HOW IS CONTEMPORARY URBAN EXPERIENCE INFLUENCED BY PORTABLE DIGITAL MAPPING?

A MORE-THAN-REPRESENTATIONAL EXPLORATION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL WALKING TOUR APPLICATION. WILLIAM TREANOR JANUARY 2013

Presented as part of, and in accordance with, the requirements for the Final Degree of B.Sc. at the University of Bristol, School of Geographical Sciences, January 2013 (Geography B.Sc.)

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William Treanor How is Contemporary Urban Experience Influenced by Portable Digital Mapping? A More-Than-Representational Exploration of The University of Bristol Walking Tour App.

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ABSTRACT: This dissertation explores the ways the University of Bristol Walking Tour iPhone Application works to produce meaning to inform wider understandings about portable digital mappings, an increasingly common way of experiencing contemporary urban space. The research develops a more-than-representational approach, incorporating elements from critical cartography, software geographies and wider, non-representational movements in human geography. This approach is applied through a suite of novel methodologies to analyse the iconographic aspects and practices surrounding the app, improving understandings of how this app works to create meaning throughout the University of Bristol campus. The research uncovers a diverse range of practices and mechanisms through which the app is brought into being, providing extensive support of postrepresentational theories that this app, in the same way as maps [is] never fully formed and their work is never complete (Kitchin and Dodge 2007:343). Word Count: 11,684

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: My thanks go to: JD Dewsbury and Veronica della Dora for their enthusiasm, encouragement and confidence in my ideas. The numerous people who gave up their time to share their experiences with me, especially Mike Jones, whose insight was essential to the success of this research. The friends and family who proof-read my work.

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LIST OF TABLES: Table 1: Guidelines for coding interview and focus group data........................................................18 LIST OF FIGURES: Figure 1: A basic map communication model identifying the stages of information transfer between the cartographer and map user..............................................................................................................3 Figure 2: Final route of journey taken by researcher during auto-ethnographic research...............17 Figure 3: An overview of the walking tour.......................................................................................22 Figure 4: The route through a building.............................................................................................23 Figure 5: The images shown at Point F...........................................................................................25 Figure 6: Auto-ethnography route from Authors house to Point F of the walking tour.................27 Figure 7: Auto-ethnography route......................................................................................................29 Figure 8: Three contrasting views at point N..................................................................................30 Figure 9: Auto-ethnography route......................................................................................................32

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CONTENTS: List of Tables......................................................................................................................................iii List of Figures....................................................................................................................................iii 1. Introduction.....................................................................................................................................1 1.1 Outline...............................................................................................................................2 2. Critical cartography.........................................................................................................................3 2.1 Representational cartography...........................................................................................3 2.2 Post-representational cartography....................................................................................4 3. Technology and a new mode of mapping......................................................................................7 3.1 Ubiquitous computing......................................................................................................7 3.2 Augmented reality............................................................................................................8 3.3 The advent of digital mapping...........................................................................................9 4. Towards a theory of more-than-representational mapping.........................................................11 5. Methodology.................................................................................................................................13 5.1 App choice and sampling................................................................................................13 5.2 Textual analysis...............................................................................................................13 5.3 Auto-ethnography............................................................................................................14 5.4 Focus groups....................................................................................................................17 5.5 Interview..........................................................................................................................19 6. The App.........................................................................................................................................20 6.1 Understanding through description..................................................................................21 7. Iconographic Considerations.........................................................................................................23 8. Using the app..................................................................................................................................27 8.1 Leaving the house - timeless power................................................................................28 8.2 Woodland Road - reality augmented...............................................................................29 8.3 On the tour - being guided...............................................................................................32 9. The app from the perspectives of others.......................................................................................34 9.1 Armchair travelling.........................................................................................................34 9.2 Way-finding on campus...................................................................................................35 9.3 Familiarity with the campus............................................................................................36 9.4 Geolocation.....................................................................................................................37 9.5 Differences between the application and other forms of mapping..................................38 10. Concluding remarks....................................................................................................................39 10.1 Further areas of study and limitations............................................................................40 Bibliography......................................................................................................................................41
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Appendices.........................................................................................................................................45 Appendix A: Semi-structured focus group question schedule...........................................................45 Appendix B: Sample focus group transcript......................................................................................47 Appendix C: Semi-structured interview prepared for Mike Jones.....................................................52 Appendix D: Interview transcription with Mike Jones......................................................................53 Appendix E: Field notes from Auto-ethnography..............................................................................58 Appendix F: Coding table used in analysis60 Appendix G: Example coded transcript.61 Appendix H: Recordings of all focus groups and interviews.62

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1: INTRODUCTION: The University of Bristol Walking Tour iPhone application (app) is a specific example of a new breed of cartography. Its portability combining the virtual world of digital cartography with the physical environment to offer a fundamentally new way of interacting with, moving through and enacting place is yet to be explored from a geographic perspective (Graham et al. 2012:2). This dissertation is therefore focused on exploring the ways in which this app creates these revolutionary new encounters with space. The research provides an in-depth analysis of the University of Bristol Walking Tour app, using the findings as a lens through which to gain an understanding of some of the ways in which portable digital mapping apps can be brought into being and produce meaning. In this study I will develop a more-than-representational approach, which incorporates elements from critical cartography, software geographies and wider, non-representational movements in human geography. Using this more-than-representational approach and a suite of novel methodologies, I will critically engage with the app, analysing the iconographic aspects and practices surrounding the map to explore the usually unquestioned modes of representation that produce meaning through this app (Dodge et al. 2009). The more-than-representational approach developed in this research regards maps as having no ontological security, constantly brought into being and entirely dependent on the context in which they are enacted (Dodge et al. 2009). Resultantly this research cannot provide a comprehensive analysis of meanings produced, instead, focusing on two more achievable aims: 1. To explore the material agency of the app and in turn how this influences experience of the university campus. 2. To explore how this app is viewed and brought into being from the perspectives of others. By focusing on these two aims I aim to produce a rigorous analysis of a subjective and context dependent phenomena, a snapshot through which to inform understanding of wider systems of meaning operating throughout everyday interactions with portable digital mappings.

1.1: OUTLINE: The research is organised into nine further chapters. In Chapters Two and Three I will situate this study, firstly by discussing how critical cartography has developed, providing the theoretical foundations on which to develop a more-than-representational theory. I introduce literature that engages with the interactions between technology and the environment before finally situating digital mappings within wider contexts of cartography. Chapter Four outlines a more-thanrepresentational approach to cartography, drawing on aspects of representational and post representational cartographic theory and Chapter Five presents novel methodologies combining cartographic deconstruction, auto-ethnography, focus groups and an interview to explore how this app is brought into being from this more-than-representational perspective. Chapter Six explores the material, political and historical context of the app drawing on an interview with the apps designer, Mike Jones. In Chapter Seven I study the representational aspects of the app, applying Harleian deconstructive methods and discussing the ideological implications of many of the features. Chapter Eight focuses on my own experiences of using the app, providing an autoethnographic account that critically reflects on the mechanisms through which the app works to create meaning and how this influences my experience of campus. These considerations are then built upon through the experiences of others in Chapter Nine, presenting the ideas developed through a series of focus groups. In Chapter Ten I conclude by suggesting that the ways in which this app works to create meaning are both dynamic and constantly re-written, wholly dependent on the experiences and contexts in which it is received and operated. The study then reflects on the limitations and successes of the research before placing the findings in the wider context of portable digital mapping.

2. CRITICAL CARTOGRAPHY: 2.1: REPRESENTATIONAL CARTOGRAPHY: Maps classically have been regarded as documents of truth, with a primary focus to represent the world as it really is. Since the Middle Ages this had been a key aim for western cartographers, with the story of cartography mainly being one of a progression towards truth (Dodge et al. 2009:5). However post-war cartography in the 1950s can be regarded as a major turning point with the first attempts being made by Robinson (1952) to reposition cartography as a scientific pursuit (Crampton 2001). Robinsons main aim was to ensure map effectiveness, detailing map design principles with the map user in mind in order to capture and portray relevant information in a way that the map reader can analyse and interpret (Robinson and Petchenik 1976: cited in Dodge et al. 2009:5). In his opinion, an approach to cartography that fed on the principles of experimental psychology would be the best way to affirm cartography as a discipline and develop a set of generalisations which could be used to further the scientific development of said discipline (ibid.). This empiricist agenda was influenced by major developments elsewhere in Geography, namely the Quantitative revolution, which was sweeping all aspects of the subject and research into cognitive mapping being undertaken by Golledge and his colleagues at the University of Santa Barbara (Crampton 2001). It was in this context that efforts were made to establish cartographic communication models as dominant theoretical frameworks guiding research (Dodge et al. 2009:6), a key aim being to enable efficient transfers of cartographic information from map to map user (Figure 1).

Figure 1: A basic map communication model identifying the stages of information transfer between the cartographer and map user (Source: Kitchin et al. 2009:6, adapted from Keates 1996).

