by julia🐨razumovskaia -

PROTOTYPING – Design & Research II (Birgit) – 1/6

Continuing my research on the topic of “Slowness”from last semester, I will be doing further work on this topic as part of the Design & Research II course with Birgit Bachler PhD.

For the final assignment, I will need to record a 2-minute video of the final prototype — in my case, I plan to use prototyping in Figma, which each of you will be able to test. The research will again focus more on contextual analysis, as well as user testing, bibliography, and heuristic evaluation.

In this first blog post, I want to show you three quick lo-fi prototypes for a future app. The task was to create 3 scenarios, and I’ll be presenting each of them today. All of them were put together and thought through quickly, in no more than 20–30 minutes.

*Also, during the second session with Birgit, we did a speed dating exercise, and at the end I’ll go over some notes and discuss the issues my classmates encountered.

Prototype 1: Mood-based navigation 😁

In this scenario, the user first selects their mood or intention (calm, curious, social, fast), and then receives a route that matches that mood.
The route includes different types of spaces — parks, cafes, quiet street, depending on the user’s chosen mood.
The goal is to demonstrate how navigation can adapt to the person, rather than just to the geographical task.

Prototype 2: Fast vs. Slow Route 🏃‍♀️

This scenario compares two approaches to navigation: “fast” and “slow”.
It shows the user that a longer route can be a better experience—it passes through green spaces, quiet streets, and places to stop (such as cafes or shops).
The goal is to shift the focus from efficiency to the experience of the route and a conscious choice.

Prototype 3: Explore unknown areas 🤷‍♀️

Here, the navigation system encourages users to explore unfamiliar parts of the city.
The map is divided into “known” and “unknown” zones, and users can choose a route that takes them through new places.
The goal is to encourage exploration, step outside of familiar routes, and foster a personal connection with the city.

🗨️ Speed Dating notes:

During testing, additional scenarios emerged that are not covered by the current logic:

  1. First, a safe route is important, especially at night — taking into account street lighting, the presence of people, and the overall sense of safety.
  2. Second, the issue of data collection arose: to implement such routes, we need to understand where to source information, for example, regarding lighting, traffic, locations, and user behavior.
  3. There was also a request for budget-friendly routes, paths that take cost into account (like avoiding expensive locations or suggesting affordable spots), which adds another layer of personalization.

by julia🐨razumovskaia -

5# Product & Business Idea – Design & Research II (Katerina)

✍️ What problem are you solving?

Most navigation systems are designed solely for speed and efficiency. They guide people from point A to point B as quickly as possible, but ignore their mood, context, and the quality of the journey. This creates a sense of passivity, stress, and detachment from the city itself, especially when it comes to large cities or complex journeys.

✍️ Why should we care about it?

Because the way we move around cities affects our attention, stress levels, and attitude toward urban spaces. When navigation focuses solely on speed, people miss out on the city’s opportunities and the chance to explore it. In large cities, this often means we stick to our usual routines and never get to know the city beyond what is strictly necessary.

✍️ What is the solution you are offering? How does it work?

The solution is an adaptive map navigation system that suggests routes based not only on the destination but also on the user’s mood, time of day, and preferences—in other words, on the right kind of onboarding. Instead of always suggesting the fastest route, it can offer alternatives such as peaceful, curious, social, or exploratory paths—for example, through parks, cafes, quiet streets, or unfamiliar neighborhoods. Safety and lighting can also be taken into account.

✍️ Who is the target audience? Who is the customer?

The target audience includes city residents, travelers, immigrants!, researchers, and people seeking more meaningful ways to navigate urban spaces. This is particularly relevant for users who are tired of navigation focused solely on efficiency (such as myself). Clients may include individual users as well as city tourism organizations, municipalities, or mobility-related services interested in promoting a more measured and people-centered urban experience.

✍️ What is going to happen? (Change & Impact)

My product prioritizes mindful navigation over mere ease of use. Instead of simply speeding up movement, users get more information, more choices, and a deeper connection to the city. This can reduce stress, encourage exploration, and help people discover new neighborhoods, rhythms, and everyday experiences in places they already know—or think they know.

Thanks! 🙏

by julia🐨razumovskaia -

4# Customer Profile & Value Proposition Map – Design & Research II (Katerina)

💼 Persona I – Busy Commuter

This is a time-conscious person who needs to move efficiently between locations, often under stressful conditions. They rely on navigation to save time, but in doing so experience stress, overload, and reduced alertness. They need routes that remain efficient, reduce mental strain, and allow for brief moments of calm.

