The London Underground is one of the few places where you’re likely to find me reading adverts, and I bet I’m not the only one (see Lesson 23). Fact of the matter is the Tube is the fastest way to get where you want to go, but the price to pay is higher than the £1.70 on your Oyster card.
Taking “The Tube”, is a most brutal experience, both socially isolating and physically violating as half of London (it seems) tries to cram themselves in the same carriage as you. Your mind wants to desperately wander as you stand there, squashed, avoiding looking at others at all cost, looking up to the overhead advertising banners. It’s a moment of boredom and mental survival at the same time and somehow having an iPod doesn’t quite help.
Molly Steenson wrote (and spoke at this week’s IxDA conference) about how boredom can influence designers and architects, but what I also find fascinating is how to design for someone who is essentially stuck in an environment that will force them to see your design… out of boredom. Would you want to design for that environment at all?
The motivation for the “user” here is not genuine interest after all, but escapism. Give them something to read, and not only will they read it, but they’ll be grateful for it (which explains why there are about 3 free papers distributed outside of stations in London).
Is there opportunity to change the nature of the environment or to change the nature of the relationship to its content? Should the carriage know where you’re at in your book and display the next page, even if others might read it too? Should there be theme-based carriages? Events at the back, products in the middle, news at the front? Should the real-time location of the train be somehow displayed, showing how long there is to go till the next station and alleviating some of the stress?
Just some thoughts and I don’t claim to think they are all that interesting :) but I think there are lots of opportunities both for really playful interactions to exist in this shared experience and environment.