The most notable challenge to the scientific orthodoxy of cartographic research came from Brian Harley in the 1980s, questioning the power relations within mapping and advocating shifts from views of maps as social artifacts to social constructions (Harley 1989). This critical turn, marked by the publication of A History of Cartography (Harley and Woodward 1987) sought to question
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the hitherto unquestioned authority of the map to explore the black boxes, previously assumed to be unproblematic documents of spatial fact (Latour 1987; Edney 2005:713). In a series of essays following on from the History of Cartography project, Harley (1989) argued that only by interrogating the forces surrounding mapping could a proper understanding of cartography's history emerge (Dodge et al. 2009). Through the application of Foucauldian and Derridian theories of power-knowledge, Harley argued that maps play an active part in creating knowledge as well as revealing it. From this critical stance Harley argued that the ideological mask of maps could be uncovered through processes of deconstruction, revealing truthful statements beneath these layers of subjectivity (Harley 1989). Harleys new research agenda marked an epistemic break (Crampton 2001:235) in critical cartography, leading to a redefinition of the map as a social construction and breaki ng the [previously] assumed link between reality and representation (Harley 1989:2). Harleys redefinition of the map as socially produced and context dependent inspired Edneys proposal for a Cartography without Progress (1993), accentuating cartographys shift away from scientific positivism and proposing an evolutionary development of maps as opposed to historic progressional views. This non-progressivist viewpoint defines map history as a series of modes, focusing analytical processes on the cultural, social and technological relations which determine cartographic practices (Edney 1993:57). 2.2. POST-REPRESENTATIONAL CARTOGRAPHY: I now turn to post-representational cartography, a more recent strand of cartographic theory that seeks to re-think the representational and ontological foundations from which critical cartography operates (see Brown and Laurier 2005, Crampton 2003, Del Casino and Hanna 2006, della Dora 2009, Kitchin and Dodge 2007, Pickles 2004, Wood and Fels 2008:cited in Kitchin et al. 2012). These ideas have drawn strongly from non-representational theory, moving critical cartographic emphasis beyond representational stances focusing on production towards post-representational philosophies of processual mapping (Kitchen et al. 2012). Post-representational cartography moves beyond Harleys (1989) reformulation of the map as a social construction. Harleys strategy of uncovering the truth beneath the ideological layers of the map fails to engage with the ontological status of mappings. As Crampton argues, this approach provided an epistemological avenue into the map, but still left open the question of the ontology of the map (2003:90).
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One of these post-representational theorists is Pickles whose focus is on the work maps do, how they act to shape our understanding of the world, and how they code that world (2004:12). His work accepts maps as inscription and uses a post-structuralist framework, acknowledging the complex nature of maps and therefore rejecting Harleian ideas that truth can be exposed through an uncovering of ideological intent (Dodge et al. 2009:12). The idea of maps as social constructions is furthered by Wood and Fels (2008), arguing that maps produce the world by making propositions that are placed in the space of the map (Dodge et al. 2009:13). The maps move beyond a spatial ontology by enabling higher order propositions (Wood and Fels 2008:cited in Dodge et al. 2009:14) therefore linking things in places onto a relational grid. Whilst the theorisations by Pickles (2004) and Wood and Fels (2008) discussed above utilise nonrepresentational approaches in their considerations of cartography, these approaches have been criticised for their ontogenic considerations of the map. Kitchin et al. comment the map remains curiously static in these theorisations - it is resolutely a map. Somewhat paradoxically then, the map remains ontologically secure at the same time that meaning and territory unfold through the work of the map (Kitchin 2008: cited in Kitchin et al. 2012:2). Accordingly, theorists such as Kitchin and Dodge (2007) and Del Casino and Hanna (2006) emphasise in their arguments that maps possess no ontogenical security, [they] are of-the-moment, brought into being through practices (embodied, social, technical), always re-made every time they are engaged with (Kitchin and Dodge 2007:5). From this processual perspective, epistemologies focus on the methods through which maps emerge. For Dodge et al. this involves studying how maps are made through the practices of the cartographer situated within particular contexts and how maps re-make the world through mutually constituted practices that unite map and space (2009:22). Del Casino and Hanna (2006) draw on post-structural theory to also argue that maps are both representations and practices...simultaneously. Neither is fully inscribed with meaning as representations or fully acted out as practices (Del Casino and Hanna 2006:36). They illustrate this through a study of how tourists produce space using tourist maps with other texts and narratives, showing how the real is read back into the map, making it more legible (Dodge et al. 2009:20). For them, maps are not simple objects whose meaning can be deciphered through deconstruction but tactile, olfactory, sensed objects/subjects mediated by the multiplicity of
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knowledges we bring to and take from them through our everyday interactions and representational and discursive practices (Del Casino and Hanna 2006:37).

3: TECHNOLOGY AND A NEW MODE OF MAPPING: This chapter will explore the increasing prevalence of computing and software in contemporary urban experience and the ways in which this is working to mediate interactions with the world (Dodge et al. 2009). I will situate portable digital mapping within the wider phenomenon of ubiquitous computing and introduce efforts to conceptualize resultant automatic production[s] of space that are working to shift societal behaviours, producing a geography that is beyond living (Thrift and French 2002:309). Having discussed ubiquitous computing and ways of conceptualizing geographies of the digital, I will then consider how to incorporate portable digital mappings within the analytical purview of critical cartography using Edneys non-progressivist viewpoint. 3.1 UBIQUITOUS COMPUTING: Ubiquitous computing was the vision of Mark Wesier, manager of the Computing Science Laboratory at Xeroxs Palo Alto Research Center in the 1980s. This vision anticipated a third age of computing in which users would be served by a multitude of devices, moving beyond the desktop to become spread and embedded seamlessly throughout the environment (Weiser 1991). In todays society we can consider ourselves very much in this third age of computing as digital technology permeates throughout all forms of modern life. For example in 2005, 10 quintillion transistors were produced and at a cheaper cost than grains of rice (LA Times 2005:cited in Dave 2007) and by 2010 there were 4 billion phones in the world, 1 billion of which had some form of internet connectivity (Amin et al 2009: cited in Graham et al 2012). Indeed, it is the saturation of smartphones This new form of throughout environments, linked to an ever increasingly capable internet infrastructure that is accentuating the digital dimensions of contemporary urban experience. French 2002:309). Research undertaken by Dourish and Bell demonstrates one attempt to make sense of the spaces into which computation has moved, exploring the practical and cultural logics by which those spaces are organized (2007:415). They explore the interrelationships between sociality and ubiquitous computing through the lens of infrastructure, referring to the structures that lie beneath the surface of applications and interactions. experience is termed the automatic production of space and forms a basis of this study (Thrift and

Dourish and Bells (2007) experiential reading of infrastructure incorporates two different perspectives, the experience of infrastructure and the infrastructure of experience. The experience of infrastructure alludes to the increasing pertinence and visibility of infrastructure as daily practices become more reliant on it. The infrastructure of experience draws attention to the embedding of infrastructures in everyday space, which shape our experience of this space and consequently provides a framework through which our encounters with space take on meaning. As such, we can therefore understand space as an experience of multiple infrastructures, for example infrastructures of naming, movement, interactions etc. which are emergent from the embodied practices of the people populating and inhabiting the spaces in question (Dourish and Bell 2007). Dourish and Bell use this infrastructural framework to stress the importance of social context in how ubiquitous computing is experienced. They argue that the complex interpretive structure [of space] will frame the encounter with pervasive computing...Fundamentally, the experience of space is coextensive with the cultural practice of everyday life (2007:424). Developing this understanding of the social infrastructures that make up space marks an important development in scholarship, principally because it demonstrates how the increasingly ubiquitous experience of modern computing is heavily influenced by the bodily encounters and social context in which it is received and encountered (Dourish and Bell 2007). 3.2 AUGMENTED REALITY: The previous section has identified that computing and experiences of space are a product of social context. The next section narrows the focus to the role played by geo-referenced data in the relationship between technology and spatial experience. Graham et al. (2012) use the term Augmented Reality (AR) to conceptualize what is produced at the boundaries identified by Dourish and Bell (2007) between computing and the environment. They define AR as the material/virtual nexus mediated through technology, information and code enacted in specific and individualized space/time configurations (Graham et al . 2012:2). It is stressed in this approach that whilst augmentation of place by information (e.g. adverts and music) is not new, the visual, interactive, real-time nature of digital augmentations offer a fundamentally new way of interacting with, moving through and enacting place (ibid.:2). Developing existing scholarship on the politics of spatial representation in critical cartography and more recent geographies of software, Graham et al. developed a framework for analysing the ways in which place is produced by digitally augmented mappings (2012).
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The movement towards digital augmentation can be traced through three fundamental developments in internet practices and technologies; the movement towards the mobile Web and ubiquitous computing extending to mobile technology, the growth of authorship blurring the boundaries between producer and user (Monmonier 2007) and the emergence of a geospatial web (Graham et al 2012). The combination of these factors establish augmented content as a key component of everyday life, offering a means of place making that is infinitely more malleable and dynamic than those that existed previously (see Westlund et al. 2011: cited in Graham et al. 2012). Graham et al (2012) develop a conceptual framework for studying ways in which the powers of digitally augmented mappings operate to create place with a view to placing emerging ARs within the scope of broader cartographic concerns with spatial representation. This framework draws on work from critical cartography such as Harley (1989), Pickles (2004) and Kitchin and Dodge (2007) to question the power relations of content represented in digital augmentations. Due to the dynamism of augmented content through constant updates and co-authorship (best exemplified through social networks), Graham et al. (2012) align themselves with post-representational theorists such as Kitchin and Dodge (2007), denying the ontological security of ARs. They posit that ARs, just like maps, are always of-the-moment, brought into being through practices (embodied, social, technical), always remade every time they are engaged and practiced in contingent and relational ways (Kitchin and Dodge 2007:335, original emphasis). Consequently, emphasis for study of AR is to be focused on the specific ways in which augmented realities are brought into being and mediated (Graham et al. 2012:4). Specifically, the role of software in the construction of spatial representations and its duplicity emphasizing the power of code to shape the urban places of the 21st century (Graham et al. 2012:4). 3.3 THE ADVENT OF DIGITAL MAPPING: One of the most distinct features of online mapping is their ability to make visible the spatial relationships in maps, images and graphics, which Crampton terms Geographic Visualization (2001). The features he argues that make this specific to digital forms of mapping is the ability to manipulate this data in an exploratory sense, for example rotating, zooming and stripping away layers of map mashups. These acts are discussed by MacEachren who identifies that visualization is foremost an act of cognition, a human ability to develop mental representations that allow geographers to identify patterns and to create or impose order (1992:101) which moves visualization beyond the confines of map communication models. Increasing capabilities of
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(specifically) smartphone devices are making these new capacities to engage with spatial data increasingly portable. Portable digital mappings act as a confluence between virtual worlds of georeferenced data and the real environments of daily experience and with increasing ubiquity are becoming a dominant aspect of everyday life. Digital cartography can therefore be seen as hugely different to other forms of cartography, representing an epistemic break in the history of cartography (Crampton 2001:235). From a non progressivist viewpoint, digital mappings are best regarded as an emerging mode of mapping (Edney 1993). Using this perspective avoids privileging one form of mapping over better forms, instead acknowledging their differing conceptions of space and contexts and allowing critical perspectives to encompass this diversity (ibid.).

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4. TOWARDS A THEORY OF MORE-THAN-REPRESENTATIONAL MAPPING: As the previous literature has identified, critical cartography has gone through a phase of significant re-thinking and has been widely contested over the last fifty years. How maps are regarded and approached is hugely variable and as such there is no obvious agenda for this research to follow. Consequently, in this research, I apply a more-than-representational approach to mapping, drawn from debates by Lorimer (2005) in human geography and pioneered by Connor (2010) in his analysis of Google Street View. This approach combines elements of representational and postrepresentational cartography to capture the inseparability of both representation and practice within mappings in a way that neither of these approaches (representational and postrepresentational) can explore in isolation (Connor 2010:21, original emphasis). Despite the developments of post-representational frameworks for map studies, it is important to reassert the significance that representation plays in all understandings of how maps operate and therefore how they are studied. While it has been widely discussed that maps are never an objective mirror of nature, they can still be regarded as a way of representing the world (Cosgrove 2008:2: cited in Connor 2010). It has been argued that mappings operate by allowing one to make connections to other representations and to other experienced spaces (Del Casino and Hanna 2006: p36) and that these representations take meaning as a map through individual practices (Kitchin and Dodge 2007:338). Therefore, what a map represents, and how the map represents spaces, remains of crucial significance in any analysis of mapping (Connor 2010:21. Original emphasis). Whilst acknowledging the importance of representation, this approach also regards maps as more than a representation. By incorporating the post-representational stance discussed in 3. Postrepresentational cartography; this approach can engage with the performative aspects that surround mapping, the ways in which all maps are infused with meaning through contested, complex, intertextual, and interrelated sets of socio-spatial practices (Del Casino and Hanna 2006:36: cited in Connor 2010:22). A more-than-representational approach to mapping in this study is important because it avoids reductionist readings of the power of and in maps (Pickles, 2004:30) and instead promotes an analytical scope attentive to mappings partial, open, and contingent qualities in terms of representation and practice (Cosgrove 1999:14). The open reading of maps promoted through this approach allows the analytical scope of this study to be broadened to incorporate other areas of
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human geography, providing a richer base from which to analyse the practices associated with digital mapping. By adopting a more-than-representational approach I want to take the research into new and under explored human geographies of fast changing urban experience, increasingly defined by technology and augmented realities. Indeed although places have long been represented via asynchronous, analogue augmentations, emerging digital augmentations offer a means of place-making that is infinitely more malleable and dynamic than those that existed previously (See Westlund et al . 2011:cited in Graham et al. 2012:3). The more-than-representational approach will allow me to situate these new ways of experiencing place, as mediated by the app, within the analytical focus of cartography (Graham et al. 2012).

