Connected High Street

Linking data about the wide range of goods that are stored in the databases of high street shops offers positive outcomes for consumers, the wellbeing of salesperson as part of the UK's rapidly expanding service sector, health of the high street and the UK economy. Despite the tremendous connections that are made through shopping experiences on the internet, the high street remains locked in a 19th Century paradigm in which the cash register is the only interface between material goods, the customer and the stock inventory (database) (Carrier 1995). Shoppers work hard to make their own connections between disconnected shops, salespeople are reduced to scanning barcodes or fixing self-checkout machines, and data between all parties remains in silos. The vision of a 'frictionless shopping experience' (Brynjofsson and Smith 2000) that part an Internet of Things promise (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xNhL39uD7I), in which technology can reduce the bottleneck of the cash register is far from being realised, instead shoppers have turned to 'showrooming' to make their lives easier (Campbell 2013).

This timely project explores the potential for reconfiguring the traditional organisation of customer, salesperson, cash register, tangible things and database, allowing shops 'stacks' of both immaterial and material processes to share data that will improve social and economic conditions. That high streets are in trouble is documented by the Portas Review (2011), which describes the impact that internet shopping, out of town shopping centres and the economic downturn have had upon on these spaces of social, economic and environmental exchange (see Miller 1998). One ramification is decreased employment opportunities for local young people. This year the Grimsey Review (2013) offered a deeper 'digital' critique of the state of the High Street, embracing a Digitally Economic perspective "To strengthen the high street, we need to increase the number of mutual connections between the nodes or network participants (retail, services, local government, job centres and all others). The more mutual connections, the more adaptive the high street network becomes in response to changes in the success of individuals shops and services." (Grimsey 2013:17).

Our project builds on research and innovation that NCR Consumer Experience (Cx) have initiated in response to the advent of ubiquitous computing in which every shopper carries a cash register in the form of a smart phone. Equipped with a suite of applications, shoppers are able to make purchases, compare prices, track goods, acquire vouchers and group together with friends or strangers to get better deals, all contributing to the consumers range of tactics to make the most from the high street. This project aims to use this sophisticated user knowledge to inform new models for interaction with physical artefacts and their connected data, to improve the high street experience and recover values and relationships that are core to shopping.

The research partnership is completed through the investigators expertise and experience in handling the remaining vital component in the context of the connected high street: things. The extraordinary number of products available in a typical high street at any one time is a material manifestation of the big databases and shop inventories that are connected to each thing. Making visible the scale of the goods in the high street to the shopper, through patterns, correlations and recommendations is a critical step in developing a more connected high street. Through a better understanding of how this data can support the shopper and the salesperson to connect 'things that want to be together', new models of shopping will emerge and reinvigorate the role of things, people and architectures. This Internet of Things project is firmly located within a tenet that the re-thinking of things, data and people might unpack and ameliorate established practices.

Primary impact aims:
We aim to provide networked and physical prototypes co-designed by high street users, providing a springboard for the high street to change from a retail space to a connected retail space that will have resonance for 10-50 years. New models of social economy will encourage more people to shop on high street, potentially reviving local economies. By enhancing the social capital of the high street we aim to provide new forms of social engagement with the potential to change how people use the high street. We will respond to the well-documented social and economic problems facing UK high streets by aiming to provide new models and practices that will inform government policy.

In-project impacts:
The primary impact objective for the collaboration is to extend NCR's technical design portfolio with prototypes for new shopping experiences. NCR are world leaders in point of sale technologies and as the high street transforms they require strategies that open up new market opportunities. The proposed project benefits from being closely associated with Dr. Rogers at Dundee who has worked closely with NCR Research through projects and supervision of PhD students. The second objective is to develop truly user-led solutions toward an Internet of Things. Given the amount of material 'things' and immaterial data that is in the high street, the project focus offers an apt context in which to develop co-designed solutions through ethnographic engagement with participants. The third objective is to develop tangible prototypes that demonstrate the potential for connected high streets that are in direct response to both the Portas Review and the "Digitally Economic" perspective offered by the Grimsey Review.

Enhancing quality of life:
'As broadband and 4G continue to "collapse the distance", we are free to ignore the constraints of the past and the notion that physical space is necessary for shopping. We can find a path with new technologies to create the best combination of both physical and virtual shopping through the hybrid high street. This considers the need for convenience and value, but also for the social aspect of face-to-face communing' (Grimsey 2013).The project aims to develop sensitive solutions that are led by users and not by the apparent promise of new technology, seeking to redress this balance and enhancing the quality of the shopping experience through creative design methods.

Ensure users contribute to and gain from the project:
The project requires the involvement of high street shoppers and salespeople. The project's team benefits from experience in parallel domains of recruitment and retention with community members (e.g. work in the past with Oxfam managers, staff and shoppers etc.) Given the project is committed to exploring user-led shopping opportunities between objects and data, the pathways to impact will be informed by studies of interaction and engagement, an approach which casts a wider net over what an Internet of Things for the high street might be. We will develop 'pop-up' demonstrations in shopping contexts to expose the prototypes to parties beyond the participatory group. The pop-up events will provide material for documenting and disseminating the ideas to wider communities and will provide key content for conference and exhibition applications. We will design web and print publicity material to be used from the start of the project and will utilise contemporary social media supported by illustrations, photographs and videos to document the innovations and effect of the research. Professional and public institutions (such as the Pro Retail conference, Independent Retail Show, SXSW and the Internet of Things Council events) will be used to disseminate our findings and communicate with non-academic communities. The team has strong links with media channels including BBC Digital Human, New Scientist and WIRED magazine to support the dissemination of key ideas.