{"id":793,"date":"2014-09-08T11:38:53","date_gmt":"2014-09-08T15:38:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wcarss.ca\/log\/?p=793"},"modified":"2014-09-08T11:38:53","modified_gmt":"2014-09-08T15:38:53","slug":"65-possible-questions-for-a-future-study-what-would-you-ask","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wcarss.ca\/log\/2014\/09\/65-possible-questions-for-a-future-study-what-would-you-ask\/","title":{"rendered":"65 Possible questions for a future study — what would you ask?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I spent this morning at Union Station in Toronto, Ontario, standing in a space that allowed me to see the transition space between the Subway concourse and Union Station proper. For a little over an hour and a half, I stood, taking notes on possible questions to ask or variables to measure in a possible upcoming study. The requirements for a good question or variable are that it must be visually discernable from 50 meters away, and that it be discretely answerable either with a chosen collection of qualitative descriptors, a quantity, or as a yes\/no response.<\/p>\n

Many of the questions that I wrote must assume a context, like “count the people who are exhibiting a\u00a0property at a given moment”, or “measure this across time” or in correlation with another variable.<\/p>\n

I would love to hear other ideas for questions, or what questions anyone who might read this think sound interesting. I’m currently in the process of contacting the correct people to gain permission to perform this study by placing a camera or accessing their CCTV system.<\/p>\n

Here they are:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Are people moving in an intentional direction, or passively with the crowd?<\/li>\n
  2. Given particular visual information about stairway \/ corridors, what do people choose (e.g. avoid a full stairway, how full, etc.)<\/li>\n
  3. Flow rate of people in\/out of doors, onto\/off-of, on stairs, and on flat areas per unit time<\/li>\n
  4. Colour of clothing — both in aggregate, and broken down by gender, time, fullness of platform<\/li>\n
  5. Fullness of platform, broken down by time, maybe in 30 second increments?<\/li>\n
  6. Door choice for entry\/exit (total counts, counts per time range)<\/li>\n
  7. Apparent ethnicity, compared to time and to cohort’s apparent ethnicity<\/li>\n
  8. People following other people or navigating on their own or noticeably separately from the person in front of them<\/li>\n
  9. Distinctive religious symbols (crosses, turbans, burqas, payots, etc.)<\/li>\n
  10. Angles — 90 degree turns vs diagonal navigation, especially in relation to intentional vs passive motion<\/li>\n
  11. Average time spent in the system per person, at various points in time<\/li>\n
  12. Time of year, also weather: temperature, humidity, cloud cover, brightness<\/li>\n
  13. Suits, Casual wear, Tie-colour, jackets\/no jackets, long sleeves vs t-shirts, pants v. shorts, dresses vs. skirts,<\/li>\n
  14. wearing headphones<\/li>\n
  15. reading books, reading newspapers, reading phones<\/li>\n
  16. origin <-> destination map over time, e.g. subway to Union, Union to ground level<\/li>\n
  17. number of trips, collisions, falls, sudden changes of direction, especially in correlation with weather, following, angles, speed, and fullness<\/li>\n
  18. backpacks, purses, laptop bags, suitcases, rolling luggage, packages<\/li>\n
  19. shoe type: running shoe, dress shoe, sandals, flats, heels<\/li>\n
  20. apparent hair colour, by time and by cohort and overall<\/li>\n
  21. apparent age, by time and by cohort and overall<\/li>\n
  22. apparent gender, by time and by cohort and overall<\/li>\n
  23. ‘footedness’ — which foot do people step onto the stairs with first & last, up and down? by gender?<\/li>\n
  24. handedness — which hand to people hold doors with versus footedness<\/li>\n
  25. location, timing, and duration of stay for buskers and beggars<\/li>\n
  26. strollers, pregnant women<\/li>\n
  27. canes, crutches, walkers, wheelchairs, seeing eye dogs<\/li>\n
  28. facial expressions, by time, by gender, by following\/intentional, by footedness<\/li>\n
  29. directional facing at given\u00a0instants, over time<\/li>\n
  30. pidgeon count and location, pidgeon-collectors<\/li>\n
  31. gum chewing and spitting<\/li>\n
  32. where are people looking — up, down, in front of them, sideways<\/li>\n
  33. eye colour (certainly\u00a0infeasible to collect)<\/li>\n
  34. # runners, per time and overall<\/li>\n
  35. glasses-wearers, sunglasses-wearers, google-glass-wearers<\/li>\n
  36. #steps at a time, by gender, by time of day<\/li>\n
  37. haircut styles, hair length<\/li>\n
  38. loiterers<\/li>\n
  39. food — are people eating or carrying it, and their speed, following vs intentional, gender, age, time of day, etc.<\/li>\n
  40. train arrival and departure times<\/li>\n
  41. skateboards and bikes<\/li>\n
  42. apparent weight of people at given times & given behaviours<\/li>\n
  43. people whistling (probably not collectable)<\/li>\n
  44. garbage bin use, litterers<\/li>\n
  45. people asking other people questions<\/li>\n
  46. people in pairs, in groups, actively discussing things, effects on themselves and people around them<\/li>\n
  47. lanyards worn<\/li>\n
  48. people talking on phones<\/li>\n
  49. people who hold the rail or do not<\/li>\n
  50. hat wearing and styles, over time, in total, by weather<\/li>\n
  51. umbrellas by weather, gender, at given times<\/li>\n
  52. security personnel, cleaning staff, construction workers, by location and time<\/li>\n
  53. smokers, by location and behaviour, gender, time, weather<\/li>\n
  54. day of the week<\/li>\n
  55. coffee, thermos, other drinks, actively drinking, carrying multiple<\/li>\n
  56. obstruction by flow — trying to get through a crowd going against you<\/li>\n
  57. “clever” people who take a long or unusual route, perhaps confidently<\/li>\n
  58. “confused” people who stop and look around helplessly or move very slowly while taking in their surroundings<\/li>\n
  59. Stride length and tempo, limps, speed-adjustments (high and low speed per person for example) in given situations, at given times, etc<\/li>\n
  60. Where do people put their hands? In pockets, at sides, behind back, on backpack, etc.<\/li>\n
  61. Tendency of groups to clump vs tendency to expand and keep distance, over time and by gender \/ ethnicity maybe<\/li>\n
  62. musical instruments<\/li>\n
  63. footstep style (stompy, light, jogging, half-step at a time)<\/li>\n
  64. manifestation of fears (as a pidgeon flew by, one woman suddenly cowered and crouched looking scared, then realized everything was fine, stood up and moved along)<\/li>\n
  65. hunches \/ postures<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Anyway, that’s about all I’ve got for now. Please tell me about\u00a0other possible things to watch \/ checkout that may be informative for the usefulness and efficiency of the space, or suggest that topics I’ve already put up are stupid or good ideas, to help decide what I actually measure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I spent this morning at Union Station in Toronto, Ontario, standing in a space that allowed me to see the transition space between the Subway concourse and Union Station proper. For a little over an hour and a half, I stood, taking notes on possible questions to ask or variables to measure in a possible […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wcarss.ca\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wcarss.ca\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wcarss.ca\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wcarss.ca\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wcarss.ca\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=793"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wcarss.ca\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":794,"href":"https:\/\/wcarss.ca\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793\/revisions\/794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wcarss.ca\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wcarss.ca\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wcarss.ca\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}