Public Space Experience Tool

Adapted from the arts venue crowd (Thanks Kane Forbes!), this tool helps people map their emotional reactions to parts of a public place, so that your placemaking interventions can target the most in-need sections of your placemaking area.

Note your experience of the space as you wander through it. Take some time to look with care at everything and pay attention to how the look, feel, sounds, and smells affect your mood in this space. Describe the ‘checkpoints’ where your mood changes at the bottom. Record any notes at the back.

This tool captures how a space affects someone’s mood, and therefore likelihood of enjoying and connecting with the space. For every negative experience someone has, on average it takes at least three positive experiences to bring their mood back up. This tool maps where the positive and negative elements of a public space are, to inform what opportunities and constraints there are to making this space sociable.

Produced by: Placemaking Aotearoa

Credit: Adapted from the Square Edge Community Arts Centre Experience Audit – Kane Forbes, 2019.

License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0