E288 - Antisocial Architecture

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: Ah, yes. Hello everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Human Factors Cast. We're recording this episode live on July 13th, 2023. I'm your host, Nick Rome. I'm joined today. Bye, Mr. Barry Kirby.

[00:00:11] Barry Kirby: Hi. Hello. And it's good to be back after our week hiatus.

[00:00:15] Nick Roome: Yes we are back. We have an awesome show lined up for you Tonight we're gonna be diving into hostile design.

What is it? How could it impact social inequality in our cities? And that's not all. We're gonna be answering some questions from the community. We've got someone looking to implement user research for their small company. We're also gonna tackle the question about asking for advice on gaining confidence in their abilities.

And just from today's chat in it's like a live on the fly edit. A question about feeling fearing failure in UX research. But first let's go ahead and get into some community updates, programming notes, if you will, tomorrow. This is the first thing I'll say. 9:00 AM Pacific, 12 Eastern.

There will be an H F E S town hall. Now, this will be a great opportunity for all of you to show up and ask H F E S leadership and others questions that you might have. Tomorrow's topic is getting involved, the Internal Affairs Division, but there's gonna be much more than just that, so please attend if you can.

Again, it'll be live on all the platforms you're experiencing now, as well as all the official H F E S channels. Now for the other piece of news, we were off last week, but that doesn't mean that we weren't doing some fun stuff. In the meantime, safe and effective episode two is out now. Join Heidi as she sits down with Maggie Ree to talk about a conversation from the medical device development from a device engineer's perspective.

So all the human factors chat about device engineering. Really interesting chat. I, it's always weird, I said this in the pre-show cuz I sit in on these conversations, I'm not part of them. And so it's yes, I've lived this, but I'm listening to it. So anyway, go listen to it. It's out now literally on any of your podcatcher platforms.

Safe and effective episode two. Barry, I have to know what's going on with the latest over at 1202.

[00:02:09] Barry Kirby: I've gotta be brutally honest and not a huge amount recently. The we've had the same episode with Kate Preston. It's a fantastic episode, so really well worth listening. But we've had it up there a while because everything else has been flat out.

So we've got no new episodes or we've had no new episodes come up. However, there is a new episode coming in either this Monday or next Monday on human facts integration, which is gonna be really well worth listening to. We're just getting some final ticks in the boxes for that. And then we've got some other cool interviews lined up.

Bit of a hiatus at the moment, but new content coming soon.

[00:02:39] Nick Roome: Exciting. I'm excited because I finally caught up on my 1202 feed, so I'm excited for more stuff. Anyway, we got a great topic tonight. Let's get into it.

That's right. This is the part of the show all about human factors news. Barry, what is the story this week?

[00:02:57] Barry Kirby: So this week we are talking about hostile design and how can urban design impact social inequality. This article explores the concept of hostile architecture, which refers to the intentional design strategies that control direct or inhibit human behavior in urban spaces.

Examples include benches with armrest positioned in the middle to prevent people from lying down. Metal spikes attached to services, to deter skateboarders and high frequency sound devices. To discourage groups of teenagers from congregating hostile architectures has its roots in the defensive architecture of ancient times and the Middle Ages where cities were designed to control and secure their populations.

Today, this time for design is used to address perceived problems and challenges in urban spaces, but it does carry significant social implications. Critics argue that their hostile architect hostile architecture perpetuates social inequalities and marginalizes vulnerable populations. While proponents labor is necessary for maintaining order and cleanliness in public spaces, however, research shows that hostile design merely displaces undesirable behaviors without addressing the root causes.

Moreover, the ethicality of these design strategies is called into question as they deliberately increase discomfort and exclude certain individuals from public spaces. Ultimately, the conversation around hostile architecture highlights the need for a more compassionate and comprehensive approach to urban design when that considers the needs and rights of all the citizens and seeks to create inclusive and welcoming environments.

So next what do you think? What are your thoughts on the bench down your local park where you can't have a sleep on it overnight?

[00:04:33] Nick Roome: Look, I think this is a really cool topic and a great article over at UX Collective. I'd ensure I'd encourage all of you to go watch. Not watch, go read the original article.

I think there's a lot of really interesting points there, and is one of the reasons why we selected it as a topic to talk about on the show. I think this is very cool because it's something that it's almost like dark patterns in UX where if you think about sort of these things that exist to get you to do something that you may not want to do, it's just a really fascinating topic to me and so cool topic, but is it not so cool from a basic human necessity standpoint? I'm not sure it is. I think there's I'm not necessarily pro hostile architecture here, but I think is this, or the fact that we have or designed for hostile architecture, a reflection of us as a society and our failure to address some of these root cause issues like homelessness or public disorder.

Like how can we, as a society, Better accommodate people in such a way that we don't necessarily have to do hostile design to get the desired behaviors that we want. Fascinating from that perspective, Barry, what are your thoughts on the article?

[00:05:52] Barry Kirby: So I'm in a similar boat. I really like this topic because from a human factors perspective, we get to explore this from.

From both approaches, almost from a, the different users, the different stakeholders evolved. And really how do we balance that and balance them requirements off each other? So at one extreme, we highlight it in the article where it's, where it talks about medieval design with walls and things like that.

