Design Stage – Page 11 – DigiCivics @ APL

Young Planners Engagement – Week 3

After the first two weeks of setting our goals, meeting our client for the first time, working out the links between stakeholders and getting prepared for an interview, it was time to get the project really moving in a direction which we were all happy and comfortable with.

On the 19th October, the group went to meet 3 members of the Youth Council alongside their mentor. We had taken aboard comments and advice about the questions we were going to ask so we were confident with what we had prepared. We opened the meeting by asking if it was ok to audio record to make sure we had all the information we needed and didn’t miss anything if we wanted to go back and check details. Each member of the group introduced ourselves and we started off by talking to the members of the Youth Council about the plot of land in Murton and what they felt was needed in the future for the area to strive, looking at a map showing North Tyneside and the existing services. The user representatives were very aware on the matter of green space and keeping it protected as much as possible. They also commented on the existing road systems and how they thought some new roads connecting Murton to Monkseaton would be beneficial as the new houses that the developers are planning to build will need road links to help tie together the new built homes and services. Leisure centres and swimming pools were talked about briefly to give the community some recreational use as there are no existing establishments in close proximity. The other topic mentioned was ‘allotments’ and the high demand in North Tyneside for the spaces. As it was commented that the community members wanting an allotment would have to wait several years on the waiting list, so looking to include these would be a massive positive for the community.

The meeting progressed really well and it flowed naturally, we tried to work from our question structure and linked it making it more personal to the clients. The user representatives started telling us about their roles and how they got into it. It was really beneficial as we learnt how it was all voluntary and due to an interest in helping their community and the rewarding feeling they all got. Something we felt was an important issue, was that the Youth Council felt unheard and didn’t have a voice when involved with the developers. We asked about their communication and were informed about the lack of it and how they never engaged with the youth council. The interview then naturally developed through talking about communication to how the use of modern technology affects our lives and how they used it and what did they use it for. It was the turning point in the interview as we started talking about how reliant on phones and technology people are nowadays. It was a key comment about how each of the user representatives all agreed that young people would be more involved in planning and the process it goes through if it was communicated easily through technology and smartphones. It was the confirmation we needed to know that the clients were on the same page as us.

After discussing various ways to get young people more involved with the use of technology, a couple of ideas arose. For example, it was mentioned about QR codes and how it would be easier for someone to just scan in the code to read the information later in their own time rather than stand on a street in the cold trying to read a piece of paper, in which we all agreed it was a much more efficient way to deliver information. This followed on with discussions about the engagement levels and making a product that was quick and easy to use, that could be visually pleasing and straightforward to make choices and voice your opinions.

We were really happy with what we had learnt in the interview and just how aware these young planners were. It was very beneficial and each of us took a lot away from the meeting with multiple ideas about how we are going to move forward and start to think about possibilities of technological products to make the young people of North Tyneside more involved in the planning process.

Second log entry: User interview schedule – Cycling Group

To improve our understanding of what users of our product will want, we have arranged an interview on Wednesday 26th with Tim Parsons. We know little information about Tim apart from that he is a cyclist in the Newcastle area. Interviewing him will provide us with first hand data about cycling habits around Newcastle and what tools and devices will appeal to that community.

Please find below a brief interview schedule:

Introducing ourselves:

Thank you for arranging to meet up with us. We are second year students at Newcastle University and we are currently collaborating with Robert Snowball who is a senior transport planner at Newcastle City Council. Our aim is to make cycle routes around the city more accessible and well known, as well as attempting to increase the popularity of cycling with help from the council.

What is your preferred method of travelling around the city on a day by day basis?

– Why is this your preferred method?

– Why do you not choose to travel by other means (e.g. car, walk, bus, cycle)

Is the transport infrastructure in the city adequate for this method of travel?

– Do you think that other methods of travel are better provided for within the city?

– How do you think the council could improve existing travel infrastructure?

How would you describe your position as a cyclist in Newcastle?

– Do you feel like your needs (either as a single cyclist or as part of a community) are met by the council?

Can you describe the ways in which technology helps your everyday life?

– Is technology involved in your commute or travel?

– Do you use mobile technology to aid you this way?

Do you frequently use any mobile apps? If so, why those specifically?

– Would you/have you used apps to improve your cycling mobility in particular?

There are already apps that cyclists can use, could you detail any that you use, if at all?

