Using ‘Visitors and Residents’ to visualise digital practices

‘Visitors and Residents’ is a continuum of modes of engagement which has been well established as a valuable way of understanding how individuals engage online. This paper discusses how the original metaphor of Visitors and Residents has been developed into a mapping process which helps individuals to visualise, and reflect on, the digital tools and places they use or spend time in. The paper explores ways that the Visitors and Residents work has developed and proposes a method of analysing a body of maps through ‘engagement genres’ to discover broader trends in behaviour across groups.