A modern perspective. We use fences, we use walls. We put barb wire on the top of them. We put razor wire on them to control where people go and people's access. It's not that long ago. I used to know that, where you had a brick wall and people would concrete broken glass into the top of it to make sure that nobody would climb over.

And where we use these techniques to stop, say, loitering, like groups of kids are hanging out where we know these groups of kids cause trouble. We know that these groups of kids have, will do graffiti and street vandalism. That's then seen as a positive by the community. Cuz we have this inbuilt idea that we see a group of kids and they're clearly they must be doing wrong things because that's what groups of kids do, isn't it?

Which is clearly that was sarcasm if that didn't come over. But then also, like we, the, I guess the more emotive one really is where we see homeless people sleeping on benches, any doorways. But we can see that from a business owner's perspective. If you run a business or you your own home, if you live in a block of flats or something you go down to the hallway the flats and there's people are sleeping where you don't want people sleeping in your doorway.

For a number of reasons. And if you are looking after the town or the city or the commu communal spaces, then the benches are made to be sat on. They're not made to be slept on. So working in this way, then actually you are using design abilities to make sure the seats have been used for what it is that they've been designed to do.

Cuz they're a seat, they're not a makeshift bed. But then you circle right back to why people have to sleep on there in the first place. That is user behavior. That is, they are residents too. So if they can't sleep on there, they still need to sleep somewhere. But so just shifting them or we're just moving the problem out.

It's an outta sight, outta mind type of thing. Exactly. We're not fixing the other half of the equation. Which we then therefore have a responsibility as a society to do, but bring that back to a human factors perspective. Is that our problem? Is that something that we should be cognizant of given when we're trying to solve the problem?

How where is our moral boundary? Where is our thing on that? Cause there's loads of other bits of elements where we deliver human factors without necessarily thinking about the ethical standpoint in society, shall we say. So yeah, it's interesting. It's, that's why I think it's a great topic cuz it brings everything in together.

[00:08:40] Nick Roome: Yeah. There's a lot of ways and there, there's a lot of places we can go with this discussion. I'd like to start off with a social thought and if you want your social thought to be read on the show we do post all over internet, so just comment and we'll find it. But Neil, one of our patrons here ever carry Allen wrenches or other similar small tools with you while walking around cities asking for a friend.

And he's right there. There's, it is an inconvenience not only for the people that they're designing. And like I it's interesting because who is actually designing these is it UX researchers, is it human factories? Engineers? Is who is doing the design of this where it is intentionally I don't know, trying to target a certain demographic.

I think it's interesting from that perspective. I thought it'd be good to go over just a couple examples of this. You mentioned a few in the blurb, right? Armrest on benches. In fact, you can go and look at our thumbnail for an example of this one. There's a woman trying to lay down and she can't do it because there's an armrest there.

So arm rests on benches. You think about things like metal spikes, and I think you also mentioned the high frequency sound devices that are only being able to be picked up by younger ears, right? And so targeting an age demographic, there's other different types of things that I think there's some really obvious examples, and then there's some subtle examples.

And so we can go over some of those. The antis skateboarding I don't know, th they're like little metal strips that they put on curbs, so that way people can't grind down them on their skateboards. There's other sort of obvious ones like boulders or rocks in certain placements, so that way people can't sit or congregate in those spaces.

There's also making the benches themselves sloping or uncomfortable. And I think, being able to not sit in a place for a long time is probably, intentional in a lot of cases. Then there's also some really subtle examples, like the high frequency one, unless you know it exists, that's not something that you are necessarily privy to all the time.

If you can't hear it because you've already lost all those all those cells in your ear then you're not gonna be you're not gonna be bothered by it. It's only young people.

[00:10:56] Barry Kirby: Interesting fact I could hear them put till I was about 30. Cause it they're meant to be ju just up until what, 18, 19, something like that.

Yeah. I could hear them into my thirties. Good for you. Not really. It's really irritating,

[00:11:10] Nick Roome: but there's some other subtle examples as well. Blue lights in bathrooms, and this is not one that I immediately thought of, but the the blue light. It's being lit with blue light to make it harder to find veins that.

You can, yeah you can read between the lines there.

[00:11:28] Barry Kirby: Sorry, just to jump in. We had a social thought on exactly that topic. Yeah, go ahead. It's probably worth highlighting. So this is from Kim kin and, but she said she highlights it's awful in some cases can do more harm. So the use of blue lighting and stairwells and under bridges to stop people injecting drugs because it's hard to see bla vening blue light.

If someone is that desperate that they're injecting in a car park, a blue light will not stop them, but it'll make it more dangerous for them and the community as there's more likelihood of a blood spill. Blood spill. Yes. Surely the money spent on these initiatives would be better spent on, on support, which is kinda what we were saying earlier as well.

But again, it's interesting, isn't it? It's that whole unintended consequence of what seems on paper Yeah. Logical idea. But then it's that wider implication of so what?

[00:12:13] Nick Roome: Yeah, I think you're right. I think that's a great, thank you for bringing in that that social thought. I'm just just rolling here. We, let's see here. The idea of bench bars. Have you seen these? I've seen these. And these are annoying where instead of the sit down benches, these are you lean up against them and it's like just a place to lean and relax instead of sit and relax.