🗺️ Persona II – Curious Explorer

A user who explores the city with an open mind and curiosity, rather than in a hurry. They are interested in discovering new places, atmospheres, and experiences. They need a navigation system that supports exploration, suggests meaningful routes, and helps them engage more deeply with the city.

by julia🐨razumovskaia -

3# Inclusion & Accessibility – Design & Research II (Katerina)

These factors highlight that access to slow navigation is not the same for everyone. The experience depends on physical abilities, emotional awareness, and cognitive skills—such as the ability to walk, recognize one’s mood, and make decisions about the route. It also requires a certain level of spatial awareness, which is not always equally developed or maintained.

At the same time, accessibility is shaped by external conditions: pedestrian infrastructure, GPS accuracy, access to mobile devices, safety, and cultural habits of movement. This shows that slow navigation is not just a matter of design, but a systemic issue influenced by the environment, technology, and the social context in which the user finds themselves.

by julia🐨razumovskaia -

#2 Change & Impact – Design & Research II (Katerina)

This comparison highlights the shift from efficiency-oriented navigation to experience-oriented movement. Most existing navigation systems prioritize speed, offering the fastest route by default and guiding users through the city with minimal user involvement.

As a result, users typically follow directions passively, often losing their sense of the surrounding environment and missing opportunities to interact with it. Travel becomes functional rather than experience-driven.

In contrast, this project explores navigation as something more adaptive and human-centered—where routes respond to mood and context, encourage exploration, and foster a more meaningful relationship with the city.

by julia🐨razumovskaia -

#1 System Map – Design & Research II (Katerina)

This diagram illustrates the broader ecosystem surrounding my slow map navigation system. At the center are the direct users—people who move around the city with different needs, rhythms, and intentions. Surrounding them are groups that use maps in their daily lives, from residents to travelers, each of whom perceives the city in their own way.

The outer layer shows indirect users—entities that do not use the product itself but shape the conditions in which it exists. Urban planners, local businesses, infrastructure, and data systems—all of these influence how we move, which routes are available, and how the city is perceived.

Together, this underscores that navigation is not just a tool, but part of a larger system. How we move through the city is shaped not only by personal choice, but also by design decisions, the environment, and the social structures around us.

by jessica.schiller -

Drink Smart and Keep Calm: Technology that Stays in the Background – Part III

From Concept to Prototype: Planning a Calm, Tangible Drinking Reminder

After introducing ubiquitous computing, tangible user interfaces, and calm technology through the example of a smart water glass, the next step is to explore how such a concept could be translated into a physical prototype. Rather than focusing solely on technical feasibility, the planned smart coaster is intended as a design-driven experiment — one that combines physical prototyping with a human-centered design (HCD) process.

The goal is not to build a “perfect” product, but to create a functional artifact that allows the underlying interaction principles to be examined, questioned, and refined.

Framing the Problem in Its Usage Context

The initial motivation for the project stems from a common everyday situation: forgetting to drink water while working or studying. Existing solutions, such as hydration reminder apps, typically rely on push notifications, sounds, or vibrations. While effective in theory, these mechanisms often interrupt users at inopportune moments and shift attention away from the current task toward a screen.

Before committing to a specific technical solution, I would usually start the project by planning a usage context analysis. This would involve observing when and where drinking usually happens, how glasses are positioned in work environments, and how people react to reminders during focused tasks. As the design proposal has already been introduced, I move directly into this idea rather than conducting a full exploratory phase. The underlying assumption is that drinking is already embedded in physical routines and object interactions—making it a promising candidate for a tangible, environment-based interface.

Planned Human-Centered Design Approach

The development of the smart coaster is intended to follow a simplified human-centered design (HCD) process:

  1. Empathize & UnderstandThe process would begin with self-observation and informal conversations to gain insight into why drinking is often forgotten and how existing reminder systems are perceived in everyday situations.
  2. DefineBased on these initial insights, the core design challenge can be formulated as:How might a drinking reminder support hydration without interrupting or demanding attention?
  3. IdeateThe ideation phase would focus on identifying calm forms of feedback. Different modalities—such as light, sound, or subtle movement—would be explored and evaluated in terms of intrusiveness, social acceptability, and perceptibility in the periphery of attention.
  4. PrototypeA low- to mid-fidelity prototype of a smart coaster is planned as a tangible representation of these concepts, allowing interaction principles to be examined in a physical form.
  5. EvaluateShort, qualitative user testing sessions are intended to help validate assumptions and inform iterative refinement of the interaction and feedback design.

Technical Implementation as Design Medium

The planned prototype combines accessible digital fabrication and physical computing tools:

  • A 3D-printed coaster, designed to visually blend into everyday environments.
  • A pressure sensor to detect the presence or absence of a glass.
  • A Raspberry Pi Pico as the microcontroller handling timing and state logic.
  • Subtle ambient feedback, such as low-intensity light, to communicate reminders without explicit alerts.

