The results led to interesting overlaps and
fuelled several audience discussions afterwards.

9

Personas are fictitious characters used to better understand how a person could use and experience a potential product
or service. This was a useful method assisting the SQWhere team in exposing potential user benefits and limitations of
the application.

36

(fig. 7a) Audience workshop.

The outcome of this workshop resulted in five personae named Tyler, Michelle, Jonathan,

Victoria, and Marianne (fig. 7b) . The SQWhere personae were developed from quantitative and
qualitative data from our audience workshop and further research and investigations. These five
characters gave the project a “human element” seemly bringing the SQWhere project to life.

(fig. 7b) SQWhere personae.

37

The SQWhere interface

SQWhere will be used on most next generation mobile units, such as the HP iPAQ, RIM
BlackBerry and the Apple iPhone 10. These have Global Positioning Systems (GPS) built directly in
the units, which is fundamental to the SQWhere application. GPS enabled devices allow users to
connect to satellites to get the coordinates of their position. The GPS receiver continuously sends
the updated location coordinates to the mobile phone (the SQWhere application). Most of the
existing navigation assistance systems are meant for cars and give directions following a specific
point A to point B approach. SQWhere is meant for people who are walking and wandering in a
city and provides ambient information based on a user's location.

The application will enable users to tag media (media items) at specific locations and make that
tagged media and location visible to other users. Media items is a term we used throughout the

SQWhere project to describe text messages, photos (taken from the phone
s camera or stored on
the device), audio (recorded from or stored on the device), and video (recorded from or stored on
the device). SQWhere users will receive a visual, haptic, or audio message on their device (via
the SQWhere application) notifying the proximity 11 of a story. A guided step-by-step “screen flow”
is illustrated in the following diagram (fig. 8):

10

Apple will be opening up the iPhone
s operating system to third-party developers during the time of this writing. GPS
applications for the iPhone/iPod Touch are expected to be one of the first third-party apps developed. In the unlikely event
that this does not happen, an existing application called LocateMe, a mash-up for Google Maps that uses cell tower
traingulation to locate users, will be used. LocateMe and cell tower triangulation have been successfully researched and
trialed in mobile/location-based research and development.
11
The proximity radius or measurement is still undetermined. Although, during the prototyping we approximated a 15-foot
diameter to simulate a certain range of a “tagged” location.

38

(fig. 8) SQWhere interface screen flow.

39

How will SQWhere be used?
There will be two methods through which a user can engage with media items: 1) through random

encounters, a SQWhere user moving through the urban environment can “stumble” upon a story;
vice versa, a user can also create and upload a story (media items) from their location; and 2)
through authored StorySkins12 that have been downloaded to their device, which instruct a user to
follow a specific location-to-location journey. SQWhere members will self-author and self-publish

StorySkins. Other members will be able to choose one of these StorySkins and experience a
premeditated, multi-location story. To gather insight of how users would engage these methods
we used scenarios to imagine future use cases that users could experience using SQWhere.
Using the personae techniques, and the patterns of behaviour observed in our research, the
development team created scenarios (or user stories). The following five scenarios StorySkins,

Urban Classroom, Hollywood North, Time Travel, and Gossip (fig. 9a, 9b, 9c, 9d, 9e) were
chosen from twenty-seven scenarios (from brainstorming and workshop sessions) and best
represent a diversity of both potential users and application uses:

12

StorySkins will be downloaded from the destination website (or through the Internet browser of the mobile device). A
StorySkin is similar to a guided tour in a museum, where a person wears headphones with prerecorded information
specific to numbered locations (i.e. museum displays or paintings) and as the user moves through the space, entering the
numbers of the locations, they receive information specific to what they are viewing. Examples of a StorySkin for
SQWhere could range from a scavenger hunt scenario to murder mystery scenario that have location specific clues
throughout the urban downtown for a user to find, investigate and solve.

40

(fig. 9a) StorySkins.

41

(fig. 9b) Urban Classrooms.

42

(fig. 9c) Hollywood North.

43

(fig. 9d) Time Travel.

44

(fig. 9e) Gossip.

