WishBoard: Promoting Self-expression in Public Displays to Leverage the Notion of Community

The spread of mobile devices into the streets combined with the growing interest in interactive technologies in public settings raise a host of new challenge for human computer interaction. This study investigates the use of public displays in promoting the sense of community through the public self-expression. The approach involves a temporary interactive art installation that promotes people’s engagement on sharing anonymous wishes. This public sharing potentially leverage the feeling of a neutral ground for gathering and, consequently, socializing. In order to elicit data, we have made two deploys of a prototype named WishBoard in a ‘socially abandoned’ space. Analyzing the expressed wishes, we noticed cultural trails describing the profile of that community. Overall, this study demonstrates the role public displays and mobile devices can play in creating community meeting spaces and enabling individual expression in such social and communal spaces.