The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, filmed by William H. Whyte at 1988, is a documentary video of how human linger in public spaces.

It is a good studying material on human behaviour in urban environmental settings. Although mostly relevant to architecture and psychology, I find the underlying observation principle that this video demonstrates is applicable to almost everything that touches human. How do we react to a road sign? How do we open a door? How do we buy a metro ticket from the automatic ticket machine with it’s touch-sensitive screen? When trying to design a solution for issues, it is necessary to do both objective scientific research, as well as subjective, empathetical observations and thoughtful thinking.

links of video provided by user “clfront” (http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=clfront):
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0TYY7jflz8
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aioLKJfxQV4
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_nw8HJ2yAE
Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFT_DakPk1Y
Part 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIOteCQHJmk
Part 6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iA0Vqr770Zs

To buy the DVD of Social Life of Small Urban Spaces by William H. Whyte, please visit http://www.directcinema.com/dcl/title.php?id=452.