45

GOSSIP

Dating back to the 17th century gossip forms one of the oldest means of spreading and sharing
information. Some people commonly understand gossip as meaning the spreading of rumor and
misinformation, for example through excited discussion of scandals (“Gossip”). Gossip as it is
used in this paper does not focus on the information itself (whether the information has a negative
or positive connotation). Instead, the focus is on the mechanics of the gossip paradigm. For
example gossip can function or serve to normalize and reinforce moral boundaries (social
accountability) and foster a sense of community through shared interests. Thus, the term gossip
in this thesis is understood as a peer-to-peer mechanism for disseminating information in social
communities.

The gossip paradigm is also important to the SQWhere application to form a type of collaborative
filter, which attempts to determine social rank in the SQWhere community. Investigating
“collaborative filters” led to the term reputation system13, which through a collection of opinions
(gossip) those community members hold each other accountable and determine other member
s

13

Reputation systems are often useful in large online communities in which users may frequently have the opportunity to
interact with users with whom they have no prior experience or in communities where user generated content is posted
like YouTube or Flickr. In such a situation, it is often helpful to base the decision whether or not to interact with that user
on the prior experiences of other users.

46

social rank. Today
s online reputation systems are computer-based technologies that make it
possible to manipulate in new and powerful ways an old and essential human trait. The SQWhere
team understood gossip as the aggregated opinions of users that would provide the measure of
trust necessary for social interactions to flourish within the SQWhere application.

The role of gossip
Town squares are generally filled with conversation. Some of it relates to goods and products, but
people meet to share news, opinion, and gossip. Gossip is a type of hidden or privileged
knowledge and its fundamental purpose is to be shared through storytelling. When we look at just
how and why (and amongst whom) gossip is shared, we find that there
s more going on than
most social software, for instance, captures. Gossiping is a learned behavior. For example,
people learn what sort of gossip might be shared with other people (or should be kept from them),
what kind of gossip cements friendships (or destroys them), and how gossip has strategic and
tactical uses. Gossip lives within a complex of social relations and meanings. Gossip acts as a
social barometer. Through sharing knowledge, we constantly assess where others and ourselves
fit within social circles. Today, the buzzword used to describe this gossip feedback loop or
knowledge exchange is “collective intelligence”. Henry Jenkins, one of the leading academics in
this area states “What holds a collective intelligence together is not the possession of
knowledge— which is relatively static, but the social process of acquiring knowledge— which is
dynamic and participatory, continually testing and reaffirming the group
s social ties” (54).

47

Gossip as a metaphorical device
During the research phase of SQWhere we used this gossip paradigm (the method of knowledge
exchange) as a metaphorical device. Using the metaphor of gossip we created the framework
(and exposed motivating factors) for how and why users would share stories (media items). The
obvious parallel between gossip and storytelling is the exchange of knowledge. One case study
we examined that best demonstrated gossip as “knowledge exchange” was the digital social
software called Facebook. Facebook users can update their public profile information and change
their status from “single” to “married” and vice versa to inform their “friends”. Users can also
exchange knowledge by “posting” messages to member
s “message walls”, such as activity
updates or event invitations. Gossip is fundamental to Facebook
s software and its infrastructure.

Facebook and other similar case studies (social softwares) exposed a universal aspect of gossip,
namely “ranking and reputation”. Ranking and reputation models led to significant impacts in the
design concepts of SQWhere. For example, after a user engaged a SQWhere story (media items)
they would have the option to “rate it” (based on a set of criteria). This would create a global rank
and position, for both the original storyteller (author) and for the story itself. Other members in the

SQWhere community would regulate content and members, in a democratic fashion, allowing the
most popular stories and storytellers to rise to the top. This community-based filtering system
would dictate which stories (by rank) get exposure, and which members (by reputation) get
featured. In his book, Smart Mobs, Howard Rheingold states “ranking and reputation systems
have been fundamental to social life for a long time. In circles of close friends, everyone knows
everyone, and everyone
s biography is an open book both in the on and offline world. Gossip
keeps us “in the loop” and up to date on who to trust, who other people trust, who is important,
and who decides who is important” (129).