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5. METHODOLOGY: 5.1. APP CHOICE AND SAMPLING: The University of Bristol Walking Tour App was chosen as an example of a portable mapping app, incorporating geolocation technology and multimedia information within an interactive map surface. I chose this app for a number of practical reasons that would aid the ease and efficacy of my research. The mapped area shows and contains information specific to Bristol University campus. Being on University campus allowed me to experience performing the app, moving through the spaces represented and also to follow parts of the walking tour. My affiliation with the University as a student also made it easier to get in contact with the designer of the app, Mike Jones. Arranging and conducting an interview with Mike allowed me to gain an insight into the contexts and processes behind the apps construction, which I would not have been able to achieve so easily with other potable digital mapping apps. The app contains a range of features such as University produced videos, links to the MyMobileBristol website and Google map capabilities for local services and amenities. present study thereby necessitating a selective approach. A comprehensive analysis of all these features was rendered impossible within the scope of the When considering the aim of this research, namely to explore an example of portable digital mapping, limitation of my research to the Walking Tour aspect of the app seemed pertinent and allowed both participants and myself to fully engage with this aspect during the research. 5.2: TEXTUAL ANALYSIS: Whilst advances in critical cartographic theory identify the practices surrounding map use as critical for understanding how maps produce meaning, the more-than-representational approach this study uses asserts the importance of the representational in any study of mapping. In order to engage with representational aspects of the app in this study I will adopt a method drawn from Harleys process of Deconstructing the map (Harley 1989), regarding the map as a thick text and allowing the statements, arguments and propositions made by the app to be seen as rhetorical devices which are therefore open to interpretation (Pinder 2003:175). It was noted by Harley himself that analysing maps as texts offers no simple set of techniques for their interpretation (1992:238). However, modern theorists such as Pinder have used Harleys
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writings to devise their own practical structures for decoding the language of maps, which I will use in this iconographic consideration of the app. Chapter Six The App: provides material and historical context, addressing key questions such as the authorship, the immediate material and intertextual relations as well as the wider social and political relations of the app identified in Pinders framework (2003:176). These contextual understandings act as a grounding on which to base iconographic considerations through deconstruction, provide the content for the background information given to focus group participants and also provide the basis on which to analyse my own practices through autoethnography. The iconographic analysis closely aligns itself with the theoretical guidelines for deconstruction devised by Pinder (2003), which initially involved a period of close interaction with the app, followed by a detailed description of the mapped area. These starter exercises enabled me to begin critically engaging with the mapped area in the app. Looking at the app in these ways allowed me to view it in a variety of forms with the aim of avoiding elements of taken -forgrantedness which could significantly influence this analysis. This critical engagement then allowed me to focus my analysis on three main sources of iconographic power (ibid.): 1. Hierarchies of representation 2. Silences 3. Symbolism and decoration 5.3: AUTO-ETHNOGRAPHY: 2.2: Post-representational cartography identifies a performative turn in critical cartographic theory. These theorizations place greater emphasis on the role of corporeal practice and performance, arguing that mapping and spaces are co-constitutive (Del Casino and Hanna 2006: cited in Perkins 2009:2). To research using this reorientation of theory requires a new branch of novel methodologies which are attentive to the performance and practices surrounding mappings. A growing trend in critical cartographies which respond to non-representational theorisations is the use of ethnographic approaches which can also be supplemented by other qualitative methodologies. Ethnography provides a means to move critical cartography beyond the binaries through which maps have previously been studied. Examples of such binaries include production
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and consumption, author and reader, subject and object (Del Casino and Hanna 2006:51) and provide only a partial engagement with the possibilities of map consumption. Recent research by Del Casino and Hanna (2006) and Brown and Laurier (2005) demonstrates how the use of ethnographic approaches has allowed research to move beyond dualities of representational and non-representational theory in critical cartography (Del Casino and Hanna 2006: 35), instead focusing on the way representation and practice work co-constitutively. I was influenced to use an auto-ethnographic approach in this research after exploring how it had been brilliantly applied to areas of psychogeographic research, in particular the work of David Pinder (2001). Pinders self-reflexive account closely explores the links between representation and experience of London through the medium of an aural art form, Janet Cardiffs Missing Voice (1999). The self-reflexive nature of this account had a unique ability to critically reflect on aspects such as memory and the unconscious in movements through space. These deeper embodied aspects were something I was keen to capture in my research, in particular to explore the underlying tensions created through my own bodily practices used to bring this app into being. Auto-ethnography has been described as self-reflection used as a way to understand larger social or cultural phenomena (Butz and Besio 2009:1665). Using this research method allowed me to critically reflect on my own experiences of using the app as a lens through which to understand the wider phenomena of portable digital mapping apps in contemporary urban experience. Using a branch of auto-ethnography termed by Norman Denzin as Personal experience narrative (1989:cited in Butz and Besio 2009:1665) was preferential for this study in place of other ethnographic methods used in past research (e.g. Del Casino and Hanna 2006, Brown and Laurier 2005) for two key reasons. Firstly, the deeply reflexive nature of this research method allowed me to explore material, affective and imaginative qualities of this app in a way that has only been applied to maps fairly recently (e.g. Rossetto 2012) (Connor 2010:11). These qualities remain unexplored by past research and consequently make this research very unique. Secondly, this research method allowed me to embrace and utilise my position as a University student, presenting myself as the principle research subject and consequently breaking down the conventional ethnographic distinction between researcher and subject (Butz and Besio 2009:1663). Section 8.0: Using the app presents an intensive personal narrative account of my first ever use of the app in and around the University campus. The 45 minute journey through the University campus took place on the 16th of November 2012, starting at my house at 8.45am and finishing at point F of the walking tour at 9.30am. By focusing the analysis to this one extended use of the
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app I felt the findings will be enriched by the novelty of experiences, reducing the chances of overlooking experiences due to familiarity with the app. Presenting just one journey also allowed me to reflect and comment on the flow of experiences in more detail, reflecting on the cumulative construction of my opinions and experiences as the journey progressed. Initially pilot journeys were conducted using a Google maps app which I knew to be similar to the Walking Tour app. I did this to familiarize myself with the operation of digital mappings and build my experience of using portable digital mapping apps in varying contexts. This was done to ensure the experiences produced by my use of the Walking Tour app would be as closely reflective of the material agency of the app as opposed to any inabilities to operate it. These pilot journeys have not been included in the analysis despite their utility in the research. My preparation for the journey was conducted with the psychogeographic experiments of the Situationists in mind (Bassett 2004). I had a rough intention of moving towards the centre of the campus but I wanted my subsequent movements to be determined in the moment, dictated by the agency of the app and moving in whatever direction I felt compelled to take. During the walk, the only aim was to be attentive to the ways I was using the app and in turn what experiences resulted from its use, perceptive to the interactions between my body, the app and the space around me. Throughout the journey, rough field notes were made recording experiences I deemed significant (Appendix E) with other elements of significance also emerging through periods of reflection following my journey. Figure 2 shows a map with the route travelled on this walk.

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Figure 2: Final route of journey taking by researcher during auto-ethnographic research (Authors screenshot, 1 December 2012).

5.4: FOCUS GROUPS: A key aim of this research method was to broaden my understanding of the ways others were engaging with the app. For this reason, focus groups were preferential over other research methods, allowing chains of responses to be triggered in conversation thereby generating data in a synergistic fashion (Berg 1989, Stewart and Shamdasani 1990: cited in Hay 2005:117). In order to gain a wide understanding of how this app is viewed and brought into being, I conducted a series of 3 small focus groups with between 2 and 7 participants in each. The suggestion that smaller groups yield more in-depth insights than their larger counterparts (Krueger and Casey 2000) coupled with my desire to gain a close understanding of the implications surrounding the respondents practices with the app led me to opt for these small group sizes. Each focus group comprised of students from the same year of study at the University and ranged from first to third year. I chose to form groups using students from the same year of study in order
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to foster a sense of intra-group homogeneity. Morgan (1996) has identified that such homogeneity contributes to a climate where participants can speak freely in an atmosphere of mutual respect, as people tend to feel more comfortable with others whom they share particular similarities (cited in DeLyser et al. 2009:199). Creating a supportive atmosphere shifted the emphasis from the researcher to the participants and afforded greater opportunity for conversations to be closely attentive to the practices usually neglected by participants. All of the focus groups were carried out in a university seminar room, a neutral space to avoid any hierarchies being imposed on the conversations. A question schedule was used to provide a rough structure to the focus groups and also to ensure that certain topics were covered (Appendix A). As conversations developed, other factors emerged, which further stimulated conversation into new and interesting areas I had not anticipated. After assuring all participants they would be made anonymous in subsequent analyses, the content of focus groups was recorded (Appendix H). Following this, the conversations were transcribed and analysed according to the guidelines laid out in Table 1 (see Appendices F and G). The key themes that emerged were then brought together in the analysis section. Previous critiques of focus groups have identified bias and subjectivity as key limitations to this method. However, through the post-structuralist stance this research takes there is no such thing as an objective point of view, all research is created through the experiences, aims and interpretations of the researcher (England 1994, cited in Flowerdew et al 2005:112) and as such all knowledge gained through this mode of enquiry is embodied, situated and contained within the subjectivity and experience of the respondent. This research values the subjectivity and experience of the respondent and acknowledges the specificity of each response in the analysis.

Coding step Develop preliminary coding system Prepare transcript for analysis Ascribe codes to text Retrieve similarly coded text Review data by themes

Specific operations Prepare a list of emergent themes in the research. Print out fresh copy of transcript for manual coding Place hand-written annotations on transcript Amalgamate sections of text that are similarly coded Assess diversity of opinion under each theme. Cross reference themes to review instances where themes are discussed together. Speculate on relations between themes.

