Design Study 2 - Matt Regan

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For my design study the technology that participants must have is very simple. Each participant will be handed a cell phone with four numbers in it. Instead of a type of GPS system to help them know their path, a map of the path will be on their phone so that they can read it and not get off the route. Also they will be given a recorder.

The participants will follow the map given to them on their phone. Placed on the map are five specific points on five street corners along the path. There is a sixth point but that is just where they are to start. Two different participants will be going at the same time. In the phones will be four numbers. One designated corners participants must call the number related to that corner and listen to the story. The story will be one of a person who has been on that corner before at a given time. They will do this on three of the five corners. On the two that they do not have the number for they must interact with a stranger on the corner and ask for them to give their story and record it. The two participants will not have the same corners to ask for a story. At the end of the path the participants must call each other and meet up. Since they each had to find stories on corners that the other had heard a story through the phone, participants will share the stories they found and compare them to the ones they had heard on that corner.

This activity opens people’s eyes to the different types of people that can be found in a small area. Often when people are walking through the city they are too concerned with where they are going that they don’t realize the diversity and interesting lives around them. Even if they do you don’t really know background on those people or if they have a story to why or how they got where they are. This gives you the opportunity to notice both.