Interactive wayfinding — Sami Niemelä

3.2.2 Interactive wayfinding — Sami Niemelä

Real-time data is a phenomenon which has only recently been considered by designers as a way of improving the information available through urban wayfinding. As a result, the majority of cases discussed in this section are still in the development or prototype phase. The advantages that real-time data can bring to urban wayfinding, however, are not disputed and it is anticipated that the opportunities it presents for ensuring that information is always accurate and up-to-date have important implications for the future of urban wayfinding. Although the Urbanflow (2011) project which has been developed by Nordkapp is still in the prototype stage, it offers an excellent example of how storytelling can contribute to the development of interactive wayfinding models particularly given that storytelling can enhance the prototyping process. The prototype model of Urbanflow is currently being developed for Helsinki and so the project is called Urbanflow Helsinki. To uncover how the storytelling approach can

be used in prototyping interactive forms of wayfinding through display screens in urban centres was the reason that Sami Niemelä was chosen as an interviewee.

Nordkapp is a product and information design firm based in Helsinki, Finland. They specialise in developing strategic approaches to information and data visualisation as well as interaction and interface design. Urbanflow Helsinki is a prototype project co-created by Nordkapp and Urbanscale and which proposes an operating system for Helsinki which generates and curates real-time data which is then fed back to the city (Nordkapp

and Urbanscale 2011). The aim of the project is to ‘make the city more accessible and enjoyable for both residents and visitors through a situated interactive service which uses living data from the city. It would offer far-reaching benefits for both city administrators and local citizens. Urbanflow can be tailored to meet the needs and address the challenges of different cities, in its prototype form, however, it is Urbanflow Helsinki and has been developed in conjunction with Forum Virium Helsinki, a research centre owned by the City of Helsinki to invent and design new digital service. Although this project is not yet at the stage of installing screens in Helsinki, a concept video (Fig. 33) was released in 2011, which offers an insight into what it is intended Urbanflow will look like when it is finished. The video also demonstrates the advantages that the system will provide when it has been completed including the use of information outlets such the screens mentioned above for wayfinding and other purposes, allowing eventual users to visual how the Urbanflow Helsinki will work in practice.

Sami Niemelä is the Creative Director of Nordkapp. His primary involvement in the Urbanflow project has been to refine the concept, conduct research, develop the prototype and direct presentational videos. Niemelä’s vision is to use design in order to rethink cities and urban living through ‘the lens of functional and human centric design (Niemelä 2012). He has an intrinsic appreciation of simplicity which owes much to his time growing up in the Finnish countryside while his preference for functional design, apparent in Alva Aalto, echoes Finland’s socialist political model. Besides urban information design, Niemelä has strong insights into interaction and interface design.

The following are Niemelä’s answers to the email interview in which he participated, considered with references to a blog which he wrote entitled Building Urbanflow Helsinki (2011) and

a talk which he gave at the Mashable Innovation Series / BMW Guggenheim Labs Berlin on Stories, Behaviour and Purpose.

Figure 33. Urbanflow Helsinki, concept video

produced by Nordkapp, 2011 This video shows how Urbanflow works in

the real world in combination of filming and motion graphics. Although this project looks futuristic, this video enables viewers to imagine how it benefits them.

https://vimeo.com/26030147

The meaning of storytelling

Niemelä (2012) has drawn attention to the fact that the use of stories, or narratives, as a medium of communication is something shared by all cultures and civilizations for multiple purposes such as education, entertainment, and cultural preservation or for inculcating moral values in the community. Moreover, within the context of an urban environment, Niemelä asserts that storytelling can be a way of visualising the inordinate amount of data and information that cities produce. Reflecting on those views in light of his own experience, Niemelä suggests that:

‘Storytelling equals communication. Finding a suitable narrative to tell a story fit to a preset context is an important part of storytelling.’

Therefore, it can be said that storytelling has the potential to be an effective means of presenting interesting and informative data for the purposes urban wayfinding.