Table 1: Guidelines for coding interview and focus group data (Amended from Hay 2005:101).
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5.5 INTERVIEW: Having conducted my research up to this point, certain gaps in my knowledge remained, pertaining primarily to the context surrounding the apps construction. The crucial nature of this information with respect to provision of a foundation for the remainder of my analysis rendered an interview with a knowledgeable source of paramount importance. Following internet research, I contacted the apps designer Mike Jones and arranged a conventional face-to-face interview in a nearby coffee shop. Using a semi-structured interview (Appendix C) I explored the processes behind the apps creation and focused on the motivations behind some of the design choices. Design choices were something I had identified as hugely influential in my previous analyses and discussing these with Mike placed me in a better position to understand the intertextuality of these features. With permission the conversation was recorded, manually transcribed and then analysed following the method of coding outlined in Table 1.

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6. THE APP: This section introduces the University of Bristol Walking Tour app and discusses the contexts surrounding its production, distribution and accessibility. The interview conducted with Mike Jones was essential in bridging gaps in my understanding of the app; this section draws heavily from the insight gained during this hour-long interview (Appendix D). The app operates on an iOS platform, available exclusively for Apple iPhone, iPod touch and iPad from the Apple App Store. Download links are widely advertised on the University of Bristol website, mainly present on pages targeted at prospective students. During the interview with Mike he indicated a few reasons why the app was limited to Apple products. The principle reason was that it was very difficult to create an app that ran smoothly on different platforms such as Android or BlackBerry. Mike had found that cross-platform development lead to clunky interfaces that didnt best utilise native controls. Secondary reasons were Mikes personal interest in iOS development and the increasing prevalence of Apple devices amongst University students. The app includes several features such as Videos, an About section, MyMobileBristol links and a walking tour which provides the focus for this research. The Walking Tour combines geolocation technology with podcasts and pictures to provide a ninety-minute circular tour layered over a base map of the University campus. A black dotted line marks out the tour over the base map. This black dotted line is an Application Programming Interface (API), which was programmed by Mike to sit atop a Google base map sourced from the Google servers. The route comprises fourteen points of special interest, labelled A-N. Each of these points brings up several pictures, a textual description and a short narration providing information about the place. Navigating between points is aided by a geo-location dot, showing the users position on the mapped surface. The App was developed as part of the wider MyMobileBristol movement, a collaboration between the University of Bristol, Bristol City Council and the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) with the overall aim of providing time and location sensitive content to smartphones. Based on stakeholder analysis during the project, the Walking Tour app was developed to meet growing demands from the University for a presence on the iTunes store and also to address needs to electronically provide prospective students with information about the University of Bristol and the city (Bristol and Community Engagement program: Open innovation 2011). The app was very closely based on a walking tour already in existence created by the Widening Participation and Access department at the University of Bristol, which used a paper map and series of podcasts to
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provide self-guided tours for prospective students. Mike described the app as an amplification of the paper walking tour, using the same points of interest and narrations to provide easier and more interactive experiences of the campus tour. 6.1 UNDERSTANDING THROUGH DESCRIPTION: The app is opened through a dark green icon with a lighter green representation of the University of Bristol emblem within it, labeled in white letters below as Walking Tour. Clicking through this icon one is presented with a choice of options from; Walking Tour, Videos, Mobile Bristol, Feedback and About. Each of these is accompanied by an emblem, the walking tour being represented by a folding map with a dotted line running across it, ending at a point marked by a cross. These options are contained beneath a Banner of University of Bristol Walking Tour, represented in the same green colour as the startup icon. Clicking through the walking tour option one is immediately presented with a view centered on and filled with the University campus. Manual manipulation of the app interface (swiping, pushing or pulling your fingers) reveals the whole mapped area to be changeable. The smallest scale achievable shows the outlines of individual buildings whereas the largest scale allows one to view the world on a continental scale. The mapped area of the Walking Tour feature is contained within a uniform green banner at the top and a black bottom border. Within the top banner the title Walking Tour and Back arrow icon remain constant throughout app use. The bottom black banner has two icons in the left hand corner. The first of these is a small square black button with a white cross hair in the centre whilst the other icon is the same uniform black and contains images of white towers. Consistent with any mapped area shown, a small indented icon saying Legal is shown in the bottom left of the mapped area. Throughout any use of the app, a thin black strip remains along the top edge of the screen containing all the familiar features and icons of my iPhone such as signal bars, network provider, Wi-Fi strength, the time, geolocation arrow and battery level.

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Figure 3: An overview of the walking tour. [Left] Black dotted line indicates route, blue lettered icons represent points of interest [Right] Home screen showing options within the app. (Authors screenshots 1 December 2012).

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7. ICONOGRAPHIC CONSIDERATIONS: I now turn to Harleian deconstructive methods in an attempt to draw out some of the key representational features of the app and consider how they work to create meaning. One aspect of the map content analysed was the hierarchies of representation, looking for features afforded visual importance. A key feature dominating the representation of the campus is the walking tour route marked out with a black dotted line. This dotted line is clearly overlain on the map, running over the top of road names, numbers and seemingly buildings (Figure 5). The use of the colour black provides a clear contrast against the uniform pastel colours of the Google maps base map and therefore draws attention to the route as the focal point of this map. Indeed, this is accentuated by its overlay atop other information. This visual dominance emphasises the practical and specific function held by the app, a technique comparable to Harleys rule of social order in which the map has an ability to provide a commentary on the social structure of a particular nation or place as it is on its topography (Harley 1989:6).

Figure 4: The route through a building (Authors screenshots, 1 December 2012).

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Another deconstructive method to analyse the apps representation is an engagement with the silences of the map, looking to see what isnt included. These blank spaces can be regarded as positive statements and a rich source for interpretation (Pinder 2001). The mapping interface represented is an example mashup between a Google source map and a hooked on application programming interface (API) developed by Mike Jones. The most significant silences observed in this representation were within the API, reflecting Mikes design decisions. Two key examples illustrate what Harley has referred to as ideological filtering (1989), a less conscious process of exclusion from the mapped representation. A first example of this was the inclusion of an image of Biological Sciences department and an image of a staircase within the Archeology and Anthropology department under the icon F and heading Woodland Road (Figure 5). The inclusion of these two images and not of surrounding departments such as Geography and Philosophy is interesting as both are located within 25 metres and are architecturally similar. A second example of this is the inclusion of two images of the grounds of Manor Hall under the icon L and heading Manor Hall and the exclusion of two other halls of residence within close proximity, Clifton Hill House and Goldney. In both these examples it appears that the places have been chosen and represented for their proximity to the marked out route in preference to other factors. From a representational perspective, this instills a rhetoric of convenience and easy access over the design logic but also casts a partial and selective view over what is visually represented within the app.

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Figure 5: The images shown at Point F, examples of cartographic silences at work. [Top] A staircase in the Archeology department. [Bottom] The Biology department (Authors screen shots, 1 December 2012).

Another angle used within the iconographic analysis was to look at the symbolic aspects of the map in an attempt to move beyond literal meanings (Harley 2001:46-48). This angle was especially applicable because of the apparently plain and minimalistic design of the app interface which Harley identifies as becoming a new talisman of authority within the current age of computer mapping (Harley 1992: 241). This is exemplified through the use of plain undecorated borders in the same green as the university icon, remaining uniform through the different stages of the app interface. The continuity afforded by these borders provides a constant reminder of the university affiliation with this app and consequently the material contained within it. The use of blue lettered circles to represent points of interest is a key feature of the representation, principally because of the colour use wherein a dark blue creates a sharp contrast with the background and instantly focusing ones gaze to these points. The use of letters A through to L

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also utilizes mnemonic capacities to recall the alphabet and in doing so, subconsciously imposes an order of movement upon a user, with a logical start at point A and a logical end at point L. The cross hair and building icons that make up the two function buttons also serve as rich sources for interpretation. The cross hair button which drags the mapped area to focus around the users position creates connotations of focus and targeting, privileging the mapped areas containing the user over others. The button represented by buildings shifts the mapped area shown to centre on the university campus. The use of buildings connotes elements of the urban and metropolitan, linking these ideas with the space of the campus. Applying this classic Harleian iconographic deconstruction has identified several methods through which this app works to create meaning. Some of the most influential were the inclusions and exclusions of content, creating a very selective and un-representational view of the university campus in comparison to reality. The visual dominance afforded to the walking tour route, symbolic connotations of function buttons and mnemonic associations with the lettered icons are also features that work to create meaning. The next section considers these features and explores the wider webs of meaning, which are created through performing the app.

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8. USING THE APP: This section provides an auto-ethnographic account of using the app. The account draws on a series of key moments from a forty five minute usage of the app, which explores using the app in a wide variety of contexts. I have broken the journey down into three steps (1) Leaving the house (2) Woodland Road (3) On the tour. Figure 6 shows the route taken.

Figure 6: Auto ethnography route from Authors house to Point F of the walking tour. Marker indicates start point (Authors screenshot, 1 December 2012).

The aim of this auto-ethnographic account was to consider the app from a practical viewpoint, looking for ways in which it worked to create meaning through the ways I engaged with it. Accordingly, this next section best aligns itself with my second research question, looking at the material agency of this mapping. I have chosen to structure this chapter around the journey I took, allowing me to comment on my different experiences as I present them.

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8.1 LEAVING THE HOUSE - TIMELESS POWER: Standing on my doorstep I took out my iPhone, performing the habitual motions to unlock the phone for use. Swiping through the pages of apps I found the familiar green icon of the walking tour app and accessed it though a light touch. Navigating the menu I selected the Walking Tour option, bringing up the mapping interface. The map was centered on University Road, recording the last place I had used the app (the Geographical Sciences library the night previously, studying representational aspects). To remedy this I pressed the cross hair icon in the bottom left which centered the mapped area on my location. Almost instantaneously the mapped area shifted to centre itself around a blue pulsating dot on Tyndalls Park Road, a virtual manifestation of m yself within the mapped area of the app. As I set out on my walk I followed my normal route to lectures North up Tyndalls Park Road towards Woodland road. My embodied blue dot shifted location every few seconds, jumping to catch up with my current location, my movements serving to constantly reauthor the mapped representation. My real time progress represented on the map was juxtaposed against an otherwise atemporal landscape (Graham et al 2012:8) within the mapped area. This was an extremely stark example of the timeless power created within the virtual/material nexus of augmented reality constructed through the app use. All other features of the app such as the the pictures, narrations and mapped area were devoid of any form of time frame or reference, following wider trends within digital mappings to conduct seamless representations of place (ibid.:8). A key agency of my virtual presence (as the dot) within this atemporal landscape was to present an idealised representation of the campus, not compromised by any of the everyday disturbances or ruptures that could hinder other explorations. In this example it was mobility that the atemporal landscape allowed me to supersede, presenting unobstructed views of buildings through the app which were hindered by traffic and pedestrians.

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8.2 WOODLAND ROAD - REALITY AUGMENTED:

Figure 7: Auto ethnography route. Marker indicates position discussed in analysis (Authors screen shot, 1 December 2012).