So that,

[00:12:35] Barry Kirby: that brings in another social thought. Go for it. So just to, so Claire Haslam highlights most bush shelters, and actually what she's referring to there is in the uk we've, we have a lot more of these bench bars as part of a bus stop. And I know of a specific instance, so when I was a when I was a counselor that there was a particular bus stop outside of somebody's house where people, where younger people in particular were congregating around this this bus stop and I got called into by the owners of these of the houses right next to it saying, we're getting all these people congregate all the time.

What can we do about it? And that was one of the solutions that was recommended was that we put in these bench bars so people couldn't sit. I think it was like but what about people who actually need the seats when they come to get on the bus? So that was a bit crazy. But yeah, so we, we see a lot more of the of bench bars being used in places where you traditionally have a seat.

[00:13:26] Nick Roome: And then the use of uncomfortable material or design. And when these seats or benches are made from uncomfortable materials are designed in a way that's uncomfortable to sit in for a long time. That's another subtle example of this hostile architecture. And then the last sort of example I have is narrow or uncomfortable sidewalks.

And this is one where if you don't want large groups together in one space you make the sidewalk narrower. So that way there's, an intent behind not being able to gather in that area. And so I think these are some really interesting examples that we can think about as we look at this topic.

And I guess we'll bring in the last social thought here that we have, at least in the show notes, is that this is by Sarah. And she writes, I imagine many stories can be told by people with disabilities visible and invisible about how they've been excluded from spaces, the impacts on the sense of place.

And active omission can seem like commission in design and then also urban versus versus urban space designed to bolster the needs of children or older users or welcome pets, that inclusive community. And so I think this is a really interesting point that we can use as a springboard.

What do you think, Barry?

[00:14:45] Barry Kirby: It's, it is a really interesting point that the, is every space intended to be used by every person? So if you've got, so if a public space is turned into a skate park, for example, just thinking off the top of my head that automatically excludes me from that space because the chance of making on a skateboard and surviving a very slim indeed Equally.

There's other spaces which aren't made for the youth to go on use that are maybe made for people who prefer walking through tranquil gardens and things like that. Even just general grass. Some people can't access grass because it's either too muddy for say wheelchairs or people on crutches and things like that.

They're not, some things that are very, would seem to be very simple to, to access maybe are not. But I think there is a difference in maybe not really thinking about exactly who should or focusing a space on a particular demographic. Which I think is different to what Sarah's pointing out, where she's highlighting actually if you don't think about who is going to use the space and make a conscious decision that they are either included or excluded from that space or maybe not, it's not focused towards them are two different things.

And I think she's quite right there. But it is interesting. So look at these, going through some of these obvious examples. So we noticed when we were out yesterday, so some examples of these benches that have rested in the middle of them. And in fact, I've tooked a picture in the show notes of what of a, of that was a life photo that we took yesterday which doesn't help anybody else on the podcast but I can see it.

And that was just, I can see the notes. That's true. And so that was just yesterday. So highlighting the fact that there's no way, so it's just a normal, it's a wooden metal wooden bench with a metal arm right in the middle of it. So there's no way that anybody could lie down on it. I did ask Amanda to lie down on the bench to prove the example that she was unwilling to do so in the middle of the public forum.

I think that, do you think that is different from the scape boarding devices? So the scape boarding stuff where kids can go and basically stopping them doing u using the street furniture as a playground, so the street furniture, which is totally not intended to be that sort of use, do you do you think that's different?

Do you think that's right? Just put you

[00:17:00] Nick Roome: on the spot. This Yeah. This feels like a gotcha question bear. Cause look like the intent behind benches is to allow people to sit and rest and I. If somebody is still intending to rest by sleeping, are you're preventing them from sleeping by putting that arm in the middle of it, right?

Just like you're preventing somebody from skateboarding, from from skateboarding on with the metal strips. And, but what is the intent behind curbs and retaining walls? Think about it. What is the intent behind them? It's to define a space, right? It is to define either a a sidewalk or like in the instance of a retaining wall, it is to keep things in, okay?

Like dirt or plants or whatever it is. The intent behind that is not to be a playground for people to skate on. And to me, this hostile architecture of including things like a center Bar on a bench that is a little different from, putting the metal strips. It's a matter of maintenance versus perception.

Cause I think in the case of the metal strips, that is a maintenance question. When skateboards grind on curbs it can damage them. It can make them unsightly. But if somebody sleeps on a bench that doesn't do anything for the bench, it is a perception problem about the city then, at that point, at least to me.

And so I do think they're different in terms of the intent, because you could have. Very much like a, it's the difference between dark patterns and intuition, where, you do something because it's intuitive and when it's something that you wanna do, it's pleasant, but it, when it's something that is benefiting the company that is doing that dark pattern, then it's like you, you view it in a different light.

And so I feel it's very similar to that where it's a feature, not a bug to have the strips. And then it's also it's definitely keeping homeless people out when you have that bar in the middle of it. Let's be clear. So it's a difference between perception and maintenance for me, because keeping the kids from grinding their skateboards down a curb is a maintenance problem because that's not their intended use.

Keeping people from. Sleeping on a bench. The bench is for resting, so you just don't want people sleeping there because you think it's gonna lead to encampments. Yeah. So that's my thoughts on it. What do you think?

