Street infographics: raising awareness of local issues through a situated urban visualization

This paper presents the evaluation study of Street Infographics, an urban intervention that visually represent data that is contextually related to local issues, and is visualized through situated displays that are placed within the social and public context of an urban environment. Based on the design characteristics of urban visualization, we defined six specific design principles and applied these in the deployment of a low-fidelity prototype during an in-the-wild study. Designed to augment an existing street sign with socially- and locally-relevant information, the resulting urban visualization encourages people to gain local knowledge, reflect on their perception and even foster social interaction. We describe the design of Street Infographics and its effect on local residents, as measured before and after our intervention. Our case study should be considered one of the first steps towards a better understanding of the true potential of the use of data visualization in a public context, such as for engaging citizens in acting towards a more qualitative and sustainable neighborhood.