This project was done to support the research work – Participatory Explorations on a Location Based Urban Information System, of my advisor Damla Cay.

Abstract. In this paper, we share our user research experiences from an ongoing participatory location based urban information system design study. While the geographical information system (GIS) field advanced by means of sensors, data collection and data processing, there is still a limited number of visualization studies. Here, we envision novel solutions that represent spatio-temporal data for effective use in daily life. With this intention in mind, as early stage studies in our research process, we conducted a series of participatory design (PD) workshops together with an ethnographic artifact, a custom sketchbook to identify user scenarios and explore possible visualization techniques. The main objective of the study is to explore new ways of visualizing and interacting with the complex location based data that will provide intuitive yet easier and more effective daily life information for the public.

Özge Genç, Damla Çay, Asım Evren Yantaç, Arçelik Research Center for Creative Industries, Koç University, Istanbul, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011