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Daniel Normark

General information

Daniel Normark works as a Ph. D. Student at the Interactive Institute and the section for Science and Technology Studies, Göteborg University. During work he is located either at the Mobility Studio, Interactive Institute in Stockholm or at the section for Science and Technology Studies in Gothenburg.
Research interest
My research focuses on daily practices of road-use and how various technologies are interwoven into these activities. The importance of road, roadsides and vehicles increase when so much of our daily life are spent within these spaces. The road is a constrained space where interaction between members of the place is limited particularly by the entrapment and speed of the vehicles, but still interaction occurs. It is the interaction between roadside-habitants and road-users that my research takes an extra interest in by employing ethnographic and other qualitative methodologies. Roadside-habitants are those that have a special interest in segments of the road since the road affects (positively or negatively) their activities beside the road. Road-users refer to those that engage in the activity of mobility on the road. The members of these categories shift constantly and individuals regularly jump between these categories. But in the activities that these individuals conduct, the differentiation is useful. The aim is to analyse the practices and negotiations regarding places along the roads and how they are utilized and interpreted by the two categories of users.
What is STS?
"Science and technology shape current societies while also themselves in multitudinous ways being shaped by the social world - by history, politics and culture. A lot of our daily activities are based on an interaction with technical devices and artefacts."(Extract from 'That is STS'). [STS]
What is the mobility studio?
The Mobility Studio at the Interactive Institute generates innovative mobile services and the corresponding supporting technology that exploit the benefits of mobile life in the area of road use. They adopt iterative design by studying social practices of road use to inform design and development. Iterative design, as an engineering practice, is shaping the creation of new fields and applications of technology, a method that is growing, especially in the research field of Computer Supported Collaborative Work.
Themes in focus
The road environment offers few clues in relation to what happens on them, how the abutter to a particular strip is (how "owns" it), etc, thus it is hard making any understanding of the road without various of forms of mediation. The limitations in the roadside environment are particularly obvious when studying the interaction between bystanders and road-users. Signs, buildings, flags and other symbols along the road "compensate for the direct contact with people". I perform studies on current practice to obtain understanding regarding bystanders and road-users views on the road. That involves the practice of putting local and personal signs along the road studying activities at roadside places such as such as petrol stations and bus stops, or by studying special groups of roadside-habitants such as children.

In collaboration with the mobility studio, one goal with the ethnographic studies is to inform design. But I do not study an existing technology rather the interaction and conditions for a setting where mediating technologies would be feasible to implement. Information and Communication Technologies can, as signs and symbols, compensate for the lack of direct contact at the roadsides. One could speak of augmenting the roadside environment enabling interaction between bystanders and road-users. Thus, roads could "be designed as a meaningful and informative experience" with the development of mobile IT-applications.
Projects

Roses and Billboards: a study on the practises of localised expression along the roads through signs and symbols
Based on the notion that the road is a public space we aim to understand how behaviours, expressions and sensations are shared within that public space. We therefore aim to study current practice, with personalised and local road signs. The content of the road signs can provide an understanding of how people relate to the road, or a segment of the road. This theme explores how bystanders display the transparency, traces of presence, ownership, and density of a place adjacent to roads, by putting up signs and symbols. For more information check the project site.

Petrol station ethnography
There is much more taking place at a petrol station than traditional car maintenance. They constitute important nodes in the road network, filling up thirsty fuel tanks and hungry stomachs, guiding road users and providing vehicle-services. But they are also public places where the activity of sharing the place with co-present people is particularly difficult due to the limited size of the forecourts. Time and speed are important properties of a petrol station. The fieldwork provides an insight in the continuous handling of a location and the continuous handling of travel at a location. For more information check the project site.

Children up against the road
An important part of child development is the exploration of the outdoor environment. However in urban settings this environment has become more and more restricted, narrowing down the places for children to be. As roadside-habitants children are excluded from the activities of road use. The study is conducted with the intention to understand the road-related-interaction as part of the children's experience. The question is how the children display the transparency, traces of presence, ownership, and density of the place - that is the liveliness of their childhood - towards a road-user and vice versa.

