HCI methods supporting urban design evaluation using virtual environments

Abstract Main streets and traffic thoroughfares are difficult public spaces to “humanize” as they are home to intense multisensory interactions between traffic, people, and place. In current practice, urban designers assess people’s feelings of safety and amenability of streetscapes either in situ or using paper-based methods to present alternatives. This study demonstrates the role HCI methods can play in increasing flexibility, accessibility, and inclusivity in evaluating alternative urban streetscape elements using virtual environments and remote evaluation. Using HCI methods, we can measure user experience in the virtual environment while gathering perceptions on safety and amenity of different urban elements. Using an interactive 360-degree video embedded in an online survey, we collected data on usability, user experience, and affective responses to alternative streetscape designs. Our findings show that the online survey generated useful data on perceptions of pedestrian-oriented streetscape interventions. We argue that in validating the positive user experience of the virtual environment, we increase urban designer confidence in the quality of responses toward informing design of real-world safe and amenable streets. Our contribution demonstrates that HCI methods can be used to help create a new, flexible, far-reaching, and effective approach for gathering community feedback on future urban designs.