Abstract
In this paper, we present crowd experience as a novel concept when designing interactive technology for spectator crowds in public settings. Technology-mediated experiences in groups have already been given serious attention in the field of interaction design. However, crowd experiences are distinctive because of the spontaneous, uninhibited behavior exhibited. In crowds, extreme sociality and the experience of performing identity in public emerge spontaneously. By bridging crowd theory and pragmatics of experience, we establish an understanding of crowd experience as a distinct sociality within interaction design that unfolds through imitation and invention. We deploy that understanding in an exploration of spectator experiences at three football matches in which an experimental prototype, BannerBattle, was deployed. BannerBattle is an interactive banner on which spectators can grab space in competition with their rivals. The more noise and movement they make, the more screen real estate they gain. BannerBattle therefore enabled us to explore the emergence of imitative and at times inventive behavior in enriched crowd experience, by augmenting and supporting spectator performance in this way. We discuss the value of a conceptual understanding of crowd experience for technology as an unexplored potential for designing new interactive technology at spectator venues.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Tifos are collectively choreographed mosaics often made of several 100s of colored flags carried by the spectator crowd.
See Veerasawmy and Iversen [60] for more discussions on BannerBattle and an introduction of crowd theory into interaction design.
References
Rogers Y, Lindley S (2004) Collaborating around vertical and horizontal large interactive displays: which way is best? Interact Comput 16:1133–1152. doi:10.1016/j.intcom.2004.07.008
Grudin J (1994) Groupware and social dynamics: eight challenges for developers. Commun ACM 10(1145/175222):175230
Stewart J, Bederson BB, Druin A (1999) Single display groupware: a model for co-present collaboration. In: Proceedings of the CHI ‘99. ACM Press, New York, pp 286–293
Carroll JM (2012) The neighborhood in the internet: design research projects in community informatics, 1st edn. Routledge, New York
Kaye J’ (2006) I just clicked to say I love you. In: Proceedings of the CHI EA ‘06. ACM Press, New York, pp 363–368
Go K, Carroll J, Imamiya A (2000) Familyware. In: IFIP ‘00. Springer, Boston, pp 125–140
Reeves S, Sherwood S, Brown B (2010) Designing for crowds. In: Proceedings of the NordiCHI ‘10. ACM Press, New York, pp 393–402
Benford S, Crabtree A, Reeves S et al (2006) The frame of the game: blurring the boundary between fiction and reality in mobile experiences. In: Proceedings of the CHI ‘06. ACM Press, New York, pp 427–436
Dalsgaard P, Dindler C, Eriksson E (2008) Designing for participation in public knowledge institutions. In: Proceedings of the NordiCHI ‘08. ACM Press, New York
Sheridan JG, Dix A, Lock S, Bayliss A (2005) Understanding interaction in ubiquitous guerrilla performances in playful arenas. In: Fincher S, Markpolulos P, Moore D, Ruddle R (eds) People and computers XVIII—design for Life. Springer, London, pp 3–17
Paulos E, Goodman E (2004) The familiar stranger. In: Proceedings of the CHI (EA) ‘04. ACM Press, New York, pp 223–230
Fisher K, Counts S, Kittur A (2012) Distributed sensemaking: improving sense making by leveraging the efforts of previous users. In: Proceedings of the CHI ‘12. ACM Press, New York, pp 247–256
Massung E, Coyle D, Cater KF, et al (2013) Using crowdsourcing to support pro-environmental community activism. In: Proceedings of the CHI ‘13. ACM Press, New York, pp 371–380
Greenberg MD, Hui J, Gerber E (2013) Crowdfunding. In: Proceedings of the CHI EA ‘13. ACM Press, New York, pp 883–888
McCarthy J, Wright P (2004) Technology as experience. MIT Press, Cambridge
Wright P, McCarthy J (2010) Experience-centered design: designers, users, and communities in dialogue. Morgan & Claypool
