Ekaterina Lichtenstein

Thesis Title: Urban UX: Creating a methodology framework for the performance evaluation of cities utilising environmental and user-generated data.

My goal for the PhD is to address the lack of evidence base in design decision making,  by developing a framework for the analysis of the quality of the urban realm and creating data-driven tools to supply the evidence base for this analysis. I want to move the focus from an aesthetic discussion onto a user experience discussion, by measuring the user experience of cities, and thus defining how a city’s design performs. 

My focus of study will lie on urban performance analysis, combining an analysis of built urban form with the analysis of user experience usage patterns, encoded through data and feedback. I understand urban quality as a variable characteristic based on how users perceive the city, not as an absolute characteristic. 

Different user groups experience the city in different ways; I am interested in user-generated data, such as pedestrian movement data as well as user feedback, a combination of which I hope to draw upon to assess the performance of a place.