Abstract
As humans we live and interact across a highly complicated physical world. The relationship among citizens and machines and the external environment are transforming by rapidly growing technologies, especially in a developing country. This article discusses public interfaces in China and offers three cases study in China and western countries. The analysis shows public interfaces for civic engagement in China is still in its early stage, which could generate huge social impact with the support from mainstream media in appropriate method.
Introduction
There is a widespread belief that pervasive technology will facilitate urban life, as well as communications of citizens. Citizens will complete considerable behaviors every day in urban spaces, for instance, shopping, walking, asking for help and so forth. Technology development is transforming these activities via offering more intelligent machines as the alternatives of human staff. You do not have to enter a bank, waiting in a long line to withdraw money but spend only about one minute in front of the ATM; you are able to have the files printed from a self-help printer; you can also self-checkout in the supermarket.
While machines become growingly pervasive in the urban, even becoming indispensable, its relationship with human beings become more complicated. Researchers and designers are encouraged to design for better interactive experience for citizens. Recently, a growing number of civic technology are built aiming to offer not convenient service but novel experience.
This article collects some existing urban interactive devices in public space in China and analyses them from multiple aspects. Three case studies are provided below.
Defining Public interactive interfaces
According to [3], public interfaces can be defined as services ranging in intentions, but all sharing a common grounding in raising public awareness. In China, most public interfaces are infrastructures such as vending machines. Recently some novel interactions and new media art works become growingly popular in China, such as VR, Light Show for commercial campaign or social events.
Public Interfaces in China
In this article, public interfaces are divided into the following four types: functional, commercial, performing and participatory.
| Functional | Commercial | Performing | Participatory | |
| Example | ATM, Auto Vending Machine | Under Armor’s Shanghai Experience | Light Show | Chunyun Booth |
| Method | Wireless technology,
Mechanical Machine |
Video, VR, mobile application | Light, sensor, wireless communication
Mechanical machine |
Camera, video |
| Interactive Objects | Human-machine | Human-Machine
Human-Human |
Human-Machine
Human-Human |
Human-Machine
Human-Human |
| Time Span | Long | Medium-long | Low | Medium |
| Civic Engagement | High | Low-Medium | Low | High |
Table 1: Four types of public interfaces in China
Functional
Functional machines are common such as vending machine, ATM and so forth. Nowadays some startups are developing innovative machines such as public storage cabinet for delivery and photo booth for quick photo printing. These public interfaces work as the substitute for human workers. As part of infrastructure, these machines are exposed to almost every citizen and usually required to work for a long time. Only individuals and machines participate in the interaction. There is little interaction between human and human.
Commercial
Utilizing technology as a method of marketing is increasingly popular. VR, AR, social media are frequently employed in marketing campaign. People are able to send or forward posts to share their experience. However, only a certain part of the citizens are able to participate in these activities, for example, on some auto shows or in experience stores. The interfaces only need to work for a certain period of time.
Performing
Performing works are more similar to new media art works. Some of these are funded by companies or the government. For example, digital virtual imaging technology has been employed in concert and fashion show. Most of these works aim to gain citizens’ attention, enhancing visibility, creating public opinions or for mass entertainment.
Participatory
Interactive digital technologies embedded in urban tend to be used to deliver news, context-relevant info and commercial advertisement. The last category has little examples in China, literally participatory public devices in China is still at its infancy. Researchers in developed countries have started to explore how to the use of technology to encourage social connectedness in cities. For example, distribution consultation technologies for communities [9], digitally supported urban walks [5] and digital speaker corner [6]. These projects are designed for public good instead of commercial profit. The interactive technology in museum share the characteristic of participation, but the interaction occurs in human and machine, which can be situated between functional and participatory interfaces.
Three case studies in different cultural background
Under Armour’s Experience Store in Chicago and Shanghai
Under Armour opened its first experience retail store in Shanghai as a base for Asian expansion. Designed by its in-house creative team Tight Shirt Productions and agency Hush and Marc Thorpe Design in New York, the store devotes more than 80 percent of its space to experiential elements.
As Hush explained, it is a “A powerful retail theater experience designed to transcend both language and cultural barriers”, focusing on “storytelling retail experience”. Visitors would see a highly angular, closed-off retail façade, then walk through a tunnel of bright LED and watch a six-minute video on a massive, 270-degree video screen. One of the goal of this new retail experience is to educate Chinese customer what an athlete would be like. [4]
Under Armour’s another experience store which leverages interactive digital design elements is its Brand House newly opened in Chicago. A five-sided suspended LEB cube, the 30-foot diameter LED ceiling structure, a 30-foot diameter ring structure LED, an Optojump interactive installation and several Under Armour Record Kiosks were the major five distinct elements in this experience store. [7] A 3D Virtual game based on Kinect designed by Helios Interactive was also a huge success during the grand opening. [8]
| Brand House | Shanghai Experience | |
| Date | 2015 | 2013 |
| Location | Chicago | Shanghai |
| Method | LED, sensor, video, camera, touchscreen, mobile app, kinect | 270 degree video screen, video |
| Participation | High | Low |
Table 2: Brand House and Shanghai Experience
Both of the two projects are part of Under Armour’s commercial marketing campaign. These kind of commercial method utilizing high technology are increasingly employed by global companies such as Nike, Adidas, HTC, Mercedes and so forth. The differences of these campaign might come from the market programs in China and western world. But the goals and methods revealed that commercial public interfaces in China focused more on dissemination of ideas and the build of brand image. Future work can promote more citizen engagement and interactive experience.
