Outlining the design space of playful interactions between nearby strangers

Designing interactive technology with an aim to encourage social interaction between nearby strangers is challenging. While there are various social norms, cultural practices and privacy concerns that hinder interaction with strangers, ignoring the other people can be even more detrimental in the long term (e.g., leading to a low sense of community and missed opportunities). In order to better understand this paradoxical design space, we arranged co-design workshops aiming to create ideas of future services where interactive technology playfully encourages interaction between nearby strangers. By analyzing the resulting ideas, we identify various aspects and elements that conceptualize and theorize this so far fuzzy design space. We explicate concepts like Hotter, Hotter, Changing Other's Avatar and Dancing, and analyze the 60 resulting concepts to identify elements and viewpoints important in this design space. The conceptualization can help ideating future services, identifying relevant research questions, as well as evaluating design solutions with respect to relevant quality attributes.