Networked public displays can stimulate interaction between members of place-based communities, e.g., through situated snapshots - photos taken through a display attached camera. Previous work pointed the need for deploying networked public display applications in various settings in order to make the findings transferable and generalizable and recommends that findings should be connected with research from community psychology. In this paper we report a 15-week "in the wild" deployment of the Moment Machine 2.0 that allowed taking situated snapshots at a university. The application's evaluation involved in-depth interviews (n=20), survey (n=119), and log file analysis. We synthesize our findings with prior work and show how certain effects transfer across settings. We show how the application affected community interaction and sense of community as defined by McMillan and Chavis. We provide implications for design of similar experiences. Overall, our work contributes to the general knowledge of common effects produced by public displays.

Urban screens are becoming a common element of our city landscape. As such they offer new ways of connecting people that occupy public space, e.g., by taking situated snapshots through a display-attached camera. In this paper we present a first longitudinal case study of 12 weeks of such an application -- Moment Machine -- deployed "in the wild" on an urban screen facing the street. We report findings from 1189 photos taken, 13 interviews, and 3 weeks of observations that show engagement stimulated by situated snapshots within a place-based community where the screen is located. We also analyze interaction log files to describe how often users interacted, what type of interactions they had and how long they lasted, and overall engagement on a weekly basis and throughout the week. Based on our experience, we provide three take-away snippets for designers of similar urban screen experiences.

Public displays have advanced from isolated and non interactive "ad" displays which show images and videos to displays that are networked, interactive, and open to a wide variety of content and applications. Prior work has shown large potential of user-generated content on public displays. However, one of the problems with user-generated content on public displays is moderation as content may be explicit or troublesome for a particular location. In this work we explore the expectations of users with regard to content moderation on public displays. An online survey revealed that people not only think that display content should be moderated but also that a delay of up to 10 minutes is acceptable if display content is moderated. In a subsequent in the wild deployment we compared different moderation delays. We found that a moderation delay significantly decreases the number of user-generated posts while at the same time there is no significant effect on users' decision to repeatedly post on the display.

The proliferation of digital signage systems has prompted a wealth of research that attempts to use public displays for more than just advertisement or transport schedules, such as their use for supporting communities. However, deploying and maintaining display systems “in the wild” that can support communities is challenging. Based on the authors’ experiences in designing and fielding a diverse range of community-supporting public display deployments, we identify a large set of challenges and issues that researchers working in this area are likely to encounter. Grouping them into five distinct layers -- (1) hardware, (2) system architecture, (3) content, (4) system interaction, and (5) community interaction design -- we draw up the P-LAYERS framework to enable a more systematic appreciation of the diverse range of issues associated with the development, the deployment, and the maintenance of such systems. Using three of our own deployments as illustrative examples, we will describe both our experiences within each individual layer, as well as point out interactions between the layers. We believe our framework provides a valuable aid for researchers looking to work in this space, alerting them to the issues they are likely to encounter during their deployments, and help them plan accordingly.

The proliferation of social networking sites and mobile technology allows us to check on our friends and family, follow what experts in our field think, or simply 'check-in' online. While in many ways advantageous, the ability to be constantly connected is significantly affecting our offline interaction behavior. People sharing a table today might ignore each other for stretches at a time in order to interact with far-away friends through mobile technology instead. The goal of this workshop is to examine how we can build technologies that promote offline interactions. We plan to discuss how offline interactions can be spurred within different social groups and different settings through currently available devices and technologies. We also plan to explore how such technologies can be built and used for different types of offline engagement (e.g., playful vs. serious). The workshop aims to establish a community interested in computer mediated offline interaction.

In the age of online social networks, local communities still play an essential role in supporting social cohesion. In this paper we present a study that explores the design of "interacting places" -- networked public multimedia services that foster community awareness between local members -- in the context of a student community. In order to have interacting places "fit in" with the existing communication practices of the students, we performed and analyzed a set of semi-structured interviews with n=17 students regarding their use of email, social networking services, and instant messaging to stay in touch with others. A follow-up online survey (n=76) then explored how networked public multimedia services could complement these practices. Following a "communicative ecology" approach -- a conceptual model that represents the technical, social, and discursive contexts of communication -- we draw up guidelines to support the design of both content and channels (applications) for interacting places in student communities.

Public displays are becoming a ubiquitous resource in the urban environments due to significant price drops of large LCD panels. However, most public displays are still displaying simple advertisements in the form of slide shows or movie clips, instead of offering locally customized content that resonates with passers-by. So far, creating such customized content has been expensive. As a possible solution we present the concept and architecture for autopoiesic content, i.e., self-generative content that is automatically created by matching local context information with regular scheduled information into content that is highly localized. In this paper we report on the design, operation, and user experience of FunSquare -- an application that uses autopoiesic content to present localized "fun facts" in order to strengthen the feeling of community.

Nowadays, personal navigation devices (PNDs) that provide GPS-based directions are widespread in vehicles. These devices typically display the real-time location of the vehicle on a map and play spoken prompts when drivers need to turn. While such devices are less distracting than paper directions, their graphical display may distract users from their primary task of driving. In experiments conducted with a high fidelity driving simulator, we found that drivers using a navigation system with a graphical display indeed spent less time looking at the road compared to those using a navigation system with spoken directions only. Furthermore, glancing at the display was correlated with higher variance in driving performance measures. We discuss the implications of these findings on PND design for vehicles.