Design Features and User Behavior, Research Paper Example

Design Features

The video mentions the Street Life Project research group study on “The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces.” The narrator points out specific design features of urban spaces that make it possible to attract young people, such as narrow ledges. He says corners present more flows of people.This coincides with the Project for Public Space publication that notes, “”To be successful, public squares should have activities and amenities that attract people individually as well as groups (Project Public Spaces).” The narrator goes on to further note that people don´t stop to talk in the center of large spaces and he shows how they tend to flock to side walls, or enclosed areas to talk privately. The most appealing design feature mentioned is the movable chair as people can sit where they want, more people tend to feel welcome to sit down.

User Behavior

In the video “The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces” the narrator talks about human behavior in urban spaces. He notes that they tend to sit in the sun during the cold months and tend to engage in diversity of activities, such as reading, eating talking, playing games being in groups but also being alone to people watch.  As the authors of Project Public Space note, ”Successful squares have a series of dynamic destinations that attract different kinds of people each of which offers many choices of things to do – socializing, eating, reading, playing a game, interacting with art, etc (Project Public Spaces).” One telling aspect of the video that agreed with this concept was all the different types of conversations happening such as traveling conversations and  reciprocal gestures.  The example the video uses is when the person is copying body language.

Work cited

William H. Whyte: The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces – The Street Corner. 2009. Film. 15 Nov 2012. <http://vimeo.com/6821934>.

Project Public Spaces, . n. page. Web. 15 Nov. 2012 <http://www.pps.org/reference/approach-5/>.