Visual engagement with urban street edges: insights using mobile eye-tracking

James Simpson, Megan Freeth, Kimberley J. Simpson and Kevin Thwaites

Journal of Urbanism: International Research on Placemaking and Urban Sustainability, 2019, vol. 12, issue 3, 259-278

Abstract: This study provides empirical insight into the extent to which pedestrians visually engage with urban street edges and how social and spatial factors impact such engagement. This was achieved using mobile eye-tracking. The gaze distribution of 24 study participants was systematically recorded as they carried out everyday tasks on differing streets. The findings demonstrated that street edges are the most visually engaged component of streets; that street edge visual engagement is impacted by everyday social tasks as well as the spatial and physical materiality of edges on differing streets; and that street edges, which attract a lot of visual engagement while undertaking optional tasks, also attract greater amounts of visual engagement while undertaking necessary tasks. These findings offer new insight into urban street edge engagement from the direct perspective of street inhabitants and in doing so provide greater understanding of how street edges are experienced.

Date: 2019
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DOI: 10.1080/17549175.2018.1552884

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