– Why do you prefer these apps to other apps that you have mentioned? (e.g. are they simpler to understand? More accessible?)

When looking at the design and functionality of a map, what would you say is most important to focus on?

– How do you use maps when cycling? (e.g. Planning ahead? Whilst on route?)

– What would you suggest to simplify reading maps and using apps for cyclists?

In your opinion, what would encourage more engagement with cycling?

– Should there be more incentives for the cycling demographic?

– How about incentives from apps, the council and community groups?

Should there be more improvements to current apps offered to cyclists? If so, could you suggest any?

– What stops people from using apps? Why is this?

From the cyclists you know, would apps be their preferred choice of route planning and engagement?

– Why is this the case? Is this because the app itself is difficult to use? Are there issues with the way a cyclist can use a phone whilst out?

Blog 2 – Interview Schedule with Steve and Tony

Blog 2 – Interview Schedule

JEPP Interview with Steve Emsley and Tony Waterson

We’re meeting Steve Emsley and Tony Waterson today in Cafe 1901, West Jesmond. Attendance from the team: Entire group

We know a little bit about yourself would you be able to expand more on what you do and the previous roles you have played?

a. How do you relate to renewable energy projects?

b. We did a little bit of research and know you were in Transition Initiative Newcastle before? Can you tell us the experience during that time?

Why would you invest in renewable energy?

Have you ever engaged people with renewable energy before?

a,How you engaged people in Jesmond?

b. How would you engage people?

c. What worked well and what didn’t work so well?

What is complicated to understand about renewable energy in your opinion and how could understanding of renewable energy be made easier?

a. Have you used any techniques in the past to do this?

b. What might raise awareness to renewable energy in Jesmond?

What do you do with your energy data?

a.Have you shared your data before?

b. With your experience do you think it would be helpful?

c. What do you think of sharing your data?

d. Would you share your data digitally for other users to see what savings they could be making?

Has anything changed since you installed solar panels yourselves?

a. Are there any negatives?

What do you think about the people in Jesmond not using solar panels and do you know the reason behind them?

a, What will you do in order to change their mind?

b. Do you know how much energy in jesmond is produced from renewables; and how could this be found out?

When do you reckon ‘peak oil’ reaches and what kind of changes will happen? (peak oil – time when oil production peaks and then falls, never rises back up again
Do you think sending out messages of ‘peak oil’ incidence will change people’s mind on renewable energy?
Have you ever used an energy dashboard before? What was it like?

a. What was your experience using one? Did you find it helpful?

b. If not, what can be improved on the energy dashboard you’ve used?

c. If one was available to you, would you use it to benefit for you?

11. Is there anything else you’d like to tell us if you haven’t before?

Interview template for Walker

Our interview based research we have focused on talking with local pro-community organisations leaders, as they know the realities of local community and troubles that organisations face.

(Welcome), we are 2nd Stage students at Newcastle University. We are currently working on a project named ‘Walker Creative Neighbourhood’. Our aim is to gather the Walker community together and encourage pro-community organisations
co-operation. We would like to develop a set of tools for the community that will help them to organise and support themselves. We assume that after short time after the project has been implemented the people, who are interested in actively participating in their community’s life will be content creators as well, most likely under supervision of moderators (who would also be part of the community). Initiative will help promoting events, education and volounteering opportunities. The project could also include promoting local businesses, entrepreneurship, and also potentially recruitment and freelance opportunities. This project is meant to help community in Walker, thus we would like to ask you a few questions to better understand the community itself.

Could you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Can you tell us what is the role of your organisation for the people in Walker?
What is your role in the organisation? (unless covered in point 1.)
Which kinds of people do commonly get involved in volunteering for your organisation?
Can you tell us, as far as you are concerned, what is the profile of current volounteers in Walker?
What is current ‘volounteering atmosphere’ in Walker (how people think and feel like about volounteering)?
What challenges does your organisation face to reach out to local individuals, who could volunteer?
How do you think is the best way to inspire people to develop themselves, participate in various activities and volounteer in Walker?
What do you think is the best way to bring up connection between communities in Walker?
How do you think is the best way to encourage cooperation between various organisations present in walker?
What do you think would be the best way to promote/advertise volounteering and other activities?
What could be the best way to reach people with our initiative in walker?

A)if digital, what about the people who don’t have access to computers/smartphones, what is the best way to reach to them?
B) if digital, how can we also engage people who lack IT skills, i.e. the elderly?