Petersen MG, Iversen OS, Krogh PG, Ludvigsen M (2004) Aesthetic interaction: a pragmatist’s aesthetics of interactive systems. In: Proceedings of the DIS ‘04. ACM Press, New York, pp 269–276
Forlizzi J, Ford S (2000) The building blocks of experience: an early framework for interaction designers. In: Proceedings of the DIS ‘00. ACM Press, New York, pp 419–423
Forlizzi J, Battarbee K (2004) Understanding experience in interactive systems. In: Proceedings of the DIS ‘04. ACM Press, New York, pp 261–268
Bødker S (2006) When second wave HCI meets third wave challenges. In: Proceedings of the NordiCHI ‘06. ACM Press, New York, pp 1–8
Dewey J (1997) Experience and education. Touchstone, New York
Shedroff N (2001) Experience design. New Riders pub., Indianapolis
Battarbee K (2003) Co-Experience: the social user experience. In: Proceedings of the CHI (EA) ‘03. ACM Press, New York, pp 730–731
Battarbee K, Koskinen I (2005) Co-experience: user experience as interaction. CoDesign 1:5–18
Battarbee K (2003) Defining co-experience. In: Proceedings of the DPPI ‘03. ACM Press, New York, pp 109–113
Battarbee K (2007) Co-experience: product experience as social interaction. In: Schifferstein HNJ, Hekker P (eds) Product experience. Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp 461–477
Guttmann A (2006) Sports crowds. In: Schnapp JT, Tiews M (eds) Crowds. Stanford University Press, Stanford, pp 111–132
Rinehart RE (1998) Players all: performance in contemporary sport. Indiana University Press, Bloomington
Ludvigsen M, Veerasawmy R (2010) Designing technology for active spectator experiences at sporting events. In: Proceedings of the OZCHI ‘10. ACM Press, New York, pp 96–103
Esbjörnsson M, Brown B, Juhlin O et al (2006) Watching the cars go round and round: designing for active spectating. In: Proceedings of the CHI ‘06. ACM Press, New York, pp 1221–1224
Jacucci G, Oulasvirta A, Salovaara A (2006) Active construction of experience through mobile media: a field study with implications for recording and sharing. Pers Ubiquit Comput 11:215–234. doi:10.1007/s00779-006-0084-5
Jacucci G, Oulasvirta A, Ilmonen T, et al (2007) Comedia: mobile group media for active spectatorship. In: Proceedings of the CHI ‘07. ACM Press, New York, pp 1273–1282
Bentley F, Groble M (2009) TuVista: meeting the multimedia needs of mobile sports fans. In: Proceedings of the MM ‘09. ACM Press, New York, pp 471–480
Giulianotti R (1999) Football: a sociology of the global game. Polity Press, Cambridge
Kratzmüller B (2010) Show yourself to the people! In: Frank S, Steets S (eds) Stadium worlds. Routledge, New York, pp 36–55
Clarke J (1978) Football and working class fans: tradition and change. In: Ingham R, Hall S, Clarke J et al (eds) Football hooliganism: the wider context. Inter-Action Inprint, London, pp 37–60
Bakhtin M (1984) Rabelais and his world. Indiana University Press, Bloomington
Crabbe T, Brown A (2004) ‘You‘re not welcome anymore’: the football crowd, class and social exclusion. In: Wagg S (ed) British football and social exclusion. Routledge, Abingdon, pp 26–46
Bale J (1993) Sport, space and the city. Blackburn Press, NJ
Crawford G (2004) Consuming sport: fans, sport and culture. Routledge, New York
Raitz KB (1995) The theater of sport. John Hopkins University Press, London
Oriard M (1981) Professional football as cultural myth. J Am Cult 4:27–41. doi:10.1111/j.1542-734X.1981.0403_27.x
Bale J (2000) The changing face of football: stadiums and communities. Soccer Soc 1:91–101. doi:10.1080/14660970008721251
Ault A, Krogmeier JV, Dunlop SR, Coyle EDJ (2008) eStadium: the mobile wireless football experience. In: Proceedings of the ICIW ‘08. IEEE, pp 644–649
Storm RK, Brandt HH (2008) Idræt og Sport I Den Danske Oplevelsesøkonomi—Mellem Forening og Forretning. Imagine.. og Samfundslitteratur, Gylling, Denmark
King A (1998) The end of the terraces: the transformation of English football in the 1990s. Leicester University Press, London
