culture includes a regular seminar series, weekly team meetings, an annual retreat, and mature mentoring arrangements.

Describe a day in the life of your lab.

There is no typical day. Every day is different. But in general, we all read a lot of academic papers, articles, and books on our subject matters.

We spend lots of time outside the lab conducting fieldwork and user studies “in the wild,” hanging out with prospective users in their typical social environments or workplaces, trying to understand their motivations as well as their everyday issues and struggles. Then we get back to the lab, sometimes with the people we met, and sketch out new design ideas and build prototypes that we can observe users’ reactions on. Those activities vary a lot, often driven by co-design, spontaneous intuition, and sometimes iterated in daily or weekly cycles.

One day you read a paper on cultural theory, and the next day you find yourself with a soldering iron in your hand—that’s quite common for us.

What is one feature of your lab that you could not do without? People in the lab usually have a dedicated interest or area of expertise, which can be technological (e.g., iOS development, open source hardware) or related to a particular methodology or theoretical framework. Because everyone knows each other, it is easy to get creative input and competent feedback.

What is one feature of your lab you
want and do not have? Longer days.

There are so many cool ideas, but there is only so much we can handle at a time. Alternatively, an army of minions to help us prepare for world domination!

How would you describe how people
interact in your lab? We have a
very informal, open, and friendly
culture. There’s harmony but also
a good deal of creative friction,
debate, and discussion. During lunch
and our weekly Friday Rumbles,
there are hot discussions, and
viewpoints are challenged critically
and constructively. Having a tech
nerd, an architect, and a cultural
theorist sitting around a table can
be quite exciting. We regularly find
our horizons being widened in many
directions. The lab extends these
interactions to external partners
internationally through remote
collaborations, so although at times
members may be physically distant,
through the use of technology they are
virtually co-present.

What is the one thing you see as most important about the work you do there? Our research coincides with a historic moment: Cities house the major infrastructures as well as the majority of the world’s population. Urbanization presents many complex challenges that we are extremely passionate about. This inspiration has seen us become one of the foremost research labs in Australia and the world in the area of urban interaction design and ubiquitous computing, and an international thought leader and early adopter of the notion of urban informatics—now embraced by universities (e.g., N YU, CUSP) and industry (e.g., Arup, McKinsey) worldwide.

We regard technology not as an end to research, but rather as a means to provide new tools that enhance the human condition. In order to create and design innovative, interactive, and intuitive technology, we need to study and understand the richness and sometimes messiness of human life and the nature of all its challenges and issues from a range of perspectives and facets. We believe this is best achieved in a collaborative and participatory manner. This thinking is a crucial element in the DNA of our lab.

http://www.urbaninformatics.net
→ Marcus Foth, [e-mail]
DOI: 10.1145/2674917 COP YRIGHT HELD BY AUTHORS
INTERACTIONS.ACM.ORG 18 INTERACTIONS NOVEMBER–DECEMBER2014
DAY IN
THE LAB