Overview
One could argue that Pittsburgh is an art city. It spends more comparatively on public art than other similarly sized cities, but no one does.
Purpose - The purpose of our project was to increase engagement with Pittsburghs public art.
Challenge - The key challenge in achieving this is the lack of promotion and cultural and structural infrastructure surrounding public art in Pittsburgh.
Solution - Our research insights informed our design of StarWalk, an interactive virtual tour guide app for Pittsburgh that connects iconic sights, like public art, to Pittsburgh’s history and culture to show their relevance to a more complex Pittsburgh. Unlike a traditional tour guide, StarWalk allows for unstructured accessible exploration.
Ultimately, by fully highlighting the existing artwork and culture, StarWalk has the opportunity to increase the livability of the city by increasing its tourism base beyond “sportspeople,” thereby increasing tourism revenue, which gives the government money to provide services that increase livability for residents.
Team
Ankita Kundu (IS+HCI 2022)
Jee Rim (Art+HCI 2021)
Zoe Bai (METALS 2020)
My Role
Contribution Highlights
Design - Led the experience prototyping process. Introduced the PGH color scheme and use of the star, bringing the cultural integration of the experience to a new level. Aligned the wording used throughout the app with the intended audience and use.
Research - Designed the experience study. Synthesized findings and recruited participants at all stages. Led interviews with people in 4 different countries.
Teamwork - Orchestrated group reorganization at the onset of COVID-19, which left our team working across two continents and three time zones; this helped me sharpen my communication and leadership skills absence of a physical environment.
Context
LACK OF PUBLIC INTERACTION & A STEEL TRAPPED IDENTITY
Public engagement with art is correlated with improved city livability, safety, and educational achievements.
While Pittsburgh spends money each year on public art to showcase the rich history and culture of this city, our initial research demonstrated very limited interaction and knowledge of public art in the city.
We know this is not because of an apathetic public. Pittsburghers are notoriously intense fans and supporters of their city's sports teams, seeing them as part of the cities identity.
Purpose
Given the strong city pride, and the low levels of interaction. The goal for this project was to tap into that potential pride and energy and direct it to public art by answering the question:
How might we increase engagement with Pittsburgh public art?
Methods
To answer that question and ultimately create StarWalk. I worked with my team through many different user research methods. Conducting this research helped us understand how people see Pittsburgh and conceptualize cities in general, as well as how they prioritize parts of a city. Then narrow down our ideas on how to intervene and increase the role that public art plays in Pittsburgh’s identity.
The methods in the process diagram below are referenced in association with insights in the next section.
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Insights
Why People Engage With Public Art
In analyzing our research we found that to visit public art, participants typically needed a second reason to do it outside of the viewing experience.
Top Cited Reasons to Engage with Public Art Across Research:
1. To associate oneself with a cities identity
2. To learn something new
3. To have fun
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Affinity Diagraming of this idea
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(3/4)
To associate oneself with a cities identity
In analyzing thought processes in the "Think Aloud" activity in which participants planned trips to cities we found that the most common time visiting public art came up explicitly was when it was considered an "iconic" site. Participants described wanting to go because they felt obligated to take pictures at these sites so that people would know where they had been. They found joy in partaking in a staple cultural experience.
"I would visit if it were iconic.”
Think Aloud Participant Demonstrating How Cultural Popularity Guides Engagement
to learn something new
Across our research, visitors in particular consistently expressed interest in learning more when they were visiting. Whether that be by going on tours or going to museums, it was a universal priority.
"I like to learn about the historical context of the artwork. If there is info with the public art, I am more likely to look at it.”
Think Aloud
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Story Board for Public Art Tour Guide Senerio
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(4/4)
To Play
Finally, users wanted to interact with public art in a joyous way. Whether that be playing with it or taking and pictures of it online, there was a strong desire for 75% of our speed dating participants to interact with the art beyond aesthetic appreciation.
"I like being able to click through things, but I want the option to share this with my friends.”
Experience Prototyping
"My children like to play on the art.”
Speed Dating
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Participant Doing Experience Prototyping
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Why People Don't Engage With Pittsburgh's Public Art
1. Public art is disconnected from Pittsburgh's identity
2. Information about Pittsburghs public art is hidden from the public
3. Most of Pittsburghs public art is on flat walls limiting "play"
Less than 1/3 of Pittsburghs public art Murals make up the majority of public art in high traffic areas, limiting "play" opportunities
1. Public art is disconnected from Pittsburghs Identity
Our research revealed a significant gap between Pittsburgh's identity and public art.
In semi-structured interviews with people from three different countries, when asked to describe Pittsburgh, replies consistently centered sports and steel, omitting any mention of public art—unlike other cities in the comparison. This disconnect suggests that public art is not part of the public's perception of Pittsburgh.
In a separate session, participants planned trips to Pittsburgh while thinking aloud and sharing screens. Surprisingly, public art never surfaced in their planning, even on popular platforms like TripAdvisor when art was specifically looked for. This absence on trip planning platforms and common general activity search results underscores that public art activities are not considered integral to the Pittsburgh identity.
"I didn't see public art as an option in Pittsburgh, and I was specifically looking for art.”
Think Aloud Participant Who Worked in the Arts
2. Information about Pittsburghs public art is hidden from the public
Learning about Pittsburgh via its public art is hindered both in person and online. In person, most art lacks labels, and online resources are highly inaccessible. Online, information about public art seems purposefully hidden.
