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The purpose of this conceptual paper is to describe how the affinity space concept has been used to frame learning via social media, and call for and discuss a refresh of the affinity space concept to accommodate changes in social media platforms and algorithms.

Guided by a sociocultural perspective, this paper reviews and discusses some ways the affinity space concept has been used to frame studies across various contexts, its benefits and disadvantages and how it has already evolved. It then calls for and describes a refresh of the affinity space concept.

Although conceptualized 20 years ago, the affinity space concept remains relevant to understanding social media use for learning. However, a refresh is needed to accommodate how platforms have changed, algorithms’ evolving role in social media participation and how these technologies influence users’ interactions and experiences. This paper offers three perspectives to expand the affinity space concept’s usefulness in an increasingly platformized and algorithmically mediated world.

This paper underscores the importance of algorithmic literacy for learners and educators, as well as regulations and guidance for social media platforms.

This conceptual paper revisits and updates a widely utilized conceptual framing with consideration for how social media platform design and algorithms impact interactions and shape user experiences.

This research investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the use of transitional spaces in a Korean academic setting, to assess the impact of the pandemic on users' utilization of transitional spaces and evaluate any changes in their usage patterns. The research explores whether transitional spaces can function as social interactive spaces, aligning with Ray Oldenburg's “third-place” theory. The focus is on South Korean academic settings, aiming to create neutral and safe zones for users.

The adopted methodology involves reviewing the literature and employing design charrette as a major data collection tool. The design charrette provided a platform for users to share insights on current transitional spaces during the pandemic and envision these spaces as future social and interactive spaces.

The design charrette participants advocated for modifying the current transitional space design to transform these spaces into shared spaces for both visitors and regular users in the future. Restricting access for external users to the main building area until necessary. The significance of site amenities in determining transitional spaces as “third-places” was emphasized. While the nature of the building, its location and transitional space amenities are crucial aspects to consider, designers may prioritize user opinions and preferences, as the success or failure of the design ultimately centers on user behaviors.

The research focused on a specific university, hindered by limited access to other institutions during the pandemic. Restrictions on external users discouraged entry without proper permission, which was challenging to obtain. The conventional design charrette outlined in the research method was impossible due to pandemic-related limitations on gathering participants in one location. Therefore, the researcher modified the design charrette method to align with strict social distancing measures.

The results of the research are not limited to academic settings, but they can be implied in other environments where social interaction spaces are required and where there is a constant flow of visitors and regular users. The design charrette can be used as a methodology for interior spaces along with large-scale projects of urban planning.

The research analyzed transitional spaces during the pandemic, suggesting redesign to serve and act as buffer zones between private and public areas and become a common social gathering place for visitors and regular users within the built environment.

Though daycare centres are built to facilitate children's social and physical growth, divergent stakeholder perceptions yield conflicts while managing risks for each space due to the minimal guidelines in the Republic of Korea. Due to the unclearly defined knowledge and experience gap between representative stakeholders, teachers have difficulties in operating it with high satisfaction. This study therefore was conducted to systematically identify which parts of performance should be increased to preferentially increase end-user satisfaction in limited resources.

This research conducted quantitative analysis gradually. Importance–performance analysis (IPA) grasped the perceptions of construction practitioners and end-users after identifying space composition and representative risks of daycare centres. Based on the factors influencing perception differences, principal component analysis and structural equation modelling (SEM) were conducted to determine which space improves the performance preferentially to increase overall end-user satisfaction.

As the utilisation of indoor spaces increases after COVID-19, improvement of indoor spaces except for indoor playroom is necessary, especially, advancement of the quality of teachers' rooms.

Outputs by reflecting the end-user experiences support to understand which spaces are managed from the limited resources.

Theoretical framework for daycare centre was established in Korea where guidelines were insufficient, and differences in perception of each risk of stakeholders were identified. Moreover, gradual statistical analysis was set to construct end-user-focused centres by extracting where the performance of space should be improved in prior.

This article introduces the “YouWalk-YouReclaim” mobile application as a transformative tool aimed at co-assessing and enhancing campus environments in a post-pandemic context. It seeks to address the need for inclusive, dynamic and technology-driven spaces within university settings.

The study employs a comprehensive assessment framework through a case study at Northumbria University, Newcastle. It involves over 100 students from diverse fields who utilised the application to evaluate significant areas on campus, such as Student Central, Northumberland Road and the Northumbria Library. The methodology places emphasis on direct user engagement and the use of the application’s inbuilt-image library and visual documentation features.