Are there any education projects that you are aware of in Walker?

if yes, how do they benefit local communites, how they should be promoted?

How do you think our initiative should be funded?
What do you think the role of local buisnesses should be in this project?

how could we encourage them for social reinvestment?

Alice drew our attention to the mapping of organisations and buisnesses in Walker. How do you imagine a map like that should look like, and what features for the users should it include?

A)Also, how users should be able to interact with it?
B)Should mapping be more stiff – limited to the Walker only, or more relaxed, allowing users to see map’ content beyond Walker, which could be helpful to them?

What do you think the role of local authorities should be in the initiative (or perhaps they shouldn’t participate at all)?
Do you have any other propositions or comments?

W1 – Design log for co-design self-build housing

Hello, this is our first design log entry for digital civics by Harley, Sardar and Ying. In the first workshop, we have met our project partner Julia and found out our main goal. We try to use the digital method to solve the client’s problem. Our main goal is to make the co-design self-built homes become more accessible to people. Improving the current weakness of co-design self-built homes, finding a way to promote their ideas (like workshop/website) and then widening public’s community participation.

Key questions for the sprint

What do you think of self-built homes?
What are the strengths and the weaknesses?
How can we involve the non-expert with the co-design of a self-built home?

Once we grasped our project brief as a group we decided our key stakeholders are members of the public who are planning on constructing a self-build home, our aim is to increase the non-experts involvement within the design process of their home and we will be doing this by using an array of digital methods; the main method will be a web application. This means our main users will be families, couples and anyone who is interested and enquiring about a self-build home. We will be researching and holding interviews with key stakeholders from the local council and authorities in promotion of self-build homes. As we have acknowledged there can’t be any direct help to the public from the council therefore we aim to increase the opportunity for the public to aid in co-designing their own self-build home.

When meeting other representatives in the future. We will look at their existing projects and see what their weakness is and how we can help to improve their projects. We will use the meetings as a guidance within our work, asking relevant questions to enable further research for our group. Once we have completed our scheduled meetings with council members and members of the local authority we will then begin to share ideas on what application we feel is best.

interview schedule for air quality group

Interview schedule

This morning, Ben and me are meeting with Peter who has lived in Gosforth a long time and works with people like RNIB (which is to support people with sight less). The meeting will be to discuss the SPACE group and what they have done. What can we learn from the interview about the digital methodS to solve problems. Below is a brief plan for the interview.

Introduction to us

Thank you for inviting us, we are students in newcastle university stage 2. We have a project which is the air quality activism in busy congestion high streets. Our goal is to make the data accessible to the public and increase community awareness and support for self-managed air quality control. We are therefore inviting Peter to our interview to know more about the area and some groups which relevant to the air quality.

Interview

Can you briefly explain what is SPACE and RNIB?
- What they have done in Gosforth with specific questions?
- What role does Peter play in groups?
What challenges do you feel Gosforth high street faces from different parts like environment, transport, business, local residents?
- How do you personally think these issues should be solved?
Do you feel the existing Air Quality Action Plan that from council in May 2011 has been effective?
- If no, why has it not been effective?
Have you ever used digital engagement methods?
- If no, what is your opinion on using digital engagement methods?
- If yes, what method was used and did it work? How many people were involved in using this method?
As you works with people in RNBI, will the disabled community engage with any existing digital engagement methods?
- If no, why they can not be engaged in or they are not willing to engaged in?
- If yes, what challenges are facing the community in accessing different data including air quality?
- How have the local community helped in anyway to allow easy access?
- How would you believe what is the best or most effective method of engagement for the disabled community?
What kind of people do you have in Space (occupation)? How do they be engaged within the group? How do they engage with other members of the community?
- How does Space get feedback from the public?
- Is there any difference for different age groups of people in the community?
Are there any groups of the population SPACE does not currently engaged with?
- Do you think people want to get involved with the issue of air quality in Gosforth if they are given the opportunity?
- Are there issues Space are having to overcome to engage local people?
Given the choice of a Smartphone App, Interactive Display on the high street, Emails, Website, Newspaper or any ideas of your own. Which would most likely engage you with air pollution in Gosforth High St and What is also the best for the disabled?

The end

Thank you.

Blog Entry 1 – A digital means to create and share energy in your neighbourhood.

Our group is called JEPP – Jesmond Energy Co-Production Platform.