Google Maps is empty and professional aggregate sites don't comprehensively cover Pittsburgh's Public Art. Forcing those interested in public art to rely on individual contributions and projects, which, though valuable, require conscious effort and background knowledge to access effectively.
Additionally, a usability test of Pittsburgh visitors' site which is managed by the same group overseeing public art, uncovered that public art information could only be found once buried in a 50-page PDF! Obviously this makes it highly unlikely that visitors learn about the city's public art when getting to know Pittsburgh. In contrast, Chicago, with a similar budget, seamlessly features public art on its main page. This highlights the difficulty in accessing vital information about Pittsburgh's public art scene in particular.
Ultimately, the scarcity of accessible information limits people's ability to learn from public art in Pittsburgh.
3. Most of Pittsburghs public art is on flat walls limiting "play"
An inventory of all Pittsburgh's public art revealed that more than 2/3 of Pittsburghs public art exist on a wall or on on a tall pole to be looked at from afar. This physically limits the amount of play opportunities with public art as a whole.
Looking at the arts locations mapped the lack of play opportunities is worse in high traffic areas where murals make all but 3 public art works.
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Affinity Diagraming of Finding (Left) & Screenshot of webpage seen in several Think-Aloud's (Right)
Solution Space
Solution Requirements based on findings
1. Meaningfully connect public art to the broader Pittsburgh community
3. Highlight the significance and context of public art pieces accessibly to the public
4. Enable joyful interaction with the art
Solution Overview
StarWalk is an interactive virtual tour guide app for Pittsburgh that showcases the connection between the city’s iconic sights, including public art, and its rich history and culture to add depth and complexity to the publics’ understanding of Pittsburgh.
Built on the principles of — interactivity, connectivity, accessibility, and identity — this app combines interactive learning, organic mind model building, community knowledge spread, and incentivized community investment to form what we believe could be a sustainable solution to altering Pittsburgh’s public image over the long run.
Features
in-app Planning & Navigation tools build a new mental model
An interactive map of “iconic sites” enables exploration and absorption of an otherwise inaccessible database.
With bookmarks and in-app directions to public art and other art and cultural activities StarWalk makes exploration planning a trip to public art possible to those without insider knowledge, while reinforcing the importance these sites with the city.
The map not only allows users to make plans to visit sites in advance, a key task in trip planning, but it encourages them to visit with the phrase “iconic sites”. This phrase further establishes to users that they’re not just looking at art but symbols of PGH, allowing for future expansion.
Additionally, saving memories and facts support a lasting knowledge base and revisit in addition to their role in the initial planning.
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Gamification Incentives cOMMUNITY sUPPORT
Gamification through the Star System promotes Pittsburgh activities to increase community engagement and opens StarWalk to outside opportunities for funding and support, increasing its chances of discovery.
The Star System rewards users for their engagement. Encouraging sustained use.
Additionally, in integrating reward centrally into the app, the Star System becomes a great tool for the art and cultural sites featured to promote to an engaged target audience and encourage continued participation at their institutions.
Finally, by engaging and incentivizing other cultural institutions to promote StarWalk as part of a systemized effort, StarWalk can greatly expand its discoverability.
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Play enables deep Learning
Interacting by clicking on parts of the art in AR allows users to learn about how each piece connects to parts of Pittsburgh's identity accessibly.
This practice will build new connections between art and PGH, integrating art better into the PGH identity. Moreover, our research suggests this unique Augmented Reality experience will draw users to the app, and that adding interaction points with knowledge increases peoples ability to learn it.
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Picture-based experience sharing spreads understanding organically
Sharing Memories in personal photo form with overlayed context from the app, utilizes existing desires and communication paths to strengthen the collective understanding of Pittsburghs rich art identity.
One of the most common interactions was the desire to take pictures with art and share it with friends. The share functionality users can switch from learning to sharing knowledge about the art with photos taken in real time.
Not only does this feature satisfy users' desire for interactivity, but by allowing this information to be shared with others, it spreads the word of the multifaceted identity of Pittsburgh beyond those who can interact with the art in person.
Furthermore, by integrating this common interaction lowers the need to exit the app at any point.
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design builds connection by utilizing cultural symbols
Using the Pittsburgh colors and the Steelers iconic four-point star in the design for notable elements the app retains the "sports and steel" identity, while introducing more concepts with relative minimalism.
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Value Added
new Shared pITTSBURGH ARTS Identity Builds Pride and Community
1. Meaningfully connects public art to the broader Pittsburgh community infrastructure via centralizing cultural information on a map and rewarding cultural engagement across activities through the Star System
StarWalk serves as a bridge between existing arts and culture infrastructure in Pittsburgh in public art by with a shared map and points engagement system that forms a unified Pittsburgh Arts Identity.
With Pittsburgh centric branding instead of arts centric branding StarWalk brings city pride to this aspect of the city.
Ultimately, unification serves to raise the profile of all involved parties and ultimately give Pittsburgh's a platform to unified identity around the arts and visitors a hub to see this side of the city.
2. Accessibly highlights significance and historical context of public art pieces by making the information accessable to those who use the app and encouraging sharing to those who don't
StarWalk highlights the significants and historical context of public art pieces around the city, by marking them as important sites on a map that one can plan to visit instead of just things that one may walk by and providing both explanation pages and interactive AR learning opportunities when onsite to give weight to the pieces seen.
3. Increases the joyful interactivity of flat public art via AR learning & Memory Share
StarWalk makes all types of art from murals to monuments interactive with AR Learning and Memory Share making the public art experience more joyful and meaningful to people of all ages
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