Reasons for using storytelling

Niemelä has identified three primary reasons for utilising the storytelling approach:

1. ‘Video is an excellent way to encapsulate a story. A good design

fiction, speculative or product video tells a self-contained story of the why, what and how of a product.’

2. ‘Writing the narrative to the story forces you to think and prioritise, especially when writing a “sales pitch” to someone else. A voiceover and the reasonably short length of an average user’s attention span is a good restriction.’

3. ‘Lastly, on product level storytelling is a great way to introduce a product and the thing it does.’

Niemelä uses storytelling to encapsulate and visualise the story of a product and present this in a concise way. He also highlights (2012) the importance of sharing the backgrounds and concepts behind a story which enables people to better empathise and understand it. As Urbanflow is a prototype, it is particularly important to communicate the idea to local businesses and the

City Council and win their support for the project. Promotional videos can be an effective and concise means of doing this by clearly demonstrating how users can interact with the system through urban screens while also providing insights into what advantages it can bring to the city and its inhabitants. Thus short videos are able to share both the concept and the advantages of projects such as Urbanflow Helsinki to system designers, potential stakeholders and future users.

Storytelling in the urban wayfinding design process

• Making a concept and scenarios of a product Niemelä states:

‘For Urbanflow, the story was the final product. After the initial concept stage, communicating and truncating the story helped us to crystallize what we had.’

Urbanflow Helsinki is the culmination of extensive research and in depth analysis of the findings of this research. Firstly, Nordkapp conducted studies on interactive elements of the cityscape exploring how people interacted with twenty different urban screens in Helsinki. At the time this research took place, urban screens were, in the main, non-interactive and were largely used for advertising purposes. This was followed up with interviews and observations in the cities of Helsinki and Tallinn over the course of a year to develop an understanding of people’s needs. From this research they identified three potential scenarios for using urban screens (Niemelä 2011; Nordkapp and Urbanscale 2011):

• Wayfinding for visitors and tourists (Fig. 34): it enables users to plan their journeys through live transit information and route suggestions.

• Showing and visualising real time information (Fig. 35) in relevant to people’s lives such as energy consumption, traffic density air quality and municipal works.

• Enabling people to give direct feedback to the City.

Nordkapp developed the concept of Urbanflow around the three scenarios listed above. Niemelä (2012) describes the project as ‘a Nordkapp developed the concept of Urbanflow around the three scenarios listed above. Niemelä (2012) describes the project as ‘a

• Introducing the product Another function of storytelling is, as mentioned in a previous section, to present the features of a prototype in an appealing way. Niemelä stated in the interview that, ‘storytelling is an integral part of a design project. Everything boils down to communicating.’ Such as in the case of Urbanflow, producing a concept video in the

Figure 34. Urbanflow Helsinki, live wayfinding using real-time transit information designed by Nordkapp, 2011 http://www.fastcoexist.com/1679254/ urbanflow-a-citys-information-visualized-in- real-time#1

Figure 35. Urbanflow Helsinki, visualisation of real-time information designed by Nordkapp, 2011 http://www.fastcoexist.com/1679254/ urbanflow-a-citys-information-visualized-in- real-time#1 Figure 35. Urbanflow Helsinki, visualisation of real-time information designed by Nordkapp, 2011 http://www.fastcoexist.com/1679254/ urbanflow-a-citys-information-visualized-in- real-time#1

• Effects on the outcome Regarding the impact of storytelling on the outcomes of a project, however, Niemelä states:

‘Like I said, everything is a story, and design is about communicating. I wouldn’t say storytelling itself has much effect, but instead it just is part of the final delivery. A video is a video of course, so that sets the tone and bar for a certain type of resources.’

This shows clearly that he does not believe storytelling has a direct or tangible influence on outcomes. Rather, he emphasises the role of storytelling as a communication tool useful during the implementation phase of the project and how it can be used to present ideas in an appealing way.