The application effectively evaluated the functionality, spatial dynamics and user experiences across various campus spaces. Key findings include the importance of adaptability, personalised spaces and enhanced wayfinding to meet the evolving needs of the university community. The study also noted the potential of the app to facilitate multidimensional assessments and support user-centric improvements.

The findings suggest that institutions can leverage technology like the “YouWalk-YouReclaim” app to better understand and optimise their campus spaces, fostering more responsive, user-focused and sustainable environments. The study advocates continuous technological enhancements and user-centred assessments to cultivate efficient and enriching campus experiences.

This study is novel in its integration of digital technology with user-centred approaches to assess and enhance campus environments. By enabling real-time feedback and inclusive participation, “YouWalk-YouReclaim” exemplifies an innovative approach to campus space management.

This study aims to fill the lack of quantitative studies of user preferences in quasi-public spaces to observe the use of quasi-public spaces by questioning the contemporary needs of urban communities and to develop design strategies accordingly.

Within the scope of this study, public space design elements affecting users' preferences in the quasi-public spaces of the Podium Park shopping center in Bursa, Turkey were evaluated. By considering the spatial characteristics of the study area, 4 main and 15 subcriteria were determined and utilized by analytic hierarchy process (AHP). These criteria were evaluated by experts and locals with a participatory approach.

According to the obtained results, “events” (S2), “sun/shade” (C2), “safety” (P3) and “planting” (U4) subcriteria were determined as the vital elements for quasi-public spaces.

Although the concept of quasi-public space has been discussed for nearly 30 years, it has been observed that there are no quantitative studies to determine the criteria of user preferences in these open spaces in the literature. This study is the first quantitative research for user preferences in quasi-public spaces and there is no previous study on this subject and study area in Turkey.

This study aims to explore how users’ movement is influenced by different hospital ward layouts, by using space syntax theory. This study also compared four circulation patterns to find the best one for the study goal.

The authors used both qualitative and quantitative methods to study how users’ wayfinding in hospitals depends on various indicators and factors. The study used Depth Map software to do case studies and then analyzed the indicators from theoretical foundations and used the Pearson Test to check the correlation between indicators. This study also looked at Iran’s Ministry of Health standards for ward layouts. Finally, the results obtained from the research data were compared to achieve a suitable model based on the research objectives.

The linear-patterned plan was the best for easy wayfinding and accessibility among four patterns. The optimal hospital circulation patterns can improve wayfinding and reduce wayfinding problems and user movement.

By pioneering space syntax in hospital research, this study unveils the novel interaction between path architecture and user movement. It gives new insights into current trends, helping architects, administrators and policymakers improve health-care design, efficiency and patient experience.

This study examines how users' multidimensional representational fidelity factors affect sociability and cyberself engagement in the Metaverse platform; that is, how they interact with newly defined self-images as their personas in the environments. It investigates how representational fidelity serves platform users to perform social roles and increase their sociability by establishing a new cyberself, thus influencing continuous platform use.

This study surveyed 314 users of the Metaverse platform Horizon, where users can create a virtual agent avatar, meet people in the same online environment in real time, and interact with a sense of three-dimensional immersion. Data were analyzed using partial least squares regression models.

User socialization significantly influenced the intention to use the Metaverse platform. Representational fidelity was a crucial variable for sociability, and activity representational fidelity was the most influential aspect among the four other elements. Platforms should consider how to enable users to create and use activities that faithfully represent their personas.

The novelty of this study is that it introduces representational fidelity based on representation theory into the context of virtual persona in the Metaverse platform. This study extended representational fidelity to the socialization perspective by utilizing the integrated model of user satisfaction and the technology acceptance model. Through the results, this study emphasized that users' sociability significantly influences their intention to use the Metaverse platform. Finally, this study provides a feasible guideline on how practitioners could design and strengthen their platforms so that users can represent their cyberselves faithfully.

Coworking spaces represent a new, rapidly emerging phenomenon. Available empirical literature is sparse and mostly focused on structural elements, whereas the organizational and behavioral dynamics are still largely understudied. This study aims to explore the idea that coworking users’ proactivity (more specifically, job crafting behaviors) plays a key role in positively influencing creative performance, and that such a relationship is better understood by examining both the mediating role of work meaningfulness and the moderating role of knowledge sharing.

