After the midterm presentation it was made clear that we needed to rethink our design and function of the project. One key point that was brought to our attention was the fact we needed to find some way to improve the accountability of the council to the forum. After research we found a webpage called “Fix my street” that involves an interactive map where people can point out different places in the city that they find problematic, upload images of the issues they find on the spot and also leave a comment where they can describe the issue and also make suggestions for improvements. The council then address these problems and change the status of the issue to fixed so people can see that the council is accountable to these problems.
Another issue that needed to be addressed was that the notes and minutes don’t always get sent out to the forums email list and that the minutes on the internet were not easy to access and not organised clearly. During our research to remedy this we found an organisational website called Trello that clearly organises information and shows which are the most important issues that need to be dealt with first, software like this would be ideal for the forum so that can rob can see which issues of cycling in newcastle need to be tackled first.
We started to think about how we could make a website that would address these issues raised above. We settled on a webpage due to our user research findings that showed this to be the most accessible format for the communication of information. The main feature of the website would be an interactive map of newcastle that would show all the areas that have been raised as an issue for cycling. Clicking on each individual point would show comments made by the forum and profile users on the site and also show a progress bar that fills when the comments have been addressed by the council and if these issues have been fixed to improve the accountability of the council to the forum which might encourage groups such as the newcastle cycling campaign to engage with the forum. There will also be a way for people to vote on which issue needs to be addressed. We’re choosing this as a feature so that the organization of the issues raised can be improved and rob and other council members can see which areas of newcastle’s cycling infrastructure needs to be improved first. When each issue is selected on the map it will redirect you to a page where there is more information on the issue and an area where you can view comments on the issue and write them yourself. A side note to the website will be a page that clearly and chronologically organises the minutes from the meetings so that people can access these whenever they want in a clear format. We decided to do this as this was one of they key problems that the stakeholders brought to our attention with the minutes from the forum.Users have the ability to create their own profiles on the webpage this will allow them to receive notifications and emails about the progress of projects this is in order to keep people interested in the projects taking place. Users involvement in the website is also rewarded for raising issues and voting on projects users will gain points which will gamify the website encouraging more user interaction. Once users have received enough points the can be redeemed for financial rewards.
Hi folks, first of all, it’s good to see you are picking up on some feedback from the mid-term presentations early on in your posts. The week five reflective task implicitly asked you to assess in how far your project goals have changed and through this you do indicate you are reflecting in how far feedback such as the need to raise accountability; and comprehensibility of meeting minutes plays into that. So the attempt to raise accountability seems to be part of a refined / new set of goals to take into your prototype demonstrations and see in how far participants may see the prototype contribute to those goals.
It is also good to see you are picking on your example search from the previous week, especially by referring to FixMyStreet and Trello. I am not quite a reader who is not involved in our project work would understand why you choose those examples or how they were found. Your description of features and inspirations from those two system examples could perhaps also be expanded further. What are those systems excelling at and in which context? How is any of what they do inspiring ideas for your prototype? What specific design features of those systems may be relevant here and why?
This then leads on to the sketching task which was underlying the blog task in that week. It’s good to see you are making a start here by sketching out a basic map view; you also explain in somewhat more detail what exactly your system will do and how. However, note that the task was also to critically question as to what design elements may be interesting for your prototype, which ones may need adapting; and how. Thus far, your sketches only visualise a map view, as a key feature, perhaps with some indication of a rating mechanism; and a profile. Furthermore, while we had this discussion later in the module, you could perhaps have tried to explain more critically what makes your system (and the kinds of components it uses and adapts) unique to tackle the problem; and unique from solutions already out there. At some point, you may need to answer the question how and why is your proposal distinct from systems the council already uses (such as CommonPlace). Which makes me wonder, why CommonPlace was not considered as one of the already-existing examples during the example search. Perhaps that might also require a bit of further unpacking in your final design log.
Hope it helps. I look forward to your next blog entry on your story board.
Hi team! Great that you’ve picked up on the feedback from the mid-term presentation and taken that into account. It’s also great that you’ve continued your example search and found some useful tools that can be inspiration to your project.
For your final reflective log assignment, it would be good to elaborate on some of what you have said in this blog. Exploring the examples a little more to show what parts or features are relevant to your project and how they have inspired your prototype would be useful. It would also be good to show other sketches that you have done, as this post only shows the start of that process.
I think if you can make a closer link between your goals, requirements, user interviews and example search to show how all of this has inspired your design, you will be in a stronger position to show the story of how you developed your ideas and prototypes. This would stand you in good stead for the final reflective assignment.