The aim of this research task was to create abstract ways of getting people to take a pause in their day and be confused by what we had created or cause a diversion for people to deal with. After a bit of brainstorming we decided to use 3 different ideas, the first idea we had ended rather shortly after we tried to create it, a security woman from the shopping centre approached us and said we weren't able to use this space for our project; and so we moved on.
Deciding on an area less manned by security we headed to one of the old arcades and put some tape on the floor in the hope that people would take note of it and walk around to avoid. At first we just used tape to create an X shape across the flagstone, then adding another, eventually adding an arrow to direct around the diversion. This wasn't as successful as we would have liked and from it we learnt that most people don't even look down at where they are walking, if they are used to the route then they won't stop to look - which is actually quite concerning as our tape could be a sign of hazard, say for perhaps a loose flagstone.
The second thing we decided on as the use of things on the floor to divert clearly wasn't working was to tape up a door way leaving a small gap at the bottom, people could either take part and go underneath or simply use the other door. You can see the results in the video below, I think it says a lot about the personality of people and perhaps what kind of mood they're in; as I know myself if I were having a bad day I wouldn't be in the mood for an annoying diversion! This is something to consider when looking at wayfinding even if this is extremely abstract, they must be very neutral and nowhere near provoking.
The final experiment was adding a zebra crossing to a quiet road around the corner from university, this further cements the idea that people don't tend to look down as they're walking, the only person to walk by before the paper flew away wasn't responsive to our connection.
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