[00:19:44] Barry Kirby: Yeah, I'm we might I might agree more violently with you cuz I do think that, the antica body devices so if you are skateboarding off street furniture, off curbs or things like that, the chances of you having an injury or doing something and hitting somebody else, having an injury or damaging the the curbs or whatever it is, it in itself that is not.

It's not being antisocial, it's not being anti people. It's asking you not to not to ruin the thing. There, there are other places on skateboard. Go and skateboard have fun. But the, this is almost capsulates, what I'm about to say about the armrest. We know that kids like to skateboard.

I've grownups like to skateboard too. So we don't, people like to skateboard. And so we turn around and say we see your skateboarding and we give you your skate parks. We give you, certainly in the UK we see more and more popup skate parks pop up, halfpipes and things like that.

So we recognize that people want to do this. And so because it's the kids and cause it's cool we build them nice little skate parks to go do it. That's great. And that means that we can turn around and say, when do you stop skateboarding in our lo in the public space and trying to endanger people?

Go to the skate park. You give them somewhere to go. That's great.

[00:20:49] Nick Roome: But, and this is where counterpoint, the what if you don't have the money for both?

[00:20:53] Barry Kirby: Let me finish my good point first and go then you can shred. This is my problem with the armrest on benches because on the one hand, this is a great piece of human factors engineering.

The requirement has been people are spending, people are sleeping on the benches, which is really not what they're designed to do. It's not good for their own health. It's not good for the perception of this, of wherever the, where, wherever it's at, where wherever it's at, it'll increase littering in, include, there, there's loads of reasons why sleeping on park benches is not great.

A, for the person, b for the local area. So we do all week. So we do, we've come up with a design here that stops them from doing that brilliant bit, like putting the the antis skateboard devices on. We've come up with a solution. What we haven't done here is turn around and say, you can't sleep here, but you can sleep over here.

We haven't given that balance that that, that alternative place that that we can, that we do. So all of these things I think need to be in, in balance because it's a bit like you, when, if you tell your children off you, you stop doing that or don't do that now, but you can go and do something over there.

You give them that, you give them an alternative outlet. And I think that's where the whole for us that would be a, the process or procedure that's put into place. So we have the initial requirement of we don't want people sleeping here. This is how we're gonna design that out. But you would have the, so what part of that and saying, the other bit of that, we've done the physical bit, but what about the environmental bit where you turn around and say so what is the knock on effect? We're gonna have people who need to sleep somewhere. They've got nowhere to sleep now. Cause we've put in a piece of hardware where to then they then go, so you gonna count you, you're gonna gimme

[00:22:36] Nick Roome: a counterpoint.

Yeah, no, I was just gonna say what if you had, what if you don't have the money for both? And that's exactly the second point that you were making there. It's almost I shouldn't have interrupted you while you were talking, but here's the thing. You're right. Why are we spending money on skate parks and not homeless shelters?

That's, and that's not a question that we can answer. But also thinking about the cost of these patches, right? What is the cost benefit to having a center bar on a on a bench, right? It probably costs not that much to include that on the thing. The benefit I u I use that in air quotes for people listening.

The benefit is that there's no visible person staying there for an extended period of time. Yep. But you're right. What then the. Tradeoff to that is that yes, they go somewhere else. Now the same thing can be said about the other example, the metal strips for skateboarding. What is the cost of building a skate park versus the cost of building or including these strips?

I would imagine that the cost is quite significant to reserve a part of the land for a skate park versus just including these metal strips on the thing, right? That's, it's the same argument, but there's different, intent behind them, right? You give a skate park for somebody to skate because the thing that the curbs are not meant to be skated on.

Like I'm arguing that the bench is meant for resting, maybe not for extended periods. And if you go by that definition, then fine. I think. The interesting thing to me here is that when we look at the world through this lens, when we take away, imagine a world where we take away hostile architecture, what happens?

We have people who are finding places to sleep and we have people who are using the environment, the city as their playground. And we also have people who are doing what many would consider socially inexcusable behaviors and practices like drug use in these public places, right? And so what exactly do, when we look at a world where that is happening, I think it would be much more likely that we would try to do something about it.

And to me, hostile architecture is a patch that says, let's just put this off to the side. So that way we don't see it out of sight, out of mind. We don't have to worry about it because we've patched the good area. And again, good is in air quotes there, we've patched the good area and we're going to keep it tidy.

So that way the perception of this area is clean and we don't have to do about the other things because they're going down the hill to the park that really, we don't, this is what people see, the park, eh, whatever they can find, they, so like I that's to me what is happening here.

It's a patch to fix a problem and then when it is out of sight, it is out of mind. And then we don't do anything to solve the problem. It's a much larger societal issue. But that to me is what's happening here.

[00:25:49] Barry Kirby: To play devil's advocate and or devil's human facts advocate is if my requirement is sent to me that I've got a public space.

I will never be in charge of the city or the country. Unless anybody wants to make Prime Minister, then knock yourselves out. But I'm not, if I've got, if I'm in a position of responsibility of looking after a certain area, then I'm going to look after that area. That's my area of responsibility. I, it's not, I don't have the, as a human practice practitioner in this element, I don't have the tools or wherewithal or even responsibility to worry about society's homeless.

