Designing and Embedding a Tangible Public Interface in the COVID Era

Abstract

Due to public concerns over touch-based disease transmission, tangible and embedded interfaces are perhaps the most unsuited technology during a pandemic. Even so, this case study documents the development and evaluation of such a system from early 2020 when people were told to avoid actions that might spread the virus (e.g., touch). Adding to the challenge, the Lookout was installed outside in a city centre for widespread public use. Despite these challenges, a COVID-safe touchable device was embedded and extensively used. This Case Study reports the co-creation of the device noting COVID restriction adaptations over a nine-month deployment. Our contributions are twofold: the study acts as a case-point of the impact of the unique COVID design context, with lessons for future pandemic scenarios; and, given we had over 10, 000 users at a time when people were cautious about using shared devices or services, we surface some design characteristics that can promote the use of public technology.