#proxemics
Critial reviews of place and space as examples for my courses in proxemics
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Digital Cities: Urban community development through information design
I was privileged to present a paper – “Digital Cities: Urban community development through information design” – at the annual conference of the National Communication Association in Orlando, Florida. The paper is an extension of my work on space, technology, and user-experience. The theoretical argument sits at the intersection of information design, city planning, and…
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Space Invaders, episode one
As a child in the American south in the 1980’s, secondhand smoke was part of growing up. It was in the house, the car, on school playgrounds, at every restaurant and shopping mall. On trips, my brothers and I observed miles of tobacco fields from the car windows. I’ve never smoked a day in my…
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Navigating the campus with new eyes
Students in my communication seminar on proxemics in the Knight School conducted a wheelchair accessibility audit of campus. The audit helped students to better understand how people different from themselves understand and use built space. The following story was featured on the Queens University of Charlotte website about the project: Navigating the campus with new eyes…
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Mapping Innovation: a discussion with digital entrepreneur Nick Such
When was the last time you got lost? Self-proclaimed “indoor map nerd” Nick Such wants to come to the rescue. “People getting lost in buildings is a problem we can solve,” says Such, CEO of BuildingLayer and founder of Awesome Inc. As CEO of BuildingLayer, much of his current work focuses on indoor mapping of built spaces.…
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Giant Ledge in Big Indian, NY
Last year in a graduate seminar, I made the claim that all experiences of space and place are designed for us. One student in the seminar rolled her eyes and, face aghast, said, “I don’t believe that.” As I pressed her on the issue, she relayed a story of a hike she took through the…
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I took my graduate students to Walmart. Don’t judge.
Everytime I write an paper about user-experience design, I try to illuminate the main concept by comparing Ikea and Walmart. So, it made sense to me that instead of talking about this comparison in my graduate course in “Space, Technology & User Experience,” I would utilize the actual spaces to make the comparison for me. My…
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Unfriending leaves a mark.
Whether you were once BFFs, Facebook friends, more-than friends, or friends of friends, unfriending someone leaves a record – a history. My family and I were strolling through a park a few weeks ago and sat on a bench swing. Bench swings, trees, and fence posts have a rich history of serving as markers. People throughout the…
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Proxemics for Blogs: Using digital space to your advantage
I’ve spent the past few days assessing blog sites full of observations about spaces. A blog is a digital space worthy of analysis in the context of proxemics. The objects placed into a blog post all have individual attributes (size, color, location) that impact their perceived use of space on a page. The trick for bloggers is…
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Mice on Main – Greenville, SC
In many cities, hunts for mice on the streets are tasks left to cats, health inspectors, and pest control personnel. Not so in Greenville, SC. Everyone is expected invited to search the city’s main street for the mice that are ever-present and underfoot. The nine bronze mice were a senior project envisioned by Jim Ryan in 2000 during…
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Paradigm Pathway – Greenville, SC
It’s described by some as a whimsical Dr. Seuss floral and by others as an industrial mash-up in metal. In May 2012, the statue was installed on the banks of the Reedy River in downtown Greenville (SC) to mixed reviews. Whereas many residents enjoyed the addition of public art to the pedestrian bridge, some onlookers thought…
J.A.McArthur 