Do I? So if I, if me or you were given the brief of we've got these places for people to sit in but they're being taken over by people who are sleeping on them, which is not an intended use of a bench. Because that's what it's not a bed. What can we do about it to make that, cause you could take away the, if you took away the benches and replaced them with single seat chairs, so there weren't benches, there were chairs close-ish together, but with gaps and things, is that hostile architecture or is that good planning, or is that good design because you can sit on them.

It's clearly intended to be a seat. Things like that. So I guess what I'm getting at is from a human factors perspective, from a design perspective, these are good. These are ways of thinking around the problem and delivering what it is that they need to be. It goes back to what I was saying with my with my initial thoughts of we get involved in other areas of design development that have an, have a consequence that we are happy to ignore.

I guess without beating around the bunch. I've worked in defense now for 20 odd years and there is a, i we dress it all up in being very nice about what it is that we are engaging with and this, that, and the other. But fundamentally there's elements there that without being really putt a kinetic effect and enables people to kill people with much more effectively.

And this is almost the a, a similar issue that we've, the people have come up with designs, which from a human factors perspective, I think are quite good, but social sociably un palatable.

[00:27:58] Nick Roome: How do you Yeah, I was gonna say, I was gonna say, you call these things good, but is it like it's, I would argue that they're effective design.

Yeah. They, they are getting people off the benches. They are stopping people from do the job, therefore they good. Yeah. They're effective. They're effective. And what is good is a societal fundamental question that we all need to think about in our head. And so that's, that, that is part of the question though.

Would, if we as a society thought that it was just that people don't have a place to sleep, would we then think this is good design, right? Do you think it's, do you think it's good design when you sign up for a service that you didn't mean to

through dark patterns? Is that good design? It's effective design. It's

[00:28:46] Barry Kirby: effective design. I, I guess on the one hand, because we're dealing with homelessness and that sort, that's more emotive because I think we are also good. Good social thinking people, and therefore we want to do the right thing overall.

And sometimes I think it can be quite hard to distill the two one from the other. I guess a less possibly de about, so the high frequency sound device, the the mosquito device that they, that you can put out. So as I said earlier, I can hear them outside. I used to be able to hear them outside jobs till quite late on even though it was promised that no, only children can hear about.

And we want to deter groups of chil, younger people congregating together. Why do we want to deter groups of younger people congregating together? It's a. Perception issue that we think because there's a group of kids all getting together, they're going to do bad things and people feel intimidated.

Again, going back to my cancer days, I was going past an underpass in the area that we that we lived in, and a woman came up to me and said, you need to do something about that group of people over there, that group of kids over there, and there's a group of maybe 10, 12 kids hanging around.

I was like what have they done? They're hanging around. And I'm like get that, that, that's cool. What have they done? I feel intimidated. Okay. And it's perfectly legitimate that you feel intimidated, but what have they done? Have they done something to make you feel intimidated because you're on the other side of the road they were quite far away from?

So again, it's, for me, it's this almost perception thing around just because we've got a group of young people, they're not necessarily who I am, therefore I feel intimidated. Maybe it's influenced by social media, what we see in the news, et cetera, et cetera. So why the need for these devices as such?

Are they bad or are the fact they're keeping groups kids away from certain areas? I know one shop that used it around their loading bay which seemed a more legitimate use of it because they wanted to make sure that there, there was no groups congregating. So when the trucks reversed it, that the it was safer.

At least that was logical argument. But then we do, we have them in public spaces, and I don't think that's legit. I don't know what do you think about do you think these non these anti devices aren't hurting anybody?

[00:30:55] Nick Roome: No. They're the, look the intent behind what we're talking about, the topic of hostile architecture, it is really a way to control or direct people in certain ways. And if you look at the origins of hostile design as we're talking about it today, this is another fascinating look that the article takes. So I, again, encourage you all to go read, listen to it. But they talk about the origin of hostile design. And in ancient times, the intent here was to be defensive, right?

You think about building walls to protect your people from those that are not you. The other, there's always a fear of the other, fear of the unknown. The more, this is why just generally why you see more progressive policy that is inclusive in major city centers is because you experience more diverse perspectives than your own versus living in the rurals where you don't necessarily get a diverse perspective.

It's us versus them. And so when you think about trying to protect your own, the thought of hostile architecture of trying to control or direct another group, right? If it's homeless, that's another group. You do not belong to that group as a city planner or somebody with a job, like you don't belong to that group.

And so they're other, it's fear of the other and. That again, like just getting at the ancient purpose of hostile design is where we have to come back to. And so when I think about hostile design in cities, it is because we don't we aren't getting that perspective in the design phase. Is it good design if we're not accommodating for all the users?

If you think about a public place and public facilities, i e a bench, if you are not, getting a representation of all the users, including those without homes, including those who want to skate in the public place, are you building something that is, is it going to be effective for most people?

That's something that you can argue. Is it something that's good for all people? No. We can objectively say no. And so we can objectively say that, right? We can objectively say that it's not good for all

[00:33:16] Barry Kirby: people. No it's definitely not good for all people. Flip side counterpoint. Does that mean that I should be designing beds in my public spaces?

No.

[00:33:25] Nick Roome: Why not? Because is it good for all people?