48

Systems of ranking and reputation are not new and have been well established, specifically as a
tool and resource in interaction design. Many digital social networking environments or peer-topeer networks use ranking and reputation systems, popularized by such companies as Ebay,
Amazon, Google, Flickr, Epinions, and most online community-based games (i.e. SecondLife and
World of Warcraft). What is important to note as it relates to the SQWhere application, is how
organically rooted gossip (ranking and reputation) is within the framework of storytelling and how
the metaphor of gossip inspired design exploration which led to potential system designs, such as
content filtering. Furthermore, gossip was the gateway to explorations that influenced other
design systems and concepts including user features, interactions, and the visual design of

SQWhere.

When we talk about gossip, we are talking about boundaries between people and between social
groups. But we are also talking about other sorts of boundaries— those that denote norms,
conventions, expectations, and limits to inquiry and openness. What is important about
boundaries is that we know they are there.

49

BOUNDARIES

The role of boundaries
One of the physical attributes of a town square is its boundary. Boundaries are borders that
enclose a space and define geographic boundaries, which can often be seen by differences in
land use on either side. Boundaries can also define ephemeral or symbolic boundaries such as
political perspectives, legal jurisdictions (governments), and social class and norms— this is
particularly true of agoras (page 28). For the SQWhere team, using boundaries as a metaphor
and building off of the ethnographic research and findings led to several discoveries. The primary
discovery is that boundaries affect how a person interacts in a social space by the limitation and
expectations of that space.

Limitations and expectations play a specific and important role in Interaction Design, specifically
when designing interfaces. The perception theorist J. J. Gibson brought about radical changes in
the way we think about limitations and expectations with his theories of affordances and direct
perception. Gibson called the perceivable possibilities for action affordances (Gibson 1979). In
short, Gibson claims that we perceive possibilities for action (i.e. surfaces for walking, handles for
pulling, space for navigation, tools for manipulating, etc). Gibson
s theories have been understood
and used as methodologies in both academic and design communities for over 50 years. Today
when designing digital interfaces it is becoming more important to understand, that “affordances

50

and perceptions” are enhanced by the use of metaphor. We found through our research that the
town square offers unique social and physical affordances, such as boundaries. For example, the

SQWhere application would convey specific expectations relating to a town square, such as
socializing, conversing, playing a game, orientation, etc. Within SQWhere a user would not
expect to drive a Formula 1 racing car in a digital simulation game or answer email or make
reservations for a flight. The metaphor of a town square will inform the user of certain
affordances— what the application will do, and more importantly, what it will not do. These
specific town square affordances create a “boundary of expectations”, a framework of
understanding. Because boundaries connote the container in which things are done differently or
the limits to where things are done in one way, they are social constructs. This directly relates to
Lefebvre
s work to define “the production of space” – that is, the ways that specific constructions
of social space play constitutive roles in the production and reproduction of social relations, rather
than merely serving as neutral settings within which more properly historical processes of
struggle, transformation, and reaction play out.

Boundaries also are constructed and maintained by people
s mental maps, which divide home
from work, or the familiar from the unfamiliar. According to Joel Migdal, mental maps incorporate
elements of the meaning people attach to spatial configurations and their cognitive ideas about
how the world is constructed (7). The town square metaphor is a reflective and cognitive
construction of the relationship to the “physical object” (town square). People do not directly
experience the town square as town square; it
s a complex construct of multiple interpretations
from a person
s individual experiences and mental maps. That is, the world is organized and
interpreted according to the meanings and interpretations of objects. Migdal continues “people
draw their mental maps by configuring the world as familiar and unfamiliar spaces. They are thus
constantly navigating, searching for those “manners of acting” that can delineate configurations of
spaces where they feel that they are, or should be, relatively safe, places that somehow feel
familiar and different from the chaotic sense of the totally unfamiliar (9).

51

All space needs limiting dimensions to make it manageable, understandable, familiar,
comfortable, and believable; this is arguably one of the greatest challenges of any digital space,
specifically the Internet. This was SQWhere
s greatest challenge as well: to create a “sense” of
dimensions or boundaries in the digital space. These concerns became prevalent and more
challenging when our investigation delved into mapping, wayfinding, and orientation.

Boundaries as orientation
Parallel to offline life, the spatial dimensions in online communities are important for the
individual's navigation, relation, and communication. Stine Gotved comments on spatial
dimensions in online communities; “the interface serves as a visible and ontological space on the
screen, a shared common spot in the vast cyberspace. The social space is mainly
epistemological, based on the individual's interpretations of social interactions. The metaphorical
space is purely epistemological, based on reconstructed reality and geography, and evokes the
sense of a place” (2002). Removing the real-world limitations or boundaries that are placed on
social or collaborative behavior by factors such as language, geography, background, and
financial status, could be one of the strongest benefits of the digital town square, and social
softwares in general.

