This document introduces the UrbanIxD SIG (Special Interest Group) which focuses on designing human interactions in networked cities. The SIG aims to raise interest in urban interaction design, provide a forum for researchers, and build a community. It discusses how urbanization and internet access are growing trends, and how this impacts issues like privacy and data ownership with increasingly integrated urban technologies. The SIG is working to identify future research directions through an exhibition using critical design scenarios to provoke debate around how this domain could develop. It is also hosting a summer school in Croatia in August 2013.

1. Welcome to the UrbanIxD SIG :: Designing
Human Interactions in the Networked City
CHI2013 Paris
Michael Smyth
Centre for Interaction Design
Edinburgh Napier University, UK
@michael_smyth
Wednesday, 29 May 13

2. The UrbanIxD project particularly concerns
the Research of, and Design for, the point of
contact between people and urban
technologies.
We are building a network of researchers
working on urban technologies from the
human perspective.
We have partners in UK, Italy, Denmark,
Croatia
Wednesday, 29 May 13

3. What is this Special Interest Group all about?
To raise interest in the emergent topic of
Urban Interaction Design.
To provide a forum for interested researchers
to explore key research themes and trends.
To build a community of practice, exchange
ideas and to identify possible collaborators.
To plan for the future ... as the future is now.
Wednesday, 29 May 13

4. Background to the field of
Urban Interaction Design
UN Habitat report on populations moving to
cities - just over 50% of the world's
population now live in cities.
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5. In Europe the figure is over 70%
Europe is a dense continent and the major
lived experience of people in Europe is an
urban one
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6. Europe is the region with the highest
Internet penetration rate in the world (75%),
followed by the Americas (61%).
In 2011, more than 70% of European households
had access to the Internet at home.
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7. But this is an average - The regional differences in
Internet access within the EU were large, from
26% of some areas of Bulgaria, to 95% or
more in areas of the Netherlands.
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8. The future is already here – it's just not evenly
distributed.
William Gibson, The Economist, 2003
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9. The city is a mesh of heterogenous networks.
Not just official governmental, institutional
and commercial levels but also as a mesh of
hybrid human networks.
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10. The vision of Ubicomp is one of seamless
interfaces, connecting into invisible,
distributed, pervasive and ubiquitous
computing
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11. In 2011 there were 741 million mobile
phone subscriptions in Europe. That's 1.2
SIM cards per person.
The average age of first phone ownership is
7 years old.
Wednesday, 29 May 13

12. Interactions create data, often personal
data relating to individuals, and if our
interactions are "seamless" this raises serious
questions around the visibility of what
happens to that data. Issues of trust, privacy,
ownership and control.
Wednesday, 29 May 13

13. Smart Cities projects tend to take a Big
Picture view of systems, considering
technology from an infrastructural
perspective - the bird's eye view.
The UrbanIxD project is looking at this domain
from the ground up. From the view of the
citizen connecting and interfacing with these
technology layers.
Wednesday, 29 May 13

14. Urban informatics is the study, design, and
practice of urban experiences across different
urban contexts that are created by new
opportunities of real-time, ubiquitous technology
and the augmentation that mediates the physical
and digital layers of people networks and urban
infrastructures.
Foth, Choi, & Satchell, 2011
Wednesday, 29 May 13

15. The UrbanIxD project is working towards the
production of a research manifesto of future
research directions.
We will do this by producing an Exhibition,
using Critical design as a methodology to
present some "what if" scenarios.
To act as a catalyst for debate, and provoke
reactions to how this domain could or should
develop.
Wednesday, 29 May 13

16. We are running a Summer School in Split,
Croatia in August, 2013.
Wednesday, 29 May 13

17. Questions for the Groups
How will digital technologies change the
urban environment in the next 10 years?
What will be the challenges for Interaction
Design/HCI?
What should this community do next?
Wednesday, 29 May 13