Importantly, the technical setup is intentionally kept minimal. This aligns with calm technology principles by reducing complexity and ensuring that the coaster remains usable even if the digital components fail.

Planned User Testing and Evaluation

Rather than large-scale usability testing, the project is intended to rely on small, qualitative user tests. Participants would use the coaster in desk-based work scenarios and reflect on their experience afterward.

The evaluation would focus less on performance metrics and more on experiential questions:

  • Was the reminder perceived as intrusive?
  • Did it remain in the periphery until needed?
  • How did it compare emotionally to phone-based reminders?

These observations are expected to inform whether the concept successfully embodies calm interaction.

Conceptual Comparison: Coaster vs. App

As part of the analysis, the smart coaster will be conceptually compared to traditional drinking reminder apps. While apps centralize interaction on a screen, the coaster distributes interaction into the environment. This comparison serves to highlight how tangible interfaces and ubiquitous computing shift responsibility from the user to the surrounding system.

Outlook

By planning the smart coaster as both a technical prototype and a research artifact, the project aims to explore how calm technology principles can be operationalized in everyday objects. The focus remains on how interaction feels, rather than how much functionality is added — reinforcing the idea that sometimes, the most effective technology is the one that stays quietly in the background.

References:
  • Weiser, M., Seely Brown, J. (1995): “Designing Calm Technology“, Xerox PARC
  • Weiser, M., Seely Brown, J. (1996): “The Coming Age of Calm Technology“, Xerox PARC
  • Case, A. (2015): “Calm Technology: Principles and Patterns for Non-Intrusive Design“
  • https://calmtech.com
  • Human-Centered Design nach ISO 9241-210:2019

AI Assistance Disclaimer:

AI tools were used to improve grammar and phrasing. The ideas, examples, and content remain entirely the author’s own.

by julia🐨razumovskaia -

Finding our way without rushing 10/10

#slowness #slowliving #slowinteraction #digitalcalm #calmtechnology #navigation #urbanexperience

[1] Photo by Margo Vorobeva

Most modern navigation tools are optimized for one goal: efficiency.
The fastest route. The shortest time. The fewest obstacles.

But cities are not just systems for getting around. They are places to experience, observe, and gradually build relationships with. And our movement through them shapes our sense of connection — or alienation.

I imagine a different type of navigation. One that adapts not only to geography, but also to people.

What if a map asked not only where you want to go, but also how you want to feel along the way?

🗺️ A map that takes into account:

⭐ your mood (calm, curious, tired, sociable);
⭐ your time (a quick walk or a day off);
⭐ your preferences (parks, cafes, quiet streets, shops, dog-friendly routes etc.);
⭐ and your familiarity with the city.

💡 Instead of constantly directing you along the same optimized routes, the system could gently suggest alternatives:

👉 a longer route through the park when you need to slow down;
👉 a street you’ve never walked down before;
👉 a neighborhood you usually pass by, but never visit;
👉 a café along the way when the time seems right.

This wouldn’t remove choice — it would expand it.
Multiple routes. Different rhythms. Clear intentions.

*Video is AI generated

Research by Gregory D Clemenson already shows that the way we navigate affects how we remember places and how focused we are on what is happening. Clear step-by-step instructions can reduce spatial awareness and personal engagement with the environment, while more exploratory or sensory forms of navigation promote cognitive mapping and concentration. [2]

Urban theorists such as Jan Gehl have long argued that cities should be designed with human experience in mind—for walking, stopping, observing, and staying—rather than solely for high throughput and speed. However, digital navigation often pulls us in the opposite direction. [3]

In large cities such as Vienna, London, New York, or Moscow, it is easy to live in a very small personal world:

🏠 home → 🖥️ work → ☕ favorite café → 🛍️ supermarket

Entire neighborhoods remain unknown, even after many years of living there. A slow, adaptive navigation system could gently open up these worlds. Not by forcing detours, but by inviting them.

I want to explore this idea in more detail: to develop a navigation interface that prioritizes quality of movement over speed, awareness over automation, and choice over control.

A map that doesn’t rush you to your destination,
but helps you build a relationship with the city along the way.