Continuing my journey down Woodland Road and glancing down at my screen I saw my blue dot about to collide with point N, continuing a few more metres my embodied dot disappeared beneath the blue icon. The conjunction between the blue dot and the icon invoked my curiosity, looking around I couldnt see anything I would deem special or noteworthy. Touching the icon a black speech mark popped up entitled, Woodland Road and another blue arrow icon inviting me to explore further. Pressing this button brought up a picture of one of the surrounding building fronts and a following picture of a multimedia centre not visible from my position.

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Figure 8: Three contrasting views at point N. [Top Left] The disappearance of the geo -location from the mapped surface at point N. [Top Right] Pictures of multimedia centre at point N not visible from the road. [Bottom] The real view from point N (Authors screenshot and photo, 1 December 2012)
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Pressing a play button initiated a disembodied narration to play through my headphones giving details of the departments and subjects taught along Woodland Road and also explaining that the rear of the buildings had been renovated. This came as a surprise to me having never been inside these buildings and allowed me to spatially relate the picture of the multimedia centre which had confused me moments before, to my current location. What is evident from my experience is the power of the images, narration and spatial referencing in formulating these thoughts and perceptions. I was presented with a wide range of data in the moment, all widely available from other sources but uniquely brought together by the app under the umbrella of a spatial location. The combination of pictures, narration and spatial location were essential to this form of place making, however I found the narration the most influential. In particular I found one line of the general description about Woodland Road powerful. Woodland road is used by thousands of students every day, either as a route to their department or because their department is based here (University of Bristol Walking Tour narration 2011). This information caused a shift in my point of focus within my surroundings. Where my attention had previously been directed at the buildings surrounding me and their practical functions, it now shifted to the crowds of people moving up and down the pavements around me, hitherto registered only by my subconscious. This narration therefore added an extra dimension to the app, drawing attention to features not displayed within the blank and empty mapped surface. This shares many characteristics with what Cardiff (1999) has referred to as melding, the practice of walking and information layered over the top, infiltrating the unconscious to shade a users spatial experience. Whilst certainly not done in a purposefully artistic way, the layering of narration over my movement through Woodland road engineered a shift in my spatial experience, a familiar space was rendered new as other presences and resonances are called into being (Pinder 2001:5).

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8.3 ON THE TOUR - BEING GUIDED.

Figure 9: Auto ethnography route. Marker indicates start of the tour (Authors screen shot, 1 December 2012).

At the end of Woodland Road my geolocation dot moved over the top of the black dotted line which my representational analysis had afforded such visual dominance to. My movement through campus to this location had reduced the visual significance of this line, affording me dominance over the route for the first time. Following the narrative directions in my ears my dot correspondingly moved along the line neatly, as though I was sliding along an invisible groove in the pavement, alphabetically moving from point to point. My new found visual dominance, the neatness with which my movements were represented and the deeply situated mnemonic logics at play during this period instilled a feeling that my movements were correct and coherent with the maps agency, letting it guide me. As I continued along the tour I became aware of my behaviour changing in a number of ways. Following the tour I found myself becoming increasingly focused on the screen, aligning my geo32

location dot with the marked out route and abandoning my usual methods of navigating such as using surrounding landmarks, road names or street signs. The dynamics of my movement through campus were also increasingly being influenced by the app. that caught my attention in the narration. Where and when I stopped or continued was wholly dictated by my proximity to the next blue icon or the mention of something Furthermore, I found my gaze becoming compartmentalized, flitting between the screen, my immediate surroundings to look for obstacles and the areas indicated by the geo-referenced pictures or narrations as points of interest. Towards the end of the journey my modes of apprehension had also shifted, heightening my focus on destinations and affording increasingly less attention to the journeys between them. The tour had become a series of destinations to navigate between. Della Dora (forthcoming) suggests that processes of geo-referencing, evident in this app through the narrations and pictures, work to facilitate memorization akin to the topological principles of medieval mappa mundi. In the mappa mundi the visibility of places depended on their significance, rather than their actual dimensions (Scafi 2006, cited in della Dora forthcoming:8). The ability of this map to spatially reference audio and visual content can be seen as a contemporary extension of mappa mundi topological principles, aiding memory and working to shape my geographic imagination of the campus. This section of the journey has demonstrated the ability of visual dominance, smooth operating and mnemonic logics to influence practices, guide me through campus and cause me to think in new ways. This can be explained using Grahams (2012) analytical framework of AR power, identifying a blend of code and communication power at work. The algorithms operating in the app responded to my spatial behaviour, consequently updating the mapped surface which in turn influenced my spatial behaviour in a cycle powered by the initial iconographic logics of the apps features. This complex and powerful relationship provides an illustrative example of how maps are constantly brought into being through practice (Dodge et al. 2009).

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9. THE APP FROM THE PERSPECTIVES OF OTHERS: This section of the research examines major themes that emerged through a series of focus groups. The findings align themselves most closely with my second research aim, to investigate how this app is brought into being from the perspectives of others, drawing attention to the diverse range of practices and resultant engagements with the campus mediated by the app. 9.1. ARMCHAIR TRAVELING: A key practice used by respondents to engage with the app was through remote explorations of the campus from their own home. As one respondent pointed out you could actually visit the campus without visiting it if that makes sense (Third Year focus group). This method of exploration is akin to della Doras concept of armchair traveling, a process she argues is somehow contributing to transform the offline world (della Dora forthcoming:10). A principle way this operated to transform the offline world of the respondents was through active engagements of memory, identified as essential to the way they performed these remote explorations. A common method many described was imagining past experiences whilst using the app to supplement their knowledge of specific places. As one respondent identified, this combination of memory and new information served to formulate new perspectives of places throughout campus. MJ: And even places youre familiar with, the app gave really useful information about the place. RC: From a different perspective? MJ: Yeah yeah yeah, I mean at the sports centre it was saying something like it was opened in some year and cost a certain amount of money. I had no idea about that even though Ive been using it to the last two years (Second Year focus group). Geo-referenced pictures for specific mapped locations were identified as a crucial factor enabling the respondents to armchair travel. Pictures acted as a point of reference between memories of the physical world and virtual manifestations of place created through using the app. An example of this is evident through one respondents virtual exploration of the Victoria Rooms (Point J on the walking tour). RC: So you imagined past experiences when listening to it? PD: Erm, yeah Id say more actually taking the route myself and standing outside of it. My memory of the pictures now is quite vague but they were really useful to know I was thinking about the right
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place. They allowed me to link up what I remembered with what was being shown (First Year focus group). A key practice that brought the app into being can therefore be thought about as a highly subjective interaction between the users past experiences, the narrations played and the pictures shown during armchair explorations of the campus. This fusion of geo -referenced data through user performance provided a way to extend and develop knowledge, made notably more meaningful through spatial re-enforcements on the mapped surface of the app. 9.2 WAY-FINDING ON CAMPUS: A common way this app was brought into being was as a way finding device. Whilst this was raised as a key motivation for using the app in all the focus groups, its utility as a way-finding device was regarded differentially by different groups. Discussions revealed that familiarity with the University campus highly influenced the extent and ways in which respondents used the app to navigate. The focus group comprised of first years considered way-finding as a key attribute of the app and one of the main functions they used the app for. As the following statement suggests, their unfamiliarity with the campus was a large factor in their use of the app. MJ: ...I can really see why new students and prospective students would want to use it, especially at the beginning of term it was such a big transition from school to university so I found it useful in that sense, just help you find your way, stop you getting lost in the crowd, you will know where you are going (First Year focus group). The focus groups conducted with older and more familiar students didnt reveal as heavy an emphasis on way-finding. It became apparent that their greater familiarity with the campus meant that either they had no need for a navigational device in day-to-day movements around the campus or that their activities which required maps could not be fulfilled by this app. As one third year respondent pointed out, Id be more interested in having all the social things, like where to eat and stuff like that (Third year focus group). Indeed as the following statement suggests, this app has a very specific function in comparison to other portable digital mappings such as Google maps. AJ: We might as well use Google maps if we want to go somewhere now. there is no advantage to using this map over other maps JB: Apart from the narrations?
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AJ: But why would you need to narrate, to find out how to get to the Biology building? Us as third years, I dont really think it matters (Third Year focus group). 9.3 FAMILIARITY WITH THE CAMPUS: Familiarity with the campus was a key factor influencing the uses of the app across the focus groups, I therefore decided to explore which other ways familiarity with the campus influenced how the app was brought into being. When asked to comment on their experience of the campus, an obvious trend emerged with first year students having limited experience of the entire campus and both second and third years having a comparatively greater familiarity with the campus. This level of familiarity appears to have had wider significance on the methods used to explore with this app and the experience consequently gained. A key trend amongst the unfamiliar respondents was to prioritize their detailed explorations of campus to places they were already familiar with to increase knowledge, areas unfamiliar to them appear to have been afforded less attention as suggested in the following statement about the selection processes behind exploration. PB: Well I was wondering, it takes you through all the buildings, like the maths buildings and things like that, I was wondering actually how relevant that is to everyone? (First Year focus group). The greater familiarity of the respondents in Second and Third year appears to have instilled more critical considerations to their approaches to the app. For example, a key consideration that was discussed widely in the third year focus group was the selectivity and cartographic silences evident in the walking tour. Participants also identified how this selectivity could create a distorted experience of the campus: JB: I think its interesting because a lot of stuff is left out, if you didnt know Bristol you wouldnt know it was there (Third Year focus group). Considerations such as these exemplify the role of familiarity in how the respondents engaged with the app. As discussion developed, the role narrations played in shaping experiences became a significant point of conversation. Through discussions about the ways respondents were using the app, it became apparent that the degree of familiarity with certain parts of the campus was also a key motivator behind their opinion of the narrations. A common opinion amongst many
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respondents was that the narrations accentuated their experience, adding information to a place rather than redefining it as exemplified in the next statement. RM: The narrations were useful for random facts, i.e. the costs, expenditure. Yeah I know these places reasonably well, Im not using it to help me find things, it was useful to find things out about places (Third Year focus group). 9.4 GEOLOCATION: The ability to geo-locate and spatially reference oneself on the mapped surface was a key feature influencing many respondents engagement with the app and their consequent movement through space. One of the most common behaviours influenced by the geo-locative capacities was the selection of points by many respondents when moving through the campus. As the following statement suggests, many respondents proximity to points of interest was their main justification for selecting them over other forms of logic. RC: Can you think of any of the ways the geolocation dot influenced how you used it? JB: It was useful in relation KL://Yeah I clicked on the things closest to me JB://Thats how I worked out what blob was what, by seeing where they were in relation to me (Third Year focus group). It also became clear that a key use of geo-locative capacities of the app by many respondents was facilitating links between the virtual campus of the app and their position in the physical campus. This trend was especially prevalent amongst respondents whose knowledge of the campus was still limited; these respondents placed specific emphasis on how this feature allowed them to fill in the gaps in their knowledge by relating their current positions to points on the campus, evidenced in the following statement. MJ: Yeah it was using my current location, which was nearest, good to find checkpoints and therefore familiarize yourself with locations, say like you get off at the bus stop at Woodland road, where all the languages departments are, you can see you are there and then where you need to go. RC: So a way of referencing yourself? MJ: Yeah you can make those checkpoints in your head, If Im here I need to go there for this lecture or seminar (First Year focus group).
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As respondents discussed their use of the geo-locative capabilities, many placed emphasis on the unique way in which being represented on the map allowed them to engage with the app. Indeed, one respondent summed up this relationship by saying: MJ: I followed the map but at the same time let it follow me (First Year focus group). The app and the respondents were working in a mutually re-enforcing manner, the actions of one affecting the other in a co-constitutive relationship made distinct to portable digital mapping through geo-locative capacities. 9.5 DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE APP AND OTHER FORMS OF MAPPING: During every focus group, respondents made comparisons between the app and other forms of mapping they had used in the past. These discontinuities ranged from representational features through to practical engagements and highlighted the novel ways this app is brought into being. Features were identified such as: the audio dimensions, geo tagged pictures, close zoom, panning, pre-determined routes and geo-location. It became clear that these features afforded the user a more interactive and personalized experience than could be offered by paper mappings. The ability to follow a pre-determined route using geo-location was one of the features most commonly raised by respondents and created a unique experience through several dimensions. One dimension was the ease and simplicity through which this route could be followed, as one respondent put it: DR: It was easier than a paper map because with paper maps you have to decide where to go (Third Year focus group). Another dimension through which respondents found the app was brought into being correlated strongly with my own experiences of using the app, experiencing the campus as a series of points as opposed to a continuum as evidenced below: RC: How did the app provide an experience of campus that a paper map couldnt? JB: Quite a detached experience I would say, because you spend the whole time looking at your phone, trying to find out where you are in relation to blob number M as opposed to where is actually Wills memorial building (Third Year focus group).
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10. CONCLUDING REMARKS: In the course of my research, I have aimed to ameliorate understanding of the systems of meaning through which this app operates. Adopting a more-than-representational approach to mapping, I have explored the representational and practical ways in which this app is brought into being through both a close analysis of my own experiences and wider discussions with others. In Chapter Eight, I conducted an auto-ethnographic journey to study how the app was brought into being through my own usage. In this self-reflexive study, I identified three key ways in which the app exerted its influence. Firstly, the presentation of the campus as an atemporal, idealised representation operating through systems of timeless power (Graham et al. 2012) accentuated meaning. Secondly, through augmentation of the reality of my campus experience. The layering of spatially referenced multimedia content atop physical entities altered my perception of the places I encountered. Lastly, an astute combination of iconographic features subconsciously guided me through the campus and unwittingly influenced my movements through this space. In Chapter Nine the use of focus groups enabled me to extend my understanding of the ways in which the app is brought into being. Crucially, here again, there was a clear preeminence of three key themes. Firstly, many brought the app into being through remote exploration, a process reliant on the users memory as the external referent and comparable to della Doras (2009) concept of Armchair traveling. Secondly, on campus , a key use of this app was as a navigational device to facilitate movement between points on the mapped surface. The third way the app was brought into being was through its geo-locative capacities, which acted as an axis between the virtual world of the app and the real world. This allowed users to relate themselves to features in the app and worked to integrate the experience of the online and offline worlds. A very influential factor for all of these practices was the users familiarity with the campus. Throughout this study, the range of practices and meanings that have emerged through my own and others use of the app have been both considerable and diverse, providing extensive evidence i n support of post-representational theory that maps are never fully formed and their work is never complete (Kitchin and Dodge 2007:343).