The Longest Seesaw in the World and Coca Cola Small World Machines
Both of the two projects can be regarded as screen-based system. Screen-based system has three main functions: fostering co-present interaction, encouraging civic engagement and restructuring public space.
Coke created “Small World Machines” along with Leo Burnett. In this project, two vending machines, one placed in India, the other in Pakistan, linked citizens of both countries – long embroiled in political and religious battle – interact and complete shared tasks, such as waving, touching hands, or drawing before sharing a Coca-Cola. The machine provided a live communication portal through which provided a small moment of happiness and promoted cultural understanding. [11][12]
Haibin Liu is the co-founder of Seeeklab, a creative technical company in Xiamen, Fujian, Province. His family was in Tengzhou, Shandong Province, far away from where he works. He wanted to give his eight-month old son a special present, the longest seesaw in the world. One end of the seesaw is a common seat while the other is a display screen with a real-time camera at the top. Once a person in Xiamen pushes his feet against the ground, the other person in Shandong would drop down. At the same time, the two people are able to see each other through the huge display screen. Even though the two seesaws are far apart from each other, it looks like the two people are playing the real seesaw seamlessly. [10]
This following table analyzes the two projects from methodologies, financial sources and civic engagement.
| Coca-Cola Small World | The longest seesaw in the world | |
| Date | March, 2013 | 2015 |
| Duration | 10 hours | N/A |
| Location | New Delhi, India
Lahore, Pakistan |
Xiamen, Fujian
Tengzhou, Shandong |
| Setting | Shopping centre | Public park |
| Method | 3D touchscreen
camera, video |
Sensor, wireless communication, video, mechanical machine |
| Financial Source | Coca-Cola | Deppon Express
Crowd-sourcing |
| Civic Engagement | High | Medium |
| Restructure public space | High | Low |
Table 3: Coca-Cola Small World and The longest seesaw in the world
According to another co-founder of Seeeklab, Eddie, seesaw is an object representing numerous people’s childhood memory. And only when there are two people play at the same time the seesaw works, which reveals the underlying metaphor that there must be someone offering support to you when you are at the high place. [10]
Both of the two projects focused on communication, company and love among people. Coca-Cola’s Small World, a mass-oriented commercial project in two countries, attracted and mobilized citizens to engage in this activities, restructured the public space into a collaborative performing stage. The seesaw had less social impact because the interaction can only between two people at one time. It was more similar to a personal documentary which told the story of a typical left-behind child and the family, which might arouse citizens’ collective resonance from an individual’s story or experience. This method might work better in China, where citizens are greatly impacted by collectivism and socialism.
UWB Storybooth and Chunyun Booth
UWB Storybooth is a project in the undergraduate course: Story as Art, Interactivity and Community Engagement Contact Information. Students share their stories and provide information about the campus culture. As the team said, the booth is to collect, archive and work with as many unique and individual stories as possible from the students of the UWB Campus. They hope to find the resonating cumulative narrative that unfolds throughout its spaces. Students can paint, record video and audio in the booth. The team of Storybooth would collect and organize these stories and share in the forming of video or performance. [1]
Chunyun Booth is a campaign implemented by CCTV (China Central Television) during the holiday of Spring Festival, aiming to provide a platform for citizens to speak to their families. People can walk into the booth and record their words and video. These videos will be collected and edited by staff. The next day some sections would play on the official program of CCTV. According to participants’ response, this program inspired their great interest and they are motivated to engage in this activity and share their voice and stories. [2]
| UWB Story Booth | Chunyun Booth | |
| Date | On-going | Spring Festival every year from 2014 |
| Location | Bothell, Washington | 12 Metropolis |
| Setting | Campus | Train Station |
| Method | Video, audio, paint, camera | Video, interview, social media |
| Organizer | Campus | CCTV |
| Maintenance Cost | Medium | High |
| Civic Engagement | Medium | High |
Table 4: UWB Story Booth and Chunyun Booth
Both of the booth provide a private space for citizens to talk about their stories and utilize simple technologies. UWB Storybooth was set specifically for students and staff in the campus and the content is the collective memory of campus culture. Chunyun Booth is an official campaign focus on mass citizens during a specific period of time, the Spring Festival. The huge engagement perhaps come from the promotion of mainstream media and the unique cultural impact of Chinese people. As a successful campaign, it shows the great potential of civic engagement in China with the support from the government and mainstream media.
Conclusion and Future Work
In traditional form of public interfaces such as vending machine or ATM, interaction occurs between human and machine in the form of one-to-many. Researchers in developed countries are exploring how to create a different and more open relationship with citizens. This kind of research work are still in its infancy.
Digital technologies are greatly transforming the relationship between individuals and the public space. A myriad of novel interaction approaches are dramatically reshaping the citizens’ communication. As a rapid changing country, China is facing huge social transformation, bringing numerous problems as well as opportunities. On one hand, the concept of collectivism has been challenged by high technology, via which people reduce face-to-face communication. On the other hand, complicated interpersonal relationship and perspectives on human machine interaction point to a promising research area. The following questions arises: how will novel technology and interaction approaches impacts on social relationship? How will public installation facilitate citizen engagement?
This article discusses public interfaces in China and analyzes three cases of projects from China and the western world. It reveals that the interaction and civic engagement in China is still at a relatively low level, which has huge potentials in the future. The urban is becoming an increasing explored avenue for socio-technical research. At the same time, even simple and pervasive technology such as camera and video can obtain considerable social effect. Story-telling method and support from government are two essential aspects learned from the examples above.