💚Thank you!💚

Sources 🛈

[1] Mobile photo: Movement. 35AWARDS Photography Contest. Best of Contest, Viewer’s Choice, Top 35. Photographer: Margo Aleksandrovna Vorobeva. Available at: https://35awards.com/page/contests/num/743

[2] Rethinking GPS navigation: creating cognitive maps through auditory cues. Scientific Reports, 2021. Available at: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8032695

[3] Gehl, J. Life Between Buildings: Using Public Space. Island Press, 2011. Available at: https://cus.ubt-uni.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Jan-Gehl-Life-Between-Buildings_-Using-Public-Space-2011-Island-Press.pdf

by julia🐨razumovskaia -

Slowness in Navigation: How Maps Shape the Way We Move 9/10

#slowness #slowliving #slowinteraction #digitalcalm #calmtechnology #navigation #urbanexperience

Most navigation tools are built around one promise: get me there fast. The “best” route is usually the shortest, fastest, or most efficient. And, as with many digital products, this default value subtly trains us to behave in a certain way: we start moving through places rather than being in them.

This article looks at maps as interfaces that design movement. Not just in apps, but in cities too. When a system optimizes speed, it changes what we pay attention to, how we feel while traveling, and what we remember afterward.

🤔 Why this matters (beyond convenience)

❗ Your attention narrows: you follow instructions rather than your surroundings.
❗ Exploration slows down: you stop noticing landmarks, textures, narrow streets, and “micro-attractions.”
❗ Stress builds up: constant updates and the “keep moving” logic can feel like pressure—similar to how notifications increase the sense of urgency in digital life.

🚶‍➡️ Maps as “pace setters”

When using turn-by-turn navigation, you delegate some of the tasks of orientation and decision-making. Research in the field of navigational assistance has raised concerns that clear directions may reduce the effectiveness of spatial learning (you reach your destination, but remember less information about the route).

This is the key question of “slow living” in navigation:

Do we need a tool that simply takes us from point A to point B, or one that helps us connect with the place?

“…current GPS apps (based on turn-by-turn navigation) promote a passive form of navigation that does not support learning or the formation of cognitive maps.” — Microsoft Research, Redmond (2021) [1]

🗺️ Comparing map logics (what each app “optimizes for”)

1. Google Maps [2]

👉 Key principle: efficiency + accessibility for all


Advantages:
➕Extremely efficient A→B routing, multimodal options, reliable POI database.

Designed for quick decision-making: “best route,” “fastest route,” “leave now.”

Disadvantages:
➖The “fastest” approach may dominate, even if you have time.
➖Research is present, but it is secondary to speed (you can explore, but the interface pushes you toward achieving your goal).

2.Yandex Maps [3]

👉 Key principle: city management + detailed urban practicality (Russian cities)

Advantages:
➕ Often very detailed dense urban development: entrances, public transport logic, accurate location determination.
➕ The feeling of “the city as a system”: created for everyday travel in difficult conditions.

Disadvantages:
➖ As a rule, it supports a functional rhythm focused on daily travel: fast, straightforward, problem-solving.

3.Mapy.cz [4]

👉 Key principle: outdoor recreation + hiking/walking/cycling culture

Advantages:
➕ Great for hiking as an activity, not just a means of transportation.
➕ Offline-oriented logic and detailed route information encourage exploration and the creation of longer routes.

Specific example: Mapy.cz emphasizes offline maps and convenient route planning as a key set of features (especially useful for hiking, trekking, and traveling).

Disadvantages:
➖ The product “expects” you to wander. This expectation alone changes the pace.

Let’s compare the same place — the city center of Vienna — across different map interfaces:

Google maps
Yandex maps
Mapy.cz

🙋 Why would “slow navigation” be optimized?

If we rewrite the criteria for success, we get a different interface:

Instead of: the fastest route
Try: a peaceful route / an interesting route / a safe route / an accessible route / a shaded route / a scenic route

Slow navigation could purposefully include:
👉 landmarks (parks, observation decks, cafes) as key elements of the route
👉 rest stops (benches, quiet places, small squares) as part of the journey
👉 a gentle choice instead of one “best” route (3 moods, not 3 minutes)

This is directly related to the city: if streets are shared spaces, design should not only serve drivers and speed.

Sources 🛈

[1] Rethinking GPS navigation: creating cognitive maps through auditory cues. Scientific Reports. 2021. Available at: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8032695

[2] Google Maps.Google LLC. Available at: https://www.google.com/maps

[3] Yandex Maps. Yandex LLC. Available at: https://yandex.com/maps

[4] Mapy.cz. Seznam.cz, a.s. Available at: https://mapy.cz

by julia🐨razumovskaia -

The City as a Designed System: Architecture, Space, and Pace 8/10

#slowness #slowliving #slowinteraction #digitalcalm #calmtechnology

In my last three blog posts, I want to focus more on the city and the human experience in the city, the moments when we slow down and speed up, why this happens, and how design can shape our experience. In the last 10th blog post, I will describe an idea that came to me while using maps for traveling, hiking, and using maps in the three countries where I have lived.