Finished projects
Bus Talk
Public transport is an activity where those that carry out the service are highly distributed and mobile. This creates a great stress on the organisational aspects of the work. First of all, the potential passengers must be able to get access to the vehicles that constitute public transport. This is organised though bus stops and timetables, which is dependent on the vehicles reliability and predictability. But they manoeuvre in a situated context where inconsistencies and unexpected event continuously has to be handled. Though an understanding of the bus drivers daily practices new collaborative tools can be developed that supports ongoing collaboration between the colleagues in public transport.
Publications

Texts available at the Publications page

Juhlin, O. and Normark, D. (2006). Public road signs as intermediate interaction. To appear in Space and Culture. Sage Publications, pp. ##-##.

Normark, D. (2006). Tending to Mobility: Intensities of Staying at the Petrol Station. In Environment & Planning A. Pion, vol. 38, no 2, pp 241-252.

Esbjörnsson, M., Brown, B., Juhlin, O., Normark, D., Östergren, M. and Laurier, E. (2006). Watching the cars go round and round: designing for active spectating. In Proceedings of CHI 2006. ACM Press, pp. 1221-1224.

Normark, D. and Juhlin, O. (2005). Intermediate Interaction in Traffic. Presented at The Workshop on Location-Awareness and Community at ECSCW'05.
[PDF]

Normark, D. and Juhlin, O. (2005). Presenting and representing roadsides: the practice of mounting and removing private signs along road. Presented at The International conference Technisierung /Ästhetisierung - Technological and Aesthetic (Trans)Formations of Society.
[PDF]

Normark, D. (2004). Coping with Cars and Co-presence at Petrol Stations. Presented at The Coping with complexity Workshop, Bath, UK.

Glimell, H. and Normark, D. (2004). Rerouting the agency of technology-in-use - STS and the resurrection of the mundane. In Proceedings of Public Proofs, Science, Technology and Democracy, 4S & EASST Conference'2004. #publisher#, pp 486-##.

Normark Vesterlind, D. (2004). Tending to mobile societies. Presented at the Alternative Mobility Futures Conference, 2004. Lancaster, UK.

Normark Vesterlind, D. and Esbjörnsson, M. (2004). The Mobile Workplace: Collaboration in a Vast Setting. In (ed. Mikael Wiberg), The Interaction Society: Practice, Theories and Supportive Technologies. Information Science Publishing, pp 251-270.

Normark Vesterlind, D. (2003). Using ethnography or technology probe: Understanding children's future use of roadside interaction. Presented at the workshop Designing for ubicomp in the wild: Methods for exploring the design of mobile and ubiquitous services, at MUM'2003.

Vesterlind, D. (2003). Shared Spaces Shared Responsibility: Designing for Non-Obstructive Browsing. In Proceedings of IRIS26 - the 26th Information Systems Research Seminar in Scandinavia. CD-ROM.

Esbjörnsson, M. and Vesterlind, D. (2002). Finding a Space for the Mobile Workplace. In Proceedings of The Third Wireless World Conference: The Social Shaping of Mobile Futures, Location! Location!, 2002.

Esbjörnsson, M. and Vesterlind, D. (2002). Mobility and Social Spatiality. In (eds. Hård, M., Lösch, A. and Verdicchio, D.) Transforming Spaces: The Topological Turn in Technology Studies. Chapter 16.

Juhlin, O. and Normark-Vesterlind, D. (2001). Supporting Bus Driver Collaboration: New Services for Public Transport Managment. In Proceedings of ITS - The 8th World Congress on Intelligent Transportation Systems. ITS Australia. CD-ROM.

Juhlin, O. and Normark, D. (2000). Bus Talk Informatics - System Concept. The Viktoria Institute, April 2000.

Juhlin, O. and Normark, D. (2000). Bus Driver Talk - Current practise and future communication support. In Proceedings of IRIS'23 - The 23rd Information Systems Research Seminar in Scandinavia. University of Trollhättan, Uddevalla, Sweden, pp 1451-1466.

Juhlin, O. and Normark, D. (2000). Bussförarprat Vardagliga praktiker och nya tekniska lösningar. Working paper 2000:1, Section of STS, Göteborg University.

Juhlin, O., Normark, D. and Sjöberg, L. E. (2000). Road Talk Informatics - Informatics for Local Collaboration Along the Roads. In Proceedings of ITS - The 7th World Congress on Intelligent Transportation Systems. Ertico. CD-ROM.