Relationship to clients

In his answer to question 4, Niemelä states that, ‘sometimes as an end product [a video], most times not at all since it is a part of the process anyway’ Niemelä’s primary use of the storytelling approach is to distil a number of factors into a single concept. Urbanflow’s concept video, for example, is successful at integrating elements such as the background, purposes and values of the projects in order to communicate these to clients. For prototype projects, demonstrating what the system will be able to do when it is fully functional could be vital for securing the support and funding from clients and stakeholders.

Relationship with the culture and identity of a place

Niemelä indicates:

‘The culture and identity of a place tell the story at large. Graphic design is a strong part of identity of a place– both current in form of advertising and wayfinding as well as in layered history such as remains of past places, signs and so forth.’

Even advertising and wayfinding look different, as Niemelä states, both Even advertising and wayfinding look different, as Niemelä states, both

Additionally Niemelä (2012) considers a city to consist of numerous layers that have developed at different speeds and which have come into being at different times. The layers referred to by the interviewee are things such as fashion, commerce, infrastructure, governance, culture and nature. Urban interactive wayfinding can therefore combine these physical and figurative layers of a city through digital technology in order to add new meanings to abandoned spaces and recount the story of a place

Figure 36. Urbanflow Helsinki, interface of

from a variety of perspectives. As such, digital wayfinding systems

map designed by Nordkapp

can contribute to the character of a city and emphasise aspects

Typeface: Proxima Nova designed by Mark Simonson

which give it a distinct identity.

On urban screens, this typeface balance legibility and warms.

Discussion

http://www.fastcoexist.com/1679254/

The talk entitled Stories, Behaviour and Purpose (2012) which

urbanflow-a-citys-information-visualized-in- real-time#1

Niemelä delivered to the Mashable Innovation Series / BMW Guggenheim Labs Berlin appears to suggest that he has an advocate of storytelling as a means of concept development in wayfinding. During the course of the interview, however, it became clear that Niemelä primarily views storytelling as a method of communicating with users and clients. During the Urbanflow Helsinki project, storytelling was used to distil the outcomes of the research and observations into a concept video. And this approach does appear to have been successful given that the video has been viewed almost 44,000 times on Vimeo since it was posted online in 2011. The interesting way in which this video describes the idea underpinning Urbanflow has clearly reached out to many people. For interactive urban wayfinding prototypes like Urbanflow, storytelling is undoubtedly an effective way of describing its development, how it will operate in an urban environment and the advantages that it will bring to users. The way in which the storytelling is used to demonstrate the product should emphasise Niemelä delivered to the Mashable Innovation Series / BMW Guggenheim Labs Berlin appears to suggest that he has an advocate of storytelling as a means of concept development in wayfinding. During the course of the interview, however, it became clear that Niemelä primarily views storytelling as a method of communicating with users and clients. During the Urbanflow Helsinki project, storytelling was used to distil the outcomes of the research and observations into a concept video. And this approach does appear to have been successful given that the video has been viewed almost 44,000 times on Vimeo since it was posted online in 2011. The interesting way in which this video describes the idea underpinning Urbanflow has clearly reached out to many people. For interactive urban wayfinding prototypes like Urbanflow, storytelling is undoubtedly an effective way of describing its development, how it will operate in an urban environment and the advantages that it will bring to users. The way in which the storytelling is used to demonstrate the product should emphasise

As Niemelä mainly works in the field of interaction and interface design, Urbanflow is primarily about urban interaction design rather than traditional wayfinding. Interestingly, he views cities as

a combination of huge amounts of different types of data which he then uses technology to curate and present which he describes as ‘telling compelling stories’. Despite this, Niemelä appreciates the importance of incorporating the cultural and historical identity of cities into the design of the systems which he develops. Using interactive screens for the purposes of urban wayfinding offers the opportunity to use compelling stories to package interesting and informative data for users.

Summary

» Storytelling is communication » Storytelling does not affect outcome significantly, but is useful

for developing a concept which consists of numerous ideas and extensive research, as well as for presenting the appealing points of a product

» Videos are a powerful form of media which capture a story and

convey it to many people » Urban wayfinding and advertising tell story of a whole place