[00:33:29] Barry Kirby: No. When it's interesting, isn't it? Because when you start driving through that, then actually you end up building nothing because you, cause you offend somebody or you don't design for everything. I think does this go back to, I guess what I said at the beginning is, as long as you are, if you are clear on what your intent is, who you are including and who or who you are focusing on rather than not, then it's interesting because you, cuz for me then you also then say, I'm not focusing this area, this space is not for homeless people to sleep in. So therefore, you've then articulated that you recognize that there are homeless people, so therefore you then should be turned around saying, if they're not going to be here, where do they go? What is their option?

What is their opportunity? If this isn't for kids to be on skateboards or groups of kids to go, or groups of younger people to go, okay, it's not here. That's fine, but where is it? Where do they go? Where do, what is the, where do you set that other requirement? And there is almost a that's, that for me is the, almost the crux of it.

It actually goes back to time today. Yeah. Is the thing of saying if not now, when, if not here, then where? Because so in the plan, whatever plan that looks like, you've highlighted a set a, a user set that might not have been thought of, and that's legitimate. We don't necessarily all think of all users all the time, but as soon as you, it's a bit like Pandora's box.

As soon as you turn around and say this set of people cannot use this public space, therefore there is a requirement for another public space for these people. Whatever that is, and that's how your, basically, your user requirements come into play on this wider level, this is where we struggle within a human factors perspective because we've, and it's, we've done it around climate change as well that we think around the human factors environment that we're talking about as being a singular space.

A, an a, a bounded environment, a bounded place, a place of work, or it could be a vehicle or it could be whatever. We struggle when it comes to the wider environment the bigger. The bigger piece, right? Bigger the macro level. So the idea of macro ergonomics and this would, this absolutely plays into that.

[00:35:46] Nick Roome: Yeah, that's that. That pretty much sums up my thoughts as well. I think this this is a one size fits most, not one size fits all because you do to make things equitable. You need that. Other space that will address the people that are not being served by these design decisions in the common area, right?

So if you do implement benches with armrests, also erect a homeless shelter. If you are putting up these metal straps, also build a skate park if you are installing these blue lights. Then also invest in drug prevention programs and education. If like the list goes on for every thing that we're patching, there is an equal thing that we can be doing on the other side of it to help address the root cause.

And I think we're both on the same page for that. This is just a fascinating topic. I like, I feel like we could keep going on and on because like we keep bringing up the same examples of those two. They are very easy to talk about, but there is like a whole list of them and I'm interested in what others think about this discussion.

So I'm gonna call to action. Everybody go comment on, on this episode, wherever you're watching or listening to Let us know what you think. Barry, any final thoughts about hostile architecture?

[00:37:07] Barry Kirby: I think there is a lot we can do in the human factors and ergonomics domain around this that perhaps we are not being engaged with or we're not doing.

Cause we've got, haven't got the broad of viewpoint and potentially the influence where we need to have it. Therefore, in as similar to what you've just said, there is a call to action there to to happen about, to work out, right? How do we actually get involved in this and how do we actually make sure our human practice is effective in this

[00:37:31] Nick Roome: space?

Yeah, sticking the problem somewhere else is not gonna solve it, it's just a patch. All right, so thank you to everyone for selecting our topic this week, and special thanks to our patrons. We also wanna thank our friends over at UX Collective for our news story this week. If you wanna follow along, we do post links to all the original articles in our weekly roundups in our blog, and you can also join us in our Discord for more discussion on these stories and much more.

We're gonna take a quick break and then we'll be back to see what's going on in the human factors community right after this.

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Now I know. Wow, this host is always so enthusiastic. I can't help it if my delivery is just that electrifying. Anyway, enough about me. Let's talk about something even more electrifying. Our Patreon page. Yes, that's right. We got exclusive club. Just for you, our loyal listeners, it's called Human Factors Practitioner Tier, and just for a dollar a month, you get some seriously awesome perks that includes a Discord channel to connect with other supporters for Patreons only.

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Remember, it's not just support, it's a whole new level of human factors awesomeness. All right, what do you think of that? That one, Barry, that was a little rough, but.

[00:40:09] Barry Kirby: Eight outta 10. I think you you've done better, but you've done a lot of worse.

[00:40:13] Nick Roome: Thanks. All right, let's get into the next part of the show.

From, it came from,

yes, it came from, this is the wonderful part of the show where we search all over the internet to bring you topics that the human factors community is talking about. If you find any of these answers useful, give us a or follow to, wherever you're watching or listening to help other people find this content Algorithms, man.

Alright, so we got three up tonight. The first one here is by general building 3 81 on the UX research subreddit. They write implementing user research from scratch. They write as someone with a background in design and cultural anthropology. I'm looking to implement user research at my small company to improve sales.

I need guidance on starting a UX research role from scratch. Any suggestions on where to begin? Barry?

Yeah.

[00:41:03] Barry Kirby: I think for me if you're just thinking about doing it, why? Why do you feel that you need to do it? Why? What do you think it's going to achieve and therefore, what value is he gonna bring to your small business?

And the reason for saying that, it sounds really obvious to say, but if you actually sit down, write it on bit of paper whatever suits you, that will then enable you to understand the business need and therefore the business value that enables you to scope out the initial job role and understand who it is that you actually want.

Because this could be something that you think might just be an idea. You're not entirely sure what value it brings. Therefore, you might want to bring, you don't wanna invest much cost into it, therefore you might want to bring somebody more junior in to maybe grow the role, or you might understand exactly what it needs to do.