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10.1 FURTHER AREAS OF STUDY AND LIMITATIONS: In an attempt to engage with discussions of and encouraged b y Dewsbury et al. (2002) I will now push for further considerations and questioning. A main limitation of this study was my conduction of a lone auto-ethnography, which captured my experiences during my first use of the app. Conducting more walks, increasing my experience of the app, using the app at different times and for different things are all ways in which this analysis could be extended. Similarly, the focus groups I conducted were all formed of students at the University of Bristol, all possessing some level of familiarity with the campus. Using a range of younger and older participants, perhaps unfamiliar with the campus is a way this research could be extended. Research such as this would better explore whether the interface really is universally accessible or whether age and any associated technological ineptitude presents a barrier unwittingly overcome by younger generations. Using a more-than-representational approach has combined elements of representational and postrepresentational cartography to explore the inseparability of representation and practice in this app (Connor 2010:21, Original emphasis); something which much research to date has failed to engage with. This research can be regarded as pushing a new frontier in cartographic research, embracing a new epistemology for cartography to uncover aspects barely touched upon in previous approaches. Indeed, this approach has demonstrated a way of analysing increasingly popular and pervasive ways of experiencing place mediated by technology. The University of Bristol Walking Tour app is just one example of the plethora of portable digital mapping apps in existence or being developed, all of which are pushing the boundaries of spatial representation and all of which are amenable to the more-than-representational approach. Applying similar analyses to future innovations would provide a way of further understanding the mechanisms through which urban experience is increasingly being mediated. Understandings such as these pose potentially exceptional commercial value to both the design of ubiquitous computing and the design of urban space, showing that the study of cartography still has much to offer contemporary urban experience.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bristol and Community Engagement program: Open innovation, 2011. My Mobile Bristol. <http://mymobilebristol.ilrt.bris.ac.uk/files/2011/08/MMB_casestudy_final.pdf> 20.10.2012 Bassett, K., 2004. Walking as an Aesthetic Practice and a Critical Tool: Some Psychogeographic Experiments. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 28(3), pp.397410. Brown B and Laurier E 2005a Maps and journeys: An ethno-methodological investigation Cartographica 40 1733 Butz, D. & Besio, K., 2009. Autoethnography. Geography Compass, 3(5), pp.16601674 Cosgrove, Denis. (ed.) 1999. Mappings. London: Reaktion Books. Connor, B, The Virtual Flaneur? Exploring Google Street View, unpublished MSci thesis, Bristol, University of Bristol, 2010 Crampton, J.W., 2001. Maps as social constructions: power, communication and visualization. Progress in Human Geography, 25(2), pp.235252. Crampton, J. 2003. The Political Mapping of Cyberspace. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Dave, B., 2007. Space, sociality, and pervasive computing. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 34(3), pp.381382. Del Casino V J and Hanna S P 2006 Beyond the binaries: a methodological intervention for interrogating maps as representational practices. ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies 4 3456 della Dora, V. 2009. Performative atlases: memory, materiality and (co-)authorship. Cartographica 44 24055 Accessed on

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della Dora, V. (Forthcoming) A world of Slippy Maps: Google Earth, Global Visions and Topographies of Memory. DeLyser, Dydia, Steve Herbert, Stuart Aitken, Mike Crang, and Linda McDowell,. 2010, Handbook of Qualitative Geography London: Sage Publications. Dewsbury, JD., Harrison, P., Rose, M. and Wylie, J. (2002) Enacting Geographies Geoforum, 33, 437-440. Dodge, M., Kitchin, R and Perkins, C. (Eds) 2009. Mapping modes, methods and moments: A manifesto for map studies, in M. Dodge, R. Kitchen and C. Perkins, eds., Rethinking maps: New Frontiers in Cartographic Theory. Routeledge, London pp220-243. Dodge, M., Kitchin, R. & Zook, M., 2009. How does software make space? Exploring some geographical dimensions of pervasive computing and software studies. Environment and Planning A, 41(6), pp.12831293. Dourish, P. & Bell, G., 2007. The infrastructure of experience and the experience of infrastructure: meaning and structure in everyday encounters with space. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 34(3), pp.414430. Edney, M.H. 1993. Cartography without Progress: Reinterpreting the Nature and Historical Development of Mapmaking. Cartographica 30(2/3):54-68. Edney, M.H. 2005. Putting Cartography into the History of Cartography: Arthur H. Robinson, David Woodward, and the Creation of a Discipline. Cartographic Perspectives 51:14-29. Flowerdew, Robin, David Martin, Methods in Human Geography. Pearson 2005. Graham, M., Zook, M. & Boulton, A., 2012. Augmented reality in urban places: contested content and the duplicity of code. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, p.nono. Graham S D N, 2005, Software-sorted geographies Progress in Human Geography 29 562 -580. Harley, J.B. 1989. Deconstructing the Map. Cartographica 26 (2):1-20.
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Harley, J. B,. 1992. Re-reading the Maps of the Columbian Encounter, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 82 (3), pp552-542. Harley, J.B. 2001. The New Nature of Maps. ed. Paul Laxton. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Harley, J.B. and D. Woodward. 1987. eds. Preface. In The History of Cartography: Cartography in Prehistoric, Ancient and Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean. Vol. 1(1). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. xv-xxi. Hay, I., editor 2005: Qualitative research methods in human geography (Second edition). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ingold T 2010 Bringing things to life: creative entanglements in a world of materials NCRM working paper 05 10 Kitchin, R. and Dodge, M. 2007. Rethinking maps. Progress in Human Geography 31 33144 Kitchin, R., Gleeson, J. & Dodge, M., 2012. Unfolding mapping practices: a new epistemology for cartography. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, p.117. Krueger, R. A., & Casey, M. A. (2000). Focus groups: A practical guide for applied researchers (3rd ed.. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Latour, B. 1987. Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lorimer, H., 2005. Cultural geography: the busyness of being more-than-representational. Progress in Human Geography, 29(1), pp.8394. MacEachren, A. M. 1992. Visualization. In, R. F. Abler, M. G. Marcus & J. M Olson (eds.), Geographys Inner Worlds. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 99-137. Morgan, D. 1996. Focus Groups, Annual Review of Sociology 22 (1): 129-52.
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Monmonier, M. 2007. Cartography: the multidisciplinary pluralism of cartographic art, geospatial technology, and emperical scholarship, Progress in Human Geography, 31 (3), pp371-379. Perkins, C. 2009. Performative and embodied mapping. In International Encyclopaedia of Human Geography. eds. R. Kitchin and N. Thrift. London: Elsevier. 126-32. Pickles, J. 2004. A History of Spaces: Cartographic Reason, Mapping, and the Geo-Coded World. London and New York: Routledge. Pinder, D., 2001. Ghostly Footsteps: Voices, Memories and Walks in the City. Cultural Geographies, 8(1), pp.119. Pinder, D. 2003. Mapping worlds: cartography and the politics of representation. In Alison Blunt, Pyrs Gruffudd, Jon May, Miles Ogborn and David Pinder, editors, Cultural Geography in Practice. London, Arnold, pp. 172-187 Rossetto, T., 2012. Embodying the Map: Tourism Practices in Berlin. Tourist Studies, 12(1), pp.28 51. Thrift, N. and French S,. 2002. The automatic production of space Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 27, 30935 Wesier M, 1991. The computer for the 21st century Scientific American Special issue: communications, computers and networks 265 66-75. Wood D and Fels J 2008 The natures of maps Chicago University Press, Chicago IL Zook, M. a & Graham, M., 2007. Mapping DigiPlace: geocoded Internet data and the representation of place. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 34(3), pp.466482.

