Semester/year: Spring 2010 Supervisor: Jørn Knutsen
The aim of this project is to explore the experience of a foreigner in a new city, in this case, Oslo. It focused on different possibilities where a smart phone can help exploring the physical information, that urban contexts transmit us.
They can contribute for a better and interesting way to explore a city, since they are easily updated, personalized, represented in an engaging way. With possibilities of applications, that the paper guides would not allow due to its lack of technological adaptation.
Since it is an exploratory project, the process had a lot of importance to find the areas of interest and place for new innovative applications for smart phones for tourists. The final delivery was a book containing the whole process.
The research included studies around tourists behaviors, observations, interviews, close contact with tourists in Oslo and other cities, cultural probes, testing relevant mobile applications, exploration around existing technologies and a continuing state of art research.
After a lot of ideas generation based in the research findings, PathWay became the final concept: Pathway is a local knowledge application, for locals and tourists, using GPS tracking system, to collect relevant real-time information about the city movement.
Images:
Picture 1: Pathway application ( main picture)
Picture 2: Cultural Probes
Picture 3: Close contact with tourist. What do you wonder in Oslo?
Picture 4: Mapping out the physical possibilities in a city that could give me, as a tourist, input about the natives’ way of living.
Picture 5: User testing