VDM Verlag Exploring the experience in everyday pedestrian routes: Watch for "routinized" pedestrians

In order to reach their daily destinations many people walk along the same pedestrian paths. Perhaps, at first, they gave this daily 'journey' their whole attention, but after a while they don't actively notice it unless something out of the ordinary interrupts it. With time this everyday path can become over-familiar, an almost invisible part of the routine, where individuals walk around isolated in their own thoughts, trying to separate themselves from surrounding noises and visual information. What causes these changes in people?s behaviour towards their surroundings? From studies of Environmental Psychology it is a proven fact that the environment, and therefore environmental stimulation, has an essential impact on people's psychology. Is this isolation from the immediate environment a conscious choice or is it a natural consequence? The project's goal was to design an interaction in order to enhance the ?routinized? pedestrians' experience in their daily passing environments as well as to research this interaction?s effects by means of experiential prototypes placed along their route.