A pilot study into users’ anxiety in the London Underground network environments (for the purpose of re-designing safety information)
DS 85-1: Proceedings of NordDesign 2016, Volume 1, Trondheim, Norway, 10th - 12th August 2016
Year: 2016
Editor: Boks, Casper; Sigurjonsson, Johannes; Steinert, Martin; Vis, Carlijn; Wulvik, Andreas
Author: Kim, Jisun; Gustafson-Pearce, Olinkha
Series: NordDESIGN
Institution: Brunel University, United Kingdom
Section: Service design
Page(s): 032-041
ISBN: 978-1-904670-80-3
Abstract
The aim of the study is to present a novel approach to help relieve customers’ anxiety experienced in the London Underground environments, through enabling provision of re-designed safety information. In this paper, anxiety as an emotional state experienced when facing potential threat was measured through a self-report anxiety scale. The findings showed some of the anxiety-inducing situations in the environments experienced by passengers, which include seeing other passengers’ anti-social behaviour, overcrowding, noise and late-night travel. The situations demonstrate when passengers’ information needs (the gap between the required state of knowledge to resolve a problem in a situation and the current state of knowledge) might arise. Sense of control has been stated as one of the important factors which may buffer anxious arousal. This paper therefore discusses a pilot study which measures anxious arousal and shows preliminary results from the study, and also makes some suggestions based on the results of the study and the relevant literature.
Keywords: Information design, Service, Customer experience, Emotion, Anxiety