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APPENDICES: Appendix A: Semi-structured focus group question schedule. Introduction statement: Thanks all for coming. The research I am doing is a focused study on the Walking Tour app which you have all had a chance to look at and use. In this research I am analysing the app from a critical perspective to try and understand some of the ways this app works to produce meanings around campus. What Id really like you all to focus on and try and explain how you experienced the app, what ways you used it, what you used it for and what you thought of it. Ive got a few questions I want to ask but this should be a really informal discussion so feel free to talk about anything you think is important. Opening questions: 1. Firstly how did you all get on with using the app? 2. Did anyone look at the paper map instead? 3. Did you all find it useful? 4. Who did you think it was mainly aimed at? 5. What do you all think are the best features of the app? 6. Were there any features you didnt feel work so well? Key questions: How much of the campus have you visited or seen since youve been here? 1.1 Are there any parts which you havent seen? 2. I want you to think back and describe the ways that you used the app to familiarize yourself with the campus. 2.1 Here I'd really like to know about the methods you used to use the app (whether you meant to or not) 2.2 An example might be to search for a place you knew... 2.3 Did any of you use it whilst walking?

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3. Another focus of this is to try and understand how useful you found the app for exploring the campus. 3.1 Which features did you use most often when using the app? 3.2 How did you find these useful for what you were trying to do? 4. What did you think about the features of the app? 4.1 Did anyone listen to any of the narrations? 4.2 Did listening to the narrations tell you anything interesting about the places? 4.3 What effects did you feel having the information layered over the top of a physical experience have? 5. What influence did the geo-location dot have on your experience? 6. What ways was this app different to paper maps?

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Appendix B: Sample focus group transcript. A transcript of a semi-structured focus group conducted on 20/11/2012. RC = Research conductor. Participants: RC, PD, HP. RC: Thanks all for coming. The research I am doing is a focused study on the Walking Tour app which you have all had a chance to look at and use. In this research I am analysing the app from a critical perspective to try and understand some of the ways this app works to produce meanings around campus. What Id really like you all to focus on and try and explain how you experienced the app, what ways you used it, what you used it for and what you thought of it. Ive got a few questions I want to ask but this should be a really informal discussion so feel free to talk about anything you think is important. How did you find it went? PD: Really well, I think most people in terms of our age group are quite familiar with using the apple system, how to use an iPod touch, its pretty much using the same system so fairly easy to use HP: // Yeah I mean its simple to use, even for people that arent to familiar with the system, you can just hop onto the app and get going. RC: So quite intuitive? HP: Yeah PD: Id say so. RC: Did you get a chance to use it outside? What methods did you use to explore with it. PD: I used it walking to this, but thats the first time I actually used it around campus, erm but it wasnt really tracking my location very well... RC: Oh how come? What were you using it on? PD: iPod. RC: Thats really dependent on Wi-Fi access isnt it? PD: Oh thats probably why. HP: I used it on an iPhone, in terms of location services and stuff it pin pointed really well, I havent really wanted to use it outside much. I can see from the way it routes you, you can find out the quickest way to get there, to a lecture or something. RC: The main reason Im asking this is because this app has been developed for a specific purpose, a really clear purpose for providing walking tours. But obviously it still works for people who arent going on tours, and its quite likely that a lot of people download and use it who dont go on
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self guided tours. What I really want to find out and see is how this app works for people. Did you find it useful? HP: Yeah definitely, I can really see why new students and prospective students would want to use it, especially at the beginning of term it is such a big transition from school to university so I think it will be useful in that sense, just help you find your way, stop you getting lost in the crowd, you will know where you are going. RC: Ok...so what sort of things were you looking for? HP: Geography, that was the first thing I looked for, looking for the geography buildings on there. [laughter] RC: Haha thats what I looked for as well. Were there any features you didnt think worked so well? HP: Well from my perspective using it on an iPhone I was using the geolocation services and I can see where people would find this problematic. When my battery is running low I turn my location services off and I suppose quite a lot of people might not want to be tracked. Theyll turn their location services off, in that sense it wont be as...[pause]...how it works is very dependent on the user and their preferences. RC: This is all good stuff... So those were some nice opening questions to get you thinking about the app quite critically, now I have couple more questions to ask to get a better idea of the sort of things you were doing with the app. So how much of the campus have you visited or seen before you came to Bristol? PD: Not a lot really. RC: Or before you used the app? PD: All Id seen was the Geography department and up the road towards the gym. HP: Yeah same here. RC: Do you have all your lectures in Geography? PD: No we dont have any, too many people to fit in there. RC: Seriously? Where do you have your lectures? HP: In the closest ones, Chemistry, Biology...Berkeley square. RC: What I really want to know is whether the app allowed you to explore the campus in any new ways that you probably couldnt have done just by walking around. I really want you to think back to when you first used the app and the ways you used it to explore the campus. PD: Well its labeled A, B, C, D so I just flicked through to one I knew about. RC: Ok. PD: Its quite interesting about the whole tour concept really. Well I was wondering, it takes you through all the buildings, like the Maths buildings and things like that, I was wondering actually
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how relevant that is to everyone? I mean Im coming here to do Geography, how relevant is Maths to everyone? RC: Thats interesting; I know I have never been there. HP: I used it in sort of the same way, using the letters to look at the route. RC: So more to look at the route than anything else? HP: Yeah. RC: So now another focus of this is to see how useful you found this app for exploring the campus. Which features did you use most often when using the app? HP: The routes, because yeah... PD:// I didnt really use it for anything else, I mean I dont even know how much it includes, I didnt scroll out or anything. HP: Yeah I was just checking out routes, how to get from A-B. RC: In terms of where you were? HP: Yeah it was using my current location, which point was nearest. It was good to find checkpoints and therefore familiarize yourself with locations, say like you get off at the bus stop at Woodland road, where all the languages departments are, you can see you are there and then where you need to go. RC: So a way of spatially referencing yourself? HP: Yeah you can make those checkpoints in your head; If Im here I need to go there for this lecture of seminar. RC: So did you use any of the buttons or features? PD: Theres a button at the bottom which is sort of like buildings, I was clicking on that and I wasnt sure what it was doing, it didnt really seem to change anything. RC: Yeah I found that interesting as well, I mean buildings dont really elude to anything in particular to me, but as a function it brings you to the centre of the campus, one thing Im picking up on in my analysis is that it centres you on the campus but not all people may agree with where this centre is. PD: Oh ok. RC: Some of the other focus groups identified the campus centre around Geography or their department, its interesting to see the app placing this assumption on you. Did you guys listen to the narrations, what did you think? PD: Yeah I listened, not in that much detail. So I literally picked the first one I saw, the err building of arts, nice looking place. I didnt take in much information first time, there was a moment when the narration was playing but the time cursor was on 0. That was the only problem I was having with it, it worked perfectly the rest of the time.
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RC: What did you think? [Directed at HP]. HP: I just didnt think to be honest. Erm, at the same time I can understand why people could find them useful. RC: Why do you think you didnt find them useful? HP: I dont know, I really have no clue I just didnt think to listen to them. I was using it for one purpose. RC: What was that? HP: It was the routing, finding my bearings, RC: Would you say thats because you are still quite unfamiliar with the campus? HP: Not anymore, but thinking back to the first couple of weeks and being lost, walking up and down and not knowing where you are, being able to familiarise yourself with a certain type of location, and then make links, thats really useful. RC: Thats what a lot of people call way finding. HP: Yeah that was it. RC: What kind of effects did you find listening to things over the top had on what you did or experienced? PD: I was trying to imagine the route and listened to the narrations while I was doing it. RC: So this was in your room? PD: Yeah, they are like 3 minutes long, I guess that is a suitable timespan for one place. RC: So you said you were imagining going round, can you expand on that a bit more? PD: Like I said in terms of relevance, if I turn up to a tour and go to the Maths building Im not interested in listening to a narration about it, so I suppose its useful being able to choose, you dont have to listen to the narrations, its a choice. RC: So you chose to listen to the arts narration? PD: The one with the fountain outside at the roundabout... RC: Music, the Victoria Rooms PD: Yeah thats the one! RC: So you listened to this narration, interesting? PD: Yeah it was but I didnt feel the need to listen to all of it, I gained a lot of information at the beginning. RC: So you imagined past experiences when listening to it? PD: Erm, yeah Id say more actually taking the route myself and standing outside of it. My memory of the pictures now is quite vague but they were really useful to know I was thinking about the right place. They allowed me to link up what I remembered with what was being shown. RC: Ok cool, can you think of any ways the geolocation dot changed the way you used the app?
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HP: Well it showed the easiest and applicable routes to where I wanted to go, the shortest time to get there, letting the map follow me. I followed the map but at the same time letting it follow me. As opposed to me doing things constrained to the map, I identified quicker routes. RC: Did use the arrow button much? HP: Yeah it centered the map on where I was, it was really useful again just to see exactly where you were. Something I used a lot actually. RC: Yeah me too, so one last question, can you think of any differences between this app and paper maps? PD: Not particularly, in terms of maps Im more familiar with using digital ones, in terms of relating the two; its different but not unfamiliar in any way. As Ive said I used digital maps a lot. RC: Was it easier then? PD: A lot easier to navigate obviously, if youre in a small space you can scroll around easier and move around. HP://It can follow you, you can see if youre making a mistake, using a paper map you cant see. PD: Theres no feedback at all with a paper map, its a really different process. RC: Yeah, using the app is more of a to way thing I found. Thats everything I wanted to go through. Thanks for your time guys. PD: No problem, cheers.

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Appendix C: Semi-structured interview prepared for Mike Jones. 1. How did you get involved with the app? a. What is your background? b. What was your role in the creation of this app? c. What parts did other people play in bringing this app together? 2. What were the processes that went into this apps creation? 3. How does the app actually work? 4. How much influence did you have over what went into the app and what didnt? 5. Do you think that making and using this app have changed how you view or experience the campus? a. Do you ever think about the app when you reach specific places or do certain things? 6. Can the app compare to a real tour of the campus? a. What do you think the main differences are? 7. Do you think of yourself as a programmer, a cartographer or a geographer?

