Log week 3
Hello, this week we decided upon our user research methods. We believe the best method for us would be to participate in detailed (structured) interviews with stakeholders and the general public, and also to take general observations of the areas usage. Within the seminar we came up with some brief questions, following this we met as a group to expand upon them more.
Planned site visit
This week we contacted Ali to try to organise a meeting with her, Mark (computer, tech side of the project) and Julie (environmental/health side of the project) although Julie wasn’t able to make the dates suggested, so we have agreed to try to meet up next week with them where we will be able to ask them more detailed questions about the project. As we cannot interview them this week we have decided to make a site visit instead to Heaton Road, to try to interview some of the locals and the stakeholders. We realise that we need different types of interviews for each set of people, some needing to more open and others more specific and closed to only certain groups of people who would know the answers or have experience with the questions asked. We would like to talk to a few of the people below, although we have been warned due to local elections to not focus on them too much. These would be users such as:
- Residents (both alongside Heaton Road and nearby neighborhoods)
- Cyclists
- Stakeholders
Examples of our “open” to all questions – resident, general public etc.
- What is your main usage for Heaton Road ?
- What are your usual methods of transport when on this road?
- Do you find parking spaces easy to find and are there a good amount of them?
- Would you find travelling along Heaton Road a positive experience, and why is this?
- What would you change, if anything, about Heaton Road if you could?
Examples of our “closed” for certain people questions – Mark, Julie, Ali, Space for Heaton etc.
- What is your main usage for Heaton Road?
- What are your usual methods of transport when on this road?
- How do you feel about parking along Heaton road?
- Do you find spaces easy to find and are there a good amount of them?
- What would you change, if anything, about Heaton Road if you could?
- Do you believe the changes would be beneficial for the area?
- What incentives would you think would lead people to want the changes made?
- What are the main reasons you believe people are against?
From these questions we hope to gain a greater insight into how people feel about the project and its outcomes, hopefully helping us to understand our project end goal a bit more, and the process in which we will develop our prototype to which will help us achieve this goal. We realise the reasoning behind why our research activities should be individual as to be the fact that many people should be be approached differently and we aim to get a less biased view of these things, alongside this the elections that Ali told us about play a large role in us needing to keep open questions as we wouldn’t want locals views to be changed due to our influence.
Additional Research
Streets for people ; Heaton and Ouseburn 1
Streets for people : Heaton and Ouseburn 2
After researching further into the Streets for People which is a local research method that has already been collected by the local groups, we found these two links which lead to posters including information on pedestrians, cyclists and drivers. This information showed us that pedestrians held the highest percentage of travel (42%) and cyclists came second with (34%) driving came in with the lowest percentage out of the three options (13%). We also took note that 51% of the people wanted a segregated cycling route, proving to us that this was a slightly more prefered option and our project is more favoured.
Hello team, thanks for your post. You are doing really well and your evidence that you have a good idea of the user research you will want to do. It’s also great to see you had a look at other prior research the council has already been accumulating on the local area. Consider adding a few questions to probe for interaction between Space for Heaton and the council around local transport schemes. How is this presently done? What approaches are taken? How well has the councils current approach worked and which kinds of opportunities for improvement do you hear from your interviews. This might give you additional insights for stakeholder journey maps. Consider how your insights relate to your current project goals and ‘how might we’ questions we discussed in the last seminar (see Knapp et al., 2016, ‘Tuesday’ for more on the ‘how might we’ technique using your stakeholder maps)
Hi team, good work last week and in the blog today. I like that your additional research e.g. with S4P is turning out to be fruitful. I also like how your reflexivity is beginning to come through, e.g. by recognising that your intervention has the potential to shape live outcomes in the field. If you choose to continue with a neutral / non-partisan approach (i.e. you are just here to present info, not try and change people’s minds) it will be fab to see how this comes through in your design ideas. Don’t be afraid to embrace the other possibilities though, e.g. when you were saying to me that you wanted to show people that cycling is good and can be done more with the right infrastructure. One point I have to make though – I am a little confused by your use of the terms ‘open’ and ‘closed’ questions. These terms usually refer to questions that invite a more open-ended or closed-down answer – open being e.g. “how do you think, what is your view on…” vs closed being “how many times, do you like…” etc that will only give you a numerical / yes or no answer. Here I think what you mean by open is open to anyone answering, and closed as directed at individuals, but I would avoid referring to them as open / closed as to avoid confusion – maybe call them something like “questions put to the wider community” / “questions put to stakeholders” instead.