This study is based on survey data from a relevant sample of users in Italian coworking spaces. A mediated-moderated analysis is used.

The “approach” job crafting behaviors have a significant influence on creative performance, via work meaningfulness, whereas this is not true for “avoidance” job crafting behaviors. Knowledge sharing plays a significant moderating role in the former relationship.

The theoretical, practical and social implications discussed help to further the discourse surrounding the relationships between job crafting, creative performance and coworking spaces. This unique work setting enables a variety of value appropriation pathways to be promoted and supported. As such, coworking spaces are also “laboratories” where the future of work organization can be better understood.

This study contributes to the existing coworking spaces literature as it is one of the very few that sheds light on users’ behaviors, and to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the first one to consider job crafting as a relevant variable. It also contributes to the current job crafting literature by helping to clarify why available studies have yielded mixed results in examining the relationship between job crafting and creative performance.

This paper introduces the YouWalk-UOS mobile application, a tool that revolutionises the assessment of urban open spaces (UOS). The paper demonstrates how integrating real-time, on-ground observations with users’ reactions into a digital platform can transform the evaluation of urban open spaces. It seeks to address the existing shortcomings of traditional UOS assessment methods and underscore the need for innovative, adaptable and inclusive approaches.

Emphasizing the necessity of UOS for mental and physical health, community interaction and social and environmental resilience in cities, the methodology involves a comprehensive analysis of a number of theoretical frameworks that have historically influenced urban open space conceptualisation, design and assessment. The approach includes a critical review of traditional UOS assessment methods, contrasting them with the capabilities of the proposed YouWalk-UOS application. Building on the reviewed theoretical frameworks, the methodology articulates the application’s design, which encompasses 36 factors across three assessment domains: functional, social and perceptual and provides insights into how technology can be leveraged to offer a more holistic and participatory approach to urban space assessment.

YouWalk-UOS application represents an important advancement in urban space assessment, moving beyond the constraints of traditional methods. The application facilitates a co-assessment approach, enabling community members to actively participate in the evaluation and development of their urban environments. Findings highlight the essential role of technology in making urban space assessment more user-centred, aligning more closely with community needs and aspirations.

The originality lies in the focus on the co-assessment approach and integration of mobile technology into urban open space assessment, a relatively unexplored area in urban design literature. The application stands out as an innovative solution, offering a new perspective on engaging communities in co-assessing their environments. This research contributes to the discourse on urban design and planning by providing a fresh look at the intersection of technology, user engagement and urban space assessment.

Design policy and regulations within our cities can significantly impact the accessibility and social participation of people with disability. Whilst public, wheelchair-accessible bathrooms are highly regulated spaces for this reason, very little is known about how wheelchair users use them or what wheelchair users think of current design standards.

This exploratory inquiry adopts an embodied approach to investigate the perspectives of powered and manual wheelchair users on public bathroom usage and design. The study encompasses twelve interviews, delving into how participants utilise accessible bathrooms based on mobility, disability, support levels, wheelchair types, urinary/bowel regimes and catheter use.

A thorough analysis of individual public bathroom elements (layout, toilet, handwashing and grab rails) discussed in the interviews reveals themes of safety, hygiene, planning/avoidance and privacy and dignity. Strikingly, many wheelchair users invest significant effort in planning for bathroom use or avoid public bathrooms altogether. The ongoing maintenance and regular cleaning of bathrooms, something not captured in regulatory standards, has been highlighted as something of critical importance to the ongoing accessibility and safety of public bathrooms for wheelchair users. This points to a relationship between the design and the maintenance of public bathrooms as influencers of health, well-being, community inclusion and the social participation of people with disability.

This qualitative research is exploratory and contributes to a growing body of evidence that explores how public spaces are experienced by diverse members of our communities, including people with disability. To date, there have been very few investigations into the embodied perspectives of wheelchair users about public bathroom design.

The findings can potentially drive innovative and inclusive approaches to bathroom design regulations that include operational and maintenance guidance.

The research aims to inform design regulations, standards development and practices of designers, architects, facilities managers, developers and planners, ensuring public spaces are designed to support more accessible, inclusive and socially sustainable cities.

Whilst wheelchair-accessible bathrooms have been designed and constructed for public use (in many countries) for many years, we know very little about how wheelchair users actually use them or what wheelchair users think of current design standards.