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Appendix D: Interview transcription with Mike Jones. Interview took place on 13/12/12. Participants: RC and MJ. RC: Hi Mike, thanks for meeting me I know youve had a really busy few weeks so its great youve managed to fit me into your schedule. MJ: Absolutely fine, Will. RC: Let me tell you about the research I am doing and how this interview fits in with it. Its very human based, focused around the app, drawing elements from critical cartography to investigate how apps can influence the way people engage with the campus. Im using this application very much as a lens through which to understand wider interactions between portable digital mapping and engagements with space. MJ: So is it just the walking tour that you did? RC: Yeah just the walking tour, mostly because it was a very accessible case study to research and provided all the characteristics that I wanted to look at. MJ: Oh ok. This will be really interesting because we dont really get much feedback. RC: Well I think you will find this interesting because what has emerged through the research and the focus groups is that quite a lot of the students used it in ways different to the ways it was properly designed for. What my ethnographic study draws out is a different way that the app allowed me to view the campus. MJ: Oh ok, Ill be really interesting to read it. So how can I help you with this? RC: I have a few questions that I want to get through which will really help me get a greater understanding of the context behind how you made this app. So the first one is what were the main processes behind the creation of this app? MJ: So I was working on a project called MyMobileBristol and that was a really weird project, so it was funded by... RC: //JISC? MJ: //Yeah JISC, it was a business community engagement thing, so a really weird project where I got to go to workshops, open days, companies but I also got to work on the mobile Bristol website. A part of this was stakeholder analysis, meeting with student recruitment team, they said theyd done some work with the mobile Bristol website but theyd also been doing work with a new walking tour. RC: So had they been doing it separately?
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MJ: Yeah yeah yeah so they had done a paper counterpart and they were going to do these MP3 files which people could download, so I said Im sure we could do something a bit more interesting with that. Obviously this project could yield something interesting. We decided to do a more interactive better version than we could do with paper. There was some discrepancy with the platforms so we went with iPhone. RC: Is it very difficult to get something which is widely available across all platforms? MJ: Well basically the iPhone, iPod, and iPad all share the same platform, iOS. Err so blackberries and androids are different platforms, there are development kits that allow you to program cross platform. I didnt do that for this for two reasons: firstly because this is very map based I preferred to use the native controls of the phone because they are a bit quicker. RC: It slots in. MJ: Yeah, and secondly I was doing it in my own time mostly and I was more interested in the iOS side of it anyway. RC: So would you have had to redesign it for other platforms? MJ: Well you dont have to redesign it but you then get issues if you dont, the problem is, many designers argue about this. If you use iOS people expect an app to behave in a certain way, whereas on android it is different. On iPhone when you are using it you often navigate using a back button, well this doesnt make much sense on an android because you have a physical button so this doesnt transfer well across. So we just went for the one platform. RC://A pilot? MJ: Yeah yeah, so just yeah I created it. So we had discussions about how best to do it, Ben Hayes suggested we go straight into it, but the public relations office wanted to have the videos. But I also wanted, because we were promoting MyMobileBristol, to have links to that information. Consequently when you are using it, it doesnt go straight into the map. Theres weird things which I have had problems with like the tiles changing. RC: The Google base map? MJ: Yeah so the tiles change, the Google ones were replaced by the apple ones because the actual tiles come from their server. RC: So thats been updated since you used the app? MJ: Yeah yeah. RC: So the base of the map is separate from what you put on? MJ: Yeah yeah so basically RC://And thats changed since you did it, you have no control over what goes into that? MJ: No I have no control over the tiles. RC: Interesting...
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MJ: So basically there is an SDK, I have control over what I layer over the top. RC: The API? MJ: Yeah, so with iOS6 apple produced the new maps which have been criticized. The phone links back to a server to get the tiles. The phone and routes seem to have aligned ok since the move. RC: So in an unbelievable scenario if that server went down would the app be left with just the route? MJ: Well for a period the title of the Bristol Museum was in Japanese. So I mean yeah the first time I submitted the app it got rejected by the App Store, what I hadnt realised was that the app was contained within this bit here [identifies the button banner of the app]. But what I hadnt realised was that the bottom bit was hidden by this bar which contained the Google copyright part. So that was a bit like oh. So yeah we also changed how to do the audio. RC: Was this through piloting? MJ: No because we trying to do this quite quickly, I was just playing with it. I basically used this website called Test pilot, its crowd sourced basically. So one criticism was that it was quite clunky. Things like this chevron etc., quite native to iPhone users. Around all this I then basically had to work out the route listening to their [Student recruitment] audio. RC: So you were trying to mirror the audio? MJ: Yeah make it better, match the route as closely as possible to the audio as possible. RC: So on their audio did you include all the points? MJ: Yeah so on the audio there are some choices, like you can go off here at this point for example. I didnt do stuff like that. I just did the core bits. I ended up getting Google maps out, working out a series of points, getting the latitude and longitude and then putting them in. RC: How did you choose those points? MJ: Well by listening to the audio. RC: Oh so you chose these points because that was what they had done, no selections from you? MJ: No I didnt make a conscious effort to add additional stuff. No so thats why I spoke to Lorraine, I was just trying to mirror and in respects amplify what had been represented in the paper counterpart. RC: So this is the app version of the paper map. Do you know if they made the paper map with this in mind? MJ: No not at all. RC: Thats interesting. MJ: Yeah all I knew was that they were doing the paper map, we approached them in the stakeholder meeting and suggested we could do it as an app. RC: Are there any plans to do anything else, move it on?
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MJ: Well theyve updated the audio. Its the same points, they haven't actual ly changed the locations just some of the audio. RC: So will that come as an update to the app? How do you feel about that app? MJ: They did talk about doing AR (Augmented Reality), Im not sure how good that would have been walking around. Im just not sure how effective it would be. Things like the accuracy only comes down to about 30 metres via GPS, so using a video with AR you wouldnt get a great experience. RC: Its good at the moment in the ASS library, it pins me in a corner of the library. MJ: Thats mainly down to the Wi-Fi access; there are plans to make it better across the whole university. RC: So do you think there will be improvements to the app. MJ: Well most of the feedback on the iTunes store has been fairly useless; I mean one said this is really biased towards Bristol University. So obviously that hasnt been overly helpful in trying to improve the app. RC: So one big part of the analysis I am doing is about the selections of the map maker. MJ: Yeah definitely interesting, this is I suppose what Student recruitment feel Bristol is all about. Well one thing this was really aimed for was for students who couldnt get to the open days. RC: Yeah, they place a lot of emphasis on that on the open day website. So in terms of the app itself how did you select things like the icons? MJ: So basically it was a website from this guy, he has a free version or paid version of different icons you can buy. I chose the ones for around $20, nice icons. One thing that is interesting is we can find out where all the downloads are coming from as well as how many. I can send you the stats if you want, for the downloads that is. Lorraine asked for some updated stats, there are definite peaks around the open day, around 700 ish. RC: Oh really. MJ: Yeah, a lot of downloads at the beginning from Asia. RC: Thats interesting because another feature I am focusing on is remote exploration with the app. MJ: I think theres potential for a lot more information here [in the app]. Another thing Im working on is making the prospectus a lot more online friendly. I think the videos with the app [opens up the videos on his own phone], these are pulled from an xml file, not from directly in the app. I would say that because the phone knows where they are, the phone could order the videos, based on whose using it. RC: Oh ok, theres quite a lot of literature on this which refers to it as software sorting, all about politics of code, uneven distributions of data for example.
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MJ: Well I think ideally we could include everything, however it is more appropriate and interesting to tailor it to different markets. RC: Absolutely. MJ: I think it would also be cool to do an iPad specific version, high quality pictures for example. RC: This is great thank you, Ill just see if theres anything major Ive missed from my schedule. [Consults schedule]. Ah yes. So in your opinion do you think this changes how you or others move through campus? MJ: I dont know, because obviously Im a member of staff, I really wouldnt know. I really wish it would though, when I was at university it was very different. Another angle I really would love to include would be to put additional stuff in like links from Temple Meads, maybe put in some historical information as you moved along. RC: Well there is one app which is quite close to that called Time travelers guide to Bristol which provides that historical aspect. That historical aspect is something people in the focus groups did identify as finding really interesting. So quite a broad question. During this project did you see yourself as a programmer, member of staff, cartographer? MJ: Definitely a programmer, not a cartographer. Im interested in maps and apps, but definitely it was the goal/technology orientated. Student recruitment had created this paper version which I was using as a guide. RC: Trying to replicate as best as possible. MJ: Yeah I would say I was trying to amplify what had been done. RC: Thats all my questions really, thanks a lot Mike.

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Appendix E: Field Notes from Auto ethnography. Research conducted on 1/12/12. 8.45: Stood on doorstep setting app up. Geo-located to move from geography library to my location. Notable: Woodland road closest place on the walking tour route.. 8.47: Started walking, took route north up Tyndalls park road, normal route to lectures. 8.49: Geo-location dot movement not smooth, v jerky, not in time with my movements. 8.51: Half way down Woodland Road, reached point N. Dot gone, under icon. 8.56: Thorough exploration of features at N, had a look at everything included. Points to note: - Cant see multimedia centre. - Didnt know there was one there. - Narration created links with other students. - 3 different views of the same thing, novel. 8.57: Carried on walking along Woodland road, can see Senate House in reality (at end of road) and on app as point of interest, decide to head there. 9.01: Standing outside Hawthorns opposite Senate House, very busy with students. Geo-location dot is on top of the black line. 9.03: Listen to narration, start following narrative directions. Moving from point A to B. 9.04: Geo-location dot staying on the black line, testing movements side to side to see if dot stays on. Using geo-location for navigation more than usual ways. 9.06: Listening to narration about Library. Lots of noise from building site opposite. 9.12: Point C, stop to listen to narration of Physics. - More interested because never been inside. - Some pictures showing inside. - Directed by the audio back down the road. 9.13: Start walking to Royal Fort House, never been there before, map shows need to head back to Senate House and turn left. 9.15: Have to re-listen to narration for directions. Use geo-location to match up dot and line. Work out left turn up side road. Not clear on the app. 9.19: Arrive at Royal Fort House, listen to narration. - Interesting information - Mainly historical information. - Descriptions of landscape gardening, clearly evident in surroundings.
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9.24: Move through smaller paths and archways to get down to Medical sciences. Only been here a few times. 9.27: Skip Maths department narration. Carry on walking, use app to see there is another point of interest at end of Tankards close/University Walk. - Not quite sure which is which because both labeled as same road. - Follow black line, route follows road. 9.35: Reach point F: not sure where to stand. - Notice absence of Geography department from pictures and description. - Find Geography information in Audio. building. 9.41: Choose to finish tour here. Next point is chemistry, comparatively long walk down and doesn't loop round in the same way the last sections did. 9.42: Re visit some of the locations using the app, consolidate memory. 9.45: Decide to head to the Geography library, very close to current position. Want to write clearer notes on what Ive just done. Interesting pictures showing inside of Archeology

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Appendix F: Coding Table used in analysis.

Theme Remote exploration

Navigation

Familiarity

Geolocation

Disparity

Sub-Theme Perspective Images Narrations Imagination Knowledge of campus Appropriateness Social functions Narrations Level Curiosity Awareness of silences Narrations as new perspective Selectivity Link between virtual and real Relative location Referencing device Mutually coconstitutive Ease Detached experience

Code RE1 RE2 RE3 RE4 N1 N2 N3 N4 F1 F2 F3 F4 G1 G2 G3 G4 G5 D1 D2

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Appendix G: Example Coded Transcript.

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Appendix H: Recordings of all focus groups and interviews.

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