Author: Jimmy Jianyuan

Digital Civics 2020 Blog Entry 8

Having established a map for our application in the week before, this week we were introduced to prototyping and conducted an in-session practice of our chosen tool. Due to the circumstances related to the ongoing pandemic of Covid-19, this session was carried out via a remote video conference.

Before creating a successful prototype for our application, it is of essential importance to be familiar with the purpose of a prototype and what it means to the application to be prototyped. A prototype, in general,

  • Presents the target stakeholders a sample of the final product
  • Allows the stakeholder to familiarise themselves with the product
  • Can be used to check for any significant issues that need to be taken care of for further development.

The term ‘prototype’ itself is ambiguous and broadly defined given the wide range of different products that need to be prototyped – there can be interactive prototypes as well as static ones. In our case, the prototype will need to be interactive, as our product is a mobile application which is designed to be heavily interacted with by the intended clients. An interactive prototype will allow the user to

  • Directly interact with the application and discover its functions
  • Determine the quality of implemented functions and suitability to the end user.

During the session, we were presented various methods of prototyping, as well as a range of different tools that can used for it, each with their advantages and shortcomings. When choosing an appropriate tool for creating our prototype, several essential factors need to be considered, including the points regarding an interactive prototype above:

  • Fidelity – this determines the proximity of a prototype to the final product; high fidelity means greater proximity to the final product in terms of appearance and functionality
  • Functionality – what functions does the tool offer and can those be used to achieve the intended working of the application
  • Flexibility – the range of the tool’s usability, e.g. whether the tools requires certain systems or specific software to be working

Based on these, we have decided to use a web-based program called ‘Figma’. It neither requires to be run on a certain operating system nor a specific program to be installed except for a browser, thus allowing to be run by a wide range of users. ‘Figma’ comes with numerous design tools that allow the creation of customisable visual assets, as well as a prototype function enabling to draw interactive connections between elements which can be tested using the presentation mode of the program. These make ‘Figma’ a high-fidelity prototyping program that can be used to test designs for mobile applications, and it also provides various aspect ratios, e.g. that of various mobile phones, tablet computers, to test the prototype on.

Furthermore, ‘Figma’ allows a prototype design to be shared with others using invitations per E-Mail for anyone to view, edit, or interact.

There are a few steps remaining for us to complete the prototype of our application, which are

  • Finalising the storyboard of our app, including the creation of a persona
  • Decide upon which aspects of our design we want to prototype – consider the main objectives of our application while also considering the stakeholders that will use it
  • Refine the prototype design based on the focus aspects – flesh out navigational structure and user interface design.

Bibliography

Houde, S., Hill, C. (1997) What do Prototypes Prototype? In M. Helander, T.K. Landauer, and P. Prabhu, Handbook of Human-Computer Interaction 2nd Edition (1-16). Available from: https://hci.stanford.edu/courses/cs247/2012/readings/WhatDoPrototypesPrototype.pdf [Accessed 10th April 2020]

Digital Civics 2020 Blog Entry 4

The most important topic this week was to further define the goals that we want to achieve with our project with the help of a series of ‘How might we’ questions that were devised in this session. With those in mind, we were presented a few examples of existing applications to facilitate an understanding of their contexts of use, with which we will be designing our project aim.

With our main aim being to help the residents in Bensham express their needs and aspirations for their community, these are the questions and points that came to mind:

  • How might we develop a process of co-production between the residents and the ‘Best of Bensham’ group or between the ‘Best of Bensham’ group and the city council?
  • Help creating a community-led group that works to solve issues of their neighbourhood and holds close contact with members of the community
  • How can we help create a self-organised group among Bensham residents that is able to voice their views and establish a better connection with the council?
  • How might a community group be able to relieve some pressure that the council is overburdened with?

For our search for relevant existing applications, we first established a list of core criteria based on the questions above and a few examples that were presented during the seminar, which included both analogue devices and fully digital website-based means, to make our search for further examples more accurate and goal-oriented:

  • Enable residents to voice their concerns to the community
  • Provide a way where the residents and the council can communicate more directly with each other
  • Provide a means where residents would be able to connect with each other and co-produce solutions with the council

Following these criteria for our search, we have identified multiple applications and platforms which employ means that are uncomplicated to handle and make use of state-of-the-art technology, thus having the potential to gain a wide reach among members of a community.

  • Commonplace: An online platform which seeks to bring citizens and planning authorities as well as councils together to shape the living environment. It comes with the functionality of submitting online feedback, which can be seen and reviewed by the respective council and authorities and reduces the effort that needs to be put into organising in-person interviews.
  • FixMyStreet: This mobile application allows residents to document issues they come across and report them to the local council. The main page provides easy-to-follow instructions for its users, as well as an overview of new and updated reports. Residents are also saved from the trouble of searching for contact persons in the council to report an issue to, as the application does it automatically with its submissions, and provides the space for the respective council to write responses and updates.
  • Block by Block: This collaboration makes use of a popular 3-D sandbox video game called ‘Minecraft’ to involve people from all over the world to partake in public projects where they are otherwise excluded. The virtual world in the game provides an easy way of three-dimensional modelling to tackle a respective issue, and it is not limited by materials. It allows people of a community to come together and express their ideas and suggestions in form of easy-to-make visualisations that are visible to everyone.

While each of these applications focus on a different aspect of engaging people through the employment of state-of-the-art technology, the common point here is to bring people together to reach a common goal and cut down the efforts of establishing communication with local governments. This is an important step to encourage more active participation from citizens in local matters, which will be the main aim of our project.

Sources

Commonplace. (n.d.) Conversations to create better places. Available from: https://www.commonplace.is [Accessed 9th March 2020]

FixMyStreet. (n.d.) Report, view or discuss local problems. Available from: https://www.fixmystreet.com/ [Accessed 9th March 2020]

Mojang, Microsoft, UN-Habitat. (n.d.) Block by Block. Available from: https://www.blockbyblock.org/about [Accessed 7th March 2020]

Falco, E., & Kleinhans, R. (2018). Digital Participatory Platforms for Co-Production in Urban Development. International Journal of E-Planning Research, 7(3), 1-27. doi: 10.4018/ijepr.2018070105