You are absolutely convinced it's gonna bring massive amounts of value, but you want that to happen quickly. So you bring in somebody, you, you, you invest more upfront. You bring in somebody a lot more senior and that, and hopefully they hit the ground running and bring in their experience of what they want to do.

But fundamentally just saying, oh, I think UX research will do some cool stuff. That's the starting point, but you've got a fair bit to do. Just asking some simple questions to understand why you think that. Therefore, then it'll bring, hopefully bring value for you, for your business.

Nick, what do you think? How would you get started in that position?

[00:42:18] Nick Roome: Starting something up at a company is hard because there's already an established culture, and if this person is looking to hire UX research, then that's one thing. If they have a UX research background and how to build it up, that's a different thing.

And I wanna talk about the second piece because the decision on whether or not to include. User research or UX at a company is separate. And I think this one this other side will have a lot more actionable impact. And so when you think about trying to start something up from scratch, you have to change culture.

And so to do that, you need to interact with all the groups. It's easier at smaller companies because then you know, everybody involved at larger companies that you need a much larger support system to try to get that momentum of, Hey, include us six months ago and not two weeks before the thing ships.

There's a lot of a lot of things that need to happen in order for that cultural change within a company to happen. And so just understanding where that company is at, who the major players are in that. Process and trying to change the minds of those people. So that way it trickles down into UX research is probably the way that I would go.

Okay, let's get into this next one here. How long did it take you to become confident in your interview skills? This is by, on the UX research. Thanks. On the UX research subreddit, right? Asking for advice. How many interviews did it take you to feel confident in your abilities? Now, this is user interviews, not like job interviews.

Barry, what do you think?

[00:43:51] Barry Kirby: Define confidence. I think I'm more than happy in content that I can go and interview people. I can go and I that's not a problem. But only if I've done my preparation, only if I've done the requisite steps that you need to go up and do that sort of interview in the first place.

Because I can be the best interviewer in the world if I don't actually have the plan, if I don't have the questions in place. I'm gonna be rubbish. I'm gonna be absolutely rubbish because that, I often say that the, the interview is only a quarter of the actual job. Because yes it's a bit where you are interactive.

There is a level of practice and and I guess experience, therefore when things, more for when things happen that you don't expect and maybe the way that you craft some of the questions or you are, you're crafting the way that the interview is going to go and maybe you get a curve ball that you weren't expecting.

Being able to handle that type of thing is something that you do pick up with experience. But even then, I think it's, it didn't actually take me that many interviews to realize that it was about preparation. I did trip myself up quite badly through non preparation, and I swore never to make that mistake again.

Nick, what do you think?

[00:44:59] Nick Roome: Yeah, I think it, it is really all in the prep work and I think there, there can be a lot of flailing with juniors and not understanding what it is they're asking. And so I guess the actionable insight here would be to, when you do prep, understand the intent behind each question.

What is it that you are trying to learn? When you ask them that question, is it an opening to a deeper question that you're trying to understand their, their process. So it is a lot in the prep, try to understand for, from the best of your ability to the best of your ability, what it is that they do in their role.

So that way you can already start to meet them. If it's a brand new domain, brand new thing, you're gonna try to go out and understand. Exactly. Not exactly, but most. 90% of what they do in their role. And then to get that other 10% about the user needs, that's where the magic of the interview comes in.

Or even 80 20, that's fine too. Just understand a lot about what it is that they do, and then you'll find those surprises as you start to ask them, and you can almost have them challenge your assumptions and that's great. So it is all in the prep work. That's it. All right. This last one here is on the fly decision we made tonight.

We got a question in YouTube on our YouTube by Bailey saying experiencing fear of failure in UX research career. Bailey writes, I'm experiencing a vulnerable time in my UX research career where I have a fear of failure. Thoughts on this Barry? Fear of failure.

[00:46:33] Barry Kirby: I never fear of failure. I'm completely naive.

Okay. I never know. No, I, the no, I think the fear of failure is there constantly, and I think if you didn't, if you didn't, if you weren't concerned about failure, then I'd be wondering, are you challenging yourself? Are you doing are you doing interesting things? I've spoken before about imposter syndrome which I think goes hand in love with this type of thing of which is something I know I suffer from on a more than regular basis.

But it's almost part of what makes this job interesting and exciting. It which also leads itself to the. That potential for you to think that it's all gonna go wrong? So you, we go into new domains. When you go into new teams because we largely work or part, certainly I've worked a lot as a, as a single person in a role.

You may be the one human factors person or one agonist, one researcher in a, in an organization. And so there's a lot of pressure on you at that point that makes it really exciting. That makes it really fun because you can go and scope things, you can do things, but actually you are also sitting there going am I doing it right?

What happens if somebody else comes along and looks at what I'm doing and goes, you're doing it all wrong. You should be doing it like this. You should be doing X, Y, Z. So it is all there. However, there is a lot of this where just be confident in your own abilities. But also don't be afraid of sharing your concerns.

If you are in, if you got if you are in a position where you've got line management structure, share it with your line manager. Share it with your peers. And if anybody else then says, oh I don't fear failure, then they're lying. Or they're not being honest with you for whatever reason.