Brown A (1998) United we stand—some problems with fan democracy. In: Brown A (ed) Fanatics! Power, identity, and fandom in football. Routledge, New York, pp 50–67
Taylor J (1989) Hillsborough stadium disaster inquiry—interim report. Secretary of State for the Home Department, London
Relph E (1981) Rational landscapes and humanistic geography. Croom Helm, London
King A (2010) The new European stadium. In: Frank S, Steets S (eds) Stadium worlds. Routledge, New York, pp 19–35
de Tarde G (1962) The laws of imitation, 2nd edn. Henry Holt, New York
de Tarde G (1899) Social laws—an outline of sociology. Macmillan, New York
de Tarde G (1968) Penal philosophy. William Heinemann, London
Le Bon G (2001) The crowd—a study of the poplar mind. Batoche Books, Kitchener
Canetti E (1984) Crowds and power, 1st edn. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York
Borch C (2009) Out of sight, out of mind: on the power/knowledge of crowds and atmospheres. In: Strategic unknowns: the usefulness of ambiguity and ignorance in organizational life 2009. Oxford, pp 1–22
Borch C (2005) Urban imitations: Tarde’s sociology revisited. Theory Cult Soc 22:81–100. doi:10.1177/0263276405053722
Sloterdijk P (2008) Foam city. Distinkt Scand J Social Theory 9:47–59. doi:10.1080/1600910X.2008.9672955
Sampson TD (2012) Virality: contagion theory in the age of networks. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis
Veerasawmy R, Iversen OS (2012) BannerBattle—introducing crowd experience to interaction design. In: Proceedings of the NordiCHI ‘12. ACM Press, New York, pp 228–237
Flick U (2005) An introduction to qualitiative research, 2nd edn. Sage, London
Blomberg J, Giacomi J, Mocher A, Swenton-Wall P (1993) Etnographic field methods and their relation to design. In: Schuler D, Namioka A (eds) Participatory design: principles and practices. Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale, pp 123–155
Bødker S, Christiansen E (1997) Scenarios as springboards in CSCW design. In: Bowker GC, Star SL, Turner W, Gasser L (eds) Social science, technical systems, and cooperative work: beyond the great divide. Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, pp 217–233
Ehn P, Kyng M (1991) Cardboard computers: mocking-it-up or hands-on the future. In: Greenbaum J, Kyng M (eds) Design at work: cooperative design of computer systems. Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale, pp 169–195
Zimmerman J, Forlizzi J, Evenson S (2007) Research through design as a method for interaction design research in HCI. In: Proceedings of the CHI ‘07. ACM Press, New York, pp 483–502
Jensen B (2009) BannerBattle til AGF-BIF. http://www.agffodbold.dk/agf-fodbold/nyhedsarkiv/2009/2-kvartal/bannerbattle-til-agf-bif/?page=0. Accessed 30 Aug 2013
Giulianotti R (2002) Supporters, followers, fans, and flaneurs: a taxonomy of spectator identities in football. J Sport Soc Issues 26:25–46. doi:10.1177/0193723502261003
Stone C (2007) The role of football in everyday life. Soccer Soc 8:169–184. doi:10.1080/14660970701224319
Fiske J (1992) The cultural economy of fandom. In: Lewis LA (ed) The adoring audience: fan culture and popular media. Routledge, London, pp 30–49
Acknowledgments
This research has been supported by Aarhus University’s interdisciplinary research center Participatory IT, PIT. BannerBattle was developed in the iSport project, under ISIS2. We would like to thank our colleagues, who have helped with the project at the Centre for Interactive Spaces. We thank Aarhus Elite for their willingness to participate in our experiment, and interviewees and workshop participants for contributing knowledge to the project.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Veerasawmy, R., McCarthy, J. When noise becomes voice: designing interactive technology for crowd experiences through imitation and invention. Pers Ubiquit Comput 18, 1601–1615 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-014-0761-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-014-0761-8