Having the knowledge that location 14 and boundaries would be fundamental to the SQWhere
application resulted in investigating how people navigate, orientate and engage wayfinding
methods. The investigation led to explorations into various visual mapping techniques and maps,
as potential interface designs. Maps provide information on the existence, the location of, and the
distance between ground features, such as places and routes of travel. The SQWhere
development team has found in the digital space, “map interfaces” are providing hybrid uses and

14

The user
s proximity (GPS location) to media items and the ability to tag (upload and download) locationspecific media; vice versa.

52

more interactive ways to delve for information. Through our prototyping experiments 15 we found
the user was not only using the map interface to locate media items, but using the map itself as a
wayfinding device to navigate the environment (fig. 10). This hybrid use led to several aesthetical
and information-based design questions. Our main concern was to survey how much information
and map detail would be needed to allow users to navigate their environment effectively (as a
secondary function) and yet, still have the media items and their location as the primary focus.

(fig. 10) Paper prototyping.

15

We developed a prototype using paper map prints taped on the back of a Blackberry mobile phone.
Printed on three individual sheets of paper were simulated location-based stories and images. The user
navigated the environment using the map and when near the “tagged location” a SQWhere team member
called the Blackberry with another mobile. The Blackberry
s ringer was set to vibrate which simulated the
haptic action of a SQWhere story alert. The user then matched the colored story to the colored location mark
on the map and experienced the SQWhere story.

53

Researching mapping and geography-based navigation surfaced a term introduced by Kevin
Lynch called imageability16. Imageability is the quality of a physical object, which gives an
observer a strong, vivid image (Lynch 1960). Lynch concluded that a highly “imageable” city
would be well formed, would contain very distinct parts, and would be instantly recognizable to
the common inhabitant.” (1960). We have used this theory as framework and support in

SQWhere
s map interface design iterations. For example, it led to evaluating certain design
aesthetics, such as whether the interface should be detailed enough to represent street numbers
or could it have a minimalist approach that only displays the shape of buildings. Lynch
s theory
supports the later, the minimalist approach. Testing this minimalist interface in the real
environment through paper prototyping solidified the use and methodology of this theoretical
framework.

A theoretical framework can be conceived of as a form of boundary. However, it
is only a temporary boundary. The conceptual mechanics of a theoretical
framework are as such: to incorporate certain theoretical concerns in one
s
reading of a situation (design or otherwise) far from limiting the potentialities, the
situation has in fact introduced new views to the situation. As such, a theoretical
framework becomes a device in which impasses may be trespassed. (Chan)

Boundaries lead to new orientations. Using Kevin Lynch
s five components of imageability
actually allowed the SQWhere development team new venues of exploration for what and how a
21st century town square may be constituted. Using the metaphor of “physical boundaries” as a
visual marker or design element in the interface design uses the “physical measure” of a town
square. This technique introduces a way of delimiting the amount of physical space (boundary)

16

Kevin Lynch was a significant contributor to city planning and city design in the twentieth century. Lynch
also explains that a well-formed city is highly reliant upon the most predominant city element, paths.
Similarly, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks are favorable contributors to imageability if they are
meaningful, distinct, and not confusing. These elements, when placed in good form, increase human ability
to see and remember patterns, and it is these patterns that make it easier to learn.

54

that the user could otherwise perceive in the actual environment, therefore reducing cognitive
load of orientation, mapping memory, or as Lynch describes imageability.

Technology is “blurring” the boundaries of the digital and physical space and creating new hybrid
spaces that are establishing cultural nomenclatures, such as mediaspaces, thirdspace,
secondlife, etc. These hybrid spaces are presenting new and exciting challenges for interaction
design. Investigating these hybrid spaces led to discovering several discussion questions that
guided some of the SQWhere team
s thinking and have strong relevance to this thesis: 1) “to

what extent have we moved beyond the metaphor of space as container, to cultural logics in
which there are no absolute boundaries? ("Spaces of Identity"), and 2) “to what extent are
reconfigurations of social space accompanied by redefinitions of the space of subjectivity, of the
“inner world” of the individual defined by its opposition to the public and the social? ("Spaces of
Identity"). As a research and development team with a goal of producing social software, our
responsibility must be in attempting to answer these questions and to discover other potential
implications.