Therefore they're not that good a mate. So talk about it and talking about it, I think is the biggest and best thing that you can do. Because not only are you highlighting to others where to hopefully get some confident some assurance from people that actually know you are great, but also you're showing to other people who may be, feel having the same fear of failure.

Actually, it's fine to talk about this and we can do it, so on, but on talk about it, Nick, I've waffled on a lot, quite a lot. Do you fear failure? Are you going to, are you fear of failure of answering this question properly?

[00:48:47] Nick Roome: I think this is an interesting question because I am thinking about this in a way that I relate to. So for me, fear of failure goes hand in hand, like you said, with imposter syndrome. But what is failure? And in the opposite direction, what is success?

And I think when we start to think about what these things are, what is failure, what is success, and we widen the aperture of what success looks like and close the aperture of what failure looks like then. You can participate in this self-compassion that I've had to learn when it comes to these things, right?

So is failure what? Losing a job. Okay. Yeah. That's unfortunate. Can you find another job afterwards? Is it gonna end your career? What would you like? I think that is something that, is there a career ending move that you can perform? And then think about the things that would be career ending moves.

Have you done any of those? Probably not. Probably not. You might have, but I don't think so. Is it something that might get you fired from a job? Yeah. Okay, fine. Move on. And it's easy to say move on. But again, what is the aperture of success and what is the aperture of failure for me?

Success could just mean getting through this podcast and answering this question. It could also mean doing, something successful at work. And what I've found that is helpful is to document the wins or the successes, the, that you experience or that people have said about your work. So that way you can remind yourself, ah, this is the perception I have, higher standards for myself that I need to work through.

And if I don't meet those standards, is that failure? Maybe this is something that I've worked through with my therapist, I don't know, but I, it's why widen that aperture of what success is, what failure is, and Some practice that self-forgiveness, because sometimes your standards of yourself can be so high that anything seems like failure outside of that window.

And so that's where I'm coming from. Anyway, it's time for one more thing. Barry, what's your one more thing this week?

[00:50:58] Barry Kirby: So this week we had an interesting thing where my daughters finished her first year university. And so we had to move her out of her university halls into a house that she's renting for the second year.

And I don't understand how such a small flat, such a small apartment that she was living in can hold so much stuff. Also she was on the third floor of this without a left. And so I was got very bored very quickly of what, of trudging up and down and up and down and up and down stairs. What was the most interesting or, and I did it.

You could tell where tiredness was coming into play. Where I got up to, I knew I had to go up three flights of stairs. And but more than, in fact, I think it happened about three times. I actually got to the second floor and opened up the door for the second floor bit and actually think, cuz all the stuff was piled on the landing opened up.

It's all gone. That's really weird. Where's it all gone? And realize I still had another flight of stairs to walk up and when you're tired and you're exhausted and swear words are just not enough anymore, that's where I had to dig deep and crack on. So yeah, in interesting experience yesterday of doing that and then ended with learning more about different types of tequila in margaritas.

So fun day was had by all. Nick, what about you? What was your what was your one more thing?

[00:52:14] Nick Roome: There's a summers sale and I got a steam deck. It's like a switch, but it plays PC games. I will say I, I'm like fairly new to it. I just got it like two days ago. So I'm like doing all the setup.

I will say two things. One, setting up games that are on the platform that you like steam, right? If you buy games on Steam, you can play them very easily if they're compatible with the deck, and that's very nice. Very easy to use. Now the thing is, if you have a bunch of different games across different platforms, like I do different stores, that takes a little bit more tinkering.

When it get, when you get it working, it's extremely satisfying. It's good for tinkerers in the sense that you can actually get stuff to work. It's not completely closed off. And so that's nice. And I'm learning Linux how and how to do all that. So that's cool. That's it for today, everyone.

If you like this episode and enjoy some of the discussion about architecture, I'll go encourage you to go listen to our episode 2 54 on the line where we talk about that new city they're building without roads, cars, or emissions. Comment, wherever you're listening with what you think of the story this week.

For more in-depth discussion, you can always join our Discord community. Visit our official website. Sign up for our newsletter. Stay up to date with all the latest human factors news. You like what you're doing. What we're doing, you wanna support the show. There's a couple things. If you like what you're doing, give yourself a pat on the back.

You deserve it too. But if you wanna support the show, there's a couple things you could do for us. You could leave us a five star review. We'll take that. That's free for you to do. You can tell your friends about us. That's also free for you to do and really helps the show grow. And if you want to and have the financial means to, you can always support us on Patreon, we'll take your money and we'll put it to good use, I promise.

And as always, links to all of our socials and our website are in the description of this episode. Stick around if you're watching live for a post-show. I wanna thank Mr. Barry Kirby for being on the show today. Where can our listeners go and find you if they wanna talk about hostile architecture and benches?

[00:54:05] Barry Kirby: If you wanna come and talk about benches, then find me on social media, particularly on Twitter at bason Disco. Okay. Also now on threads, which is interesting. But if you wanna come and listen to interesting interviews with people in and around the Human Factors community, then find me at 1202 on the Human Factors Podcast at 12 two Podcast do com.

[00:54:21] Nick Roome: As for me, If you wanna talk to me, be in a naughty bench. You get to find me on Discord at Nick Rome. Thanks again for tuning Factors cast. Until next time.