Cities often have a default sense of urgency. We rush through the streets, quickly moving between buildings and rarely stopping unless there is a clear reason to do so. This feeling of acceleration is usually associated with modern lifestyles or digital technologies. However, long before the advent of smartphones and notifications, the city itself was already shaping the speed at which we move.

🏛️ Architecture as an Invisible Script

“First we shape the cities — then they shape us.” — Jan Gehl, Life Between Buildings (2011) [1]

Urban planning determines not only where we can go, but also how we get there. Wide, straight streets encourage continuous movement. Narrow sidewalks discourage lingering. Long building facades with minimal variation encourage visual scanning rather than observation. Even the absence of benches, ledges, or secluded corners suggests that stopping is not expected.

[2] Vester Voldgade, Copenhagen.

🤳🏾 Cities as Interfaces

From an interactive design perspective, a city can be viewed as an interface consisting of physical components:

👉 streets as navigation paths;
👉 intersections as points of interaction;
👉 buildings as visual landmarks;
👉 public spaces as potential places to pause — or missed opportunities.

As in digital systems, default settings matter. When urban space is designed primarily for efficiency, throughput, and movement, speed becomes the implicit norm. There is little friction, but also little invitation to linger.

Urban planner Kevin Lynch in his book “The Image of the City” emphasized how spatial clarity aids orientation and movement, but also warned that excessive legibility can turn a city into a mere transportation environment rather than a place where new experiences can be had.

[3] Urban Planning Elements: Kevin A. Lynch.

🏃‍♀️ Designing for Flow, Not Staying

Modern cities are increasingly optimizing flows: transportation efficiency, pedestrian capacity, visibility, and safety. While these goals are valid, they often result in spaces that are difficult to inhabit at a leisurely pace. Transitional areas—entrances, plazas, underpasses—are designed to move people through, not allow them to linger.

This logic stands in sharp contrast to alternative urban models such as the Cittaslow movement. The Cittaslow manifesto explicitly challenges acceleration as a default urban value, proposing a city designed not primarily for throughput, but for quality of everyday life. [4]

🦥 What is a Slowcity:

The Cittaslow manifesto contains seventy recommendations and obligations, the main ones being the following :

  • Enhancement of the historic urban heritage by avoiding the construction of new buildings.
  • Reduction of energy consumption.
  • Promotion of ecological technologies.
  • Multiplication of green spaces and leisure areas.
  • Cleanliness of the city.
  • Priority to public transport and other non-polluting transport.
  • Reduction of waste and development of recycling programs.
  • Increase in the number of pedestrian areas.
  • Development of local shops.
  • Development of community infrastructures and equipment adapted to the disabled and the various ages of life.
  • Development of a genuine participatory democracy.
  • Preservation and development of local customs and regional products.
  • Exclusion of GMOs.

🏎️ Pace as a Design Outcome

[5] Making Cities Slower… And Safer For All.

Speed in the city is rarely a personal choice. It is determined by structural decisions: street width, building density, visibility, and the presence or absence of places to rest. These elements together determine the rhythm of the city.

Understanding the city as a designed system helps shift the focus away from blaming individuals for driving too fast. Acceleration is often not a mindset—it is an architectural condition.

Speed in the city is rarely a personal choice. It is shaped by structural decisions embedded in street design and urban layout. When movement is prioritized over presence, speed becomes the default — even in spaces meant to be shared.

“City streets aren’t the sole domain of cars and their drivers. They’re also home to pedestrians of all ages, to cyclists, mobility scooter and wheelchair users, to groups of playing children, and mass transit passengers. They are shared spaces, which means they need to provide safety to all.” — Making Cities Slower and Safer for All, Forbes (2024) [6]

Sources 🛈

[1] Life Between Buildings: Using Public Space. Jan Gehl. Island Press, 2011. Available at: https://cus.ubt-uni.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Jan-Gehl-Life-Between-Buildings_-Using-Public-Space-2011-Island-Press.pdf

[2] Vester Voldgade, Copenhagen. Massengale Blog. Available at: https://blog.massengale.com/2015/07/19/vester-voldgade/

[3] Urban Planning Elements: Kevin A. Lynch. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8OuADNE1EQ

[4] In Praise of Slowness: Let’s Slow Down the City! Citego. Available at: https://www.citego.org/bdf_fiche-document-1735_en.html

[5,6] Making Cities Slower and Safer for All. Forbes. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/lauriewinkless/2024/07/17/making-cities-slower-and-safer-for-all/