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IMPLICATIONS

Research and exploration
As a result of our exploration with town squares, we found a recurring subject matter— the public
sphere vs. the private sphere. Acknowledging that it sat outside the scope of this thesis, I did not
directly address it in this paper. Concerns stemming from this subject matter that could potentially
be explored include; identity, open vs. closed friend or member networks, security, avatars,
content rights and ownership, and privacy. Also, during the writing of this thesis I was introduced
to readings and academic scholars focusing on the public and private sphere that has led to the
inclusion of a quote at the opening of this paper. The quote summarizes the thoughts of social
theorist and philosopher Jürgen Habermas. Habermas is best known for his work on the concept
of the public sphere, which he has based in his theory of communicative action. Habermas also
examined the political public sphere and how the self-referential character of the practice of
communication in civil society helps reproduce and stabilize its communication structures. It is

SQWhere
s ambition to model aspects of Habermas
 theory to create a “transformative
experience” for users in local urban spaces. The SQWhere development team is currently
researching and developing these and other concepts on an on-going basis.

Metaphor and culture
Our research of town squares spanned the globe from Europe to South America to our local
neighborhoods in Vancouver. Having a global understanding and awareness of town square has
raised certain cultural issues. We realized that different cultures have different conceptual
frameworks of town squares. The town square concept may have different meaning and
expectations for one culture than another. This could lead to culturally specific limitations and
constraints or, in some cases, could render the SQWhere concept inapplicable. Reiterating the
example of the desktop interface metaphor— if a culture has never used a desk, then the desktop
metaphor would be meaningless (Saffer 23).

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CONCLUSION

The core philosophical questions in this thesis generated a critical exploration of the digital space,
mental space, and physical space using the metaphor of a town square. This metaphorical
approach led to a deeper and more meaningful use of creative thinking, ideation, design research
and methodologies throughout the design process of SQWhere. The town square metaphor also
led to alternative ways of engaging the user on a physical, digital and mental level, that provided
multiple perspectives and understandings of sociality. The town square metaphor offered insight
into interactions that have evolved in public spaces over centuries, the boundaries that contain
them, the networks that maintain them, and the space itself that shapes them. These insights
directly informed how the SQWhere design envisions new technologies functioning in physical
space to support meaningful social interactions. Features such as the red square overlays
(interface buttons representing the user
s social network and proximity to other members) and
scenarios such as gossip (location-based peer-to-peer knowledge exchange), build directly out of
an understanding of physical boundaries.

Design methods such as metaphor remain an important part of how we process information, on
screen or off. Using the metaphorical interpretation of a town square guided the team
s
imagination beyond the constraints of function-driven design, and focused on a higher level of
interaction design purpose. SQWhere
s higher-level design focus meant designing with an
emphasis on user goals and experience, and evaluating potential design outcomes in terms of
usability and affective influence. This design purpose led to a richer and more holistic
understanding of SQWhere
s potential social impact and application. More importantly, we
understood that metaphors are instrumental to facilitate learning, and to the formation and
maintenance of new ideas and concepts.

57

Digital social software is a tremendously exciting area for interaction design that has the potential
to overcome many of the limitations and failings of traditional online communication and
community systems. Understanding of human-to-computer interaction and how to design for it is
constantly evolving. The importance of social interactions in interaction design is increasingly
clear and this requires the designer to have a more engaging, holistic, integrated design approach
to the entire development process.

It is clear that the design concepts presented in this paper are preliminary and in a conceptual
stage. In their current state, they mainly express the insights gained through using the town
square metaphor. SQWhere as a product is not ready for market. SQWhere
s value is in the fact
that it allowed for this exploration of metaphor to aid and inspire creative thinking in the design.
Furthermore, it provided a novel way of looking at the complex phenomena of digital social
networks and human agency.

Ultimately, this project is an example of how a metaphorical approach to exploring a concept can
guide a user-centered design process. It has shown this approach to be rich and meaningful and
to have the potential to provide fresh interaction design concepts.

58

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