What's the Rush?: Alternative Values in Navigation Technologies for Urban Placemaking

Abstract

In the design of contemporary mapping technologies, effective navigation has become synonymous with the quickest route, limiting the extent to which people engage with the places they move in and around. This paper unsettles the prevalent focus on efficiency and explores opportunities to support placemaking during everyday practices of navigation. Drawing on 16 interviews and using the Value Sensitive Design framework, we identify seven alternative values, beyond efficiency, that hold significance for people navigating the city. Through a series of two design workshops, we further examine how and when these values come to matter during navigation. Our findings suggest four ways in which the prevalent design standards of navigational apps work against these values, and highlight their potential contribution to placemaking during technology mediated navigation. In doing so, this paper contributes to placemaking research and ongoing questions of efficiency and optimization within HCI.