Design for Social Interaction in Public Spaces

The merge of the Web of People and the Internet of Things leads to a shift from technology-push product or system oriented design to data-driven service centric design. The growth and development of social computing have dramatically increased the complexity but also offer new opportunities and solutions in the societal context. We look into the challenges in designing for social interaction in public spaces, in particular in cities and professional environments. With several examples in designing interactive public installations, we present the design techniques and practices used in these examples, as well as the evaluation methods that have been found to be useful in evaluating the user experience such as social connectedness and inclusion.