Daniele Quercia: Happy maps

Summary

In this thought-provoking talk, the speaker reflects on their personal journey of moving away from an efficiency-driven mindset towards a more enriching, human-centered experience of the city. After realizing how mapping apps focused solely on the shortest route robbed them of beauty and connection, the speaker shifted their research towards understanding how people experience urban environments. By combining crowdsourcing and computer science, the speaker's team created maps highlighting not just the shortest, but also the happiest and most beautiful paths. Their research aims to reclaim the joy of exploration, inviting people to reconnect with their surroundings beyond mere efficiency.

Takeaways

• 😀 The speaker reflects on how efficiency can become a cult and shares a personal story of how they shifted their perspective.
• 😀 After moving to Boston and using a mapping app to get to work, the speaker realizes how it limited their experience of the city.
• 😀 The speaker highlights a moment of surprise when they discovered a street with no cars, a path they had overlooked in favor of efficiency.
• 😀 The quest for the shortest route often eliminates the joy of exploration, nature, and human connection along the way.
• 😀 The speaker questions whether others are trapped in the same cycle of efficiency, where the app dictates the route without considering the broader experience.
• 😀 While mapping apps are great for efficiency, they assume that there is only one 'best' route, overlooking other potential enriching paths.
• 😀 The speaker shifted their research from data-mining to studying how people experience cities, particularly focusing on the emotional and aesthetic aspects.
• 😀 Through crowdsourcing, the research team identified which urban scenes make people feel happy, quiet, or beautiful, leading to new types of maps.
• 😀 These new maps highlight not just the shortest path, but also the most enjoyable, beautiful, or quiet routes, allowing for a richer city experience.
• 😀 Participants in the study valued paths that added a few extra minutes but provided greater joy, showing that beauty and emotion can outweigh efficiency.
• 😀 The speaker envisions a future where maps factor in not only aesthetics but also smell, sound, and personal memories, creating richer, more personalized journeys.
• 😀 The core message is to avoid the danger of focusing solely on efficiency and to embrace alternative paths that offer a more fulfilling experience.
• 😀 The speaker encourages people to step away from the routine and explore the world around them, suggesting that breaking free from efficiency can lead to a more adventurous and meaningful life.

Q & A

What was the speaker's main confession in the script?

The speaker confessed that, as a scientist and engineer, they had focused on efficiency for many years, but realized that efficiency could be a cult that limits a fuller, richer experience of life.

How did the speaker feel about the route they used to take to work?

Initially, the speaker relied on a mapping app to take the shortest route to work. However, after cycling for a month on a car-packed street, they took a detour one day and found a peaceful, car-free street surrounded by trees, which led to feelings of surprise and later shame for being so blind to the beauty around them.

What insight did the speaker gain after using a different route to work?

The speaker realized that by focusing solely on the shortest path, they had been missing out on the joy of connecting with nature, experiencing beauty, and even interacting with people. Efficiency had made them overlook the journey itself.

What shift did the speaker make in their research after this realization?

The speaker shifted their research focus from traditional data-mining to understanding how people experience cities. They became interested in exploring the emotional and sensory aspects of urban spaces, not just their efficiency.

What inspired the speaker to create new types of maps?

Inspired by social science experiments by figures like Jane Jacobs and Stanley Milgram, the speaker sought to create maps that didn’t just show the shortest path but also highlighted the most enjoyable, beautiful, and quiet routes based on human emotions.

How did the speaker's team measure which urban scenes people found beautiful or enjoyable?

The team created a crowdsourcing platform where users voted on pairs of urban scenes, choosing which ones were more beautiful, quiet, or happy. This allowed them to aggregate data on locations that people found emotionally appealing.

What does the new map created by the speaker's team highlight?

The new map highlights not just the shortest path to a destination, but also routes that are considered more beautiful, quiet, or happy based on crowd-sourced data, offering a more holistic view of the city.

How did participants respond to the 'happy' and 'beautiful' routes compared to the shortest route?

Participants found the 'happy' and 'beautiful' routes much more enjoyable, even when these routes added a few extra minutes to their travel time, showing that emotional and aesthetic considerations can enhance the travel experience.

What kind of memories did participants associate with the routes they took?

Participants often attached personal memories to the places they traveled through, such as recalling specific events (e.g., 'that’s where I gave my first kiss') or how the path smelled and sounded, indicating a deep connection to the environment beyond its physical features.

What does the speaker suggest about routine versus adventure in life?

The speaker suggests that while adventure might seem dangerous, routine can be more dangerous, as it can limit one's experiences and ability to truly engage with the world. This is highlighted by the reference to 'The Truman Show,' where a fabricated world limits exploration and discovery.