Members: Crystal, Conrad, Rob, Chris and Brandon

Members of JEPP met with the client Tony Waterson of the Jesmond Residents Association on Thursday 6th October. Initial discussions with the client involved …

It was established that the team should approach the project by setting goals. The goals were discussed as follows:

To improve JEPP’s understanding of renewable energy principles and current technology systems, which include solar power and our platform of an energy dashboard regarding its role and ability in reaching the target audience.
To discuss the role that energy has as a resource to the target users in the locality of Jesmond.

To look into what is considered viable to the interest groups and what is not.
To foster a shared ownership of energy at neighbourhood level similar to those principles of energy co-operatives.

But ultimately,

we want to support residents, organisations and businesses in Jesmond in adopting a more energy efficient approach to their current consumption patterns.

Stakeholders

We have discussed about stakeholders with our client and decided business owners are the biggest stakeholders since they uses a lot of energy compare to other stakeholders – according to our client. After that, there are less important stakeholders such as, elderly and retired people living in Jesmond, young professionals and organisation based in public buildings, since they’re the ones who’ll use the energy dashboard.

However, the stakeholders are afraid of installing solar panels. They’re scared about the price of installing solar panels. If that’s the case, they need to be communicated in order to make them notice the importance of renewable energy and the message of using renewable energy can actually save them money in the long term. Then we’ve discussed about ways to communicate with them.

Advertising and publicity

We talked about ways of publicising the JEPP project:

We need to promote the JEPP project
Find out more about the Jesmond Residents’ Association
Have a forum to gather communitiy opinions and level of interest
Design an engaging email to send out to possible stakeholders
Deliver a message – the importance of renewable energy
See if we can use exisiting ways of advertising information to the local community ( e.g. through a display at the Library or by asking if we can have an advert on a school newsletter)

Walker Community project: Week one progress

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In the first week, we start off by understanding our project, the Walker creative neighborhood, and get a clue on what our project is about. We met Joy, one of our client representatives, to discuss on the project. It was a very meaningful meeting as she helped us to recognize the project’s objectives throughout our discussion.

Goal

The main goal of the project is to gather the Walker community. Due to the lack of funding to local community initiatives, the organisations may fail to cooperate with each other and brought down the connection between community. Therefore, our client hoped that some measures can be made to bridge back people in Walker.

With the aid of an online platform, such as a homepage or forum, we wish to build a space especially for the walker community. It will be a Walker-focused page including local organization and volunteer information. We hope that it can become a key in arising residents’ awareness to their community and promote volunteer work in Walker.

In long term, it is hope that connections can be rebuilt between the Walker community and people can also get use to helping each other or leaning for help on their own, which hopefully can increase their living standard or quality. The increase volunteering promote may also solve problems in business. People may also start their own business with the help of other volunteers.

Key stakeholders

Since our project involves digital technology, local people who are able to reach the internet may be our target. They may be looking for events and update information in walker in the website. Among them, we focused on people who have higher possibility in participating volunteer work at their free time, such as housewives or students, as our main users. Students, or other locals, may be interested in volunteering for their own reasons, such as building experience for their CVs, can also easily applying one through the website. We will also have to cooperate with local business in walker since they may also be promoted in the page. Especially community organisation, as they may recruit volunteers via website.

However, considering that people in Walker may experience any technological problems, technology support may be need. We suggested printed newsletter, as another media besides webpage.

Further Research

When meeting other representatives later on, we would like to know more on the status of the existing community group and their projects in Walker. It is important to know if there are already similar projects running now. We may also have to investigate information of walker residents to give a background study of our stakeholders. Their background may vary our decision and how we execute the whole project. Also, it is hoped that we can interview with people having different position in walker and get a full picture of what their needs are. People with different identity may have different goals and expectation in this project.

Blog Entry 1: Air Quality Gosforth High street

Digital Civics: Air Quality Blog Entry 1

Project goals:

FullSizeRender (5) A Newcastle university urban planning focused bottom up campaign initiative to increase user and community awareness of air quality control centered on Gosforth high street. Working with the users on easy and effective forms of interpreting the data supplied by the air quality monitors situated along the high street, making the data accessible to everybody with the goal of increasing community awareness and support for self-managed air quality control through community projects.

Stakeholders & users:

In this project, the main users are students that in both private and church schools, commuters from the North, different business on the street and residents. They are quite important as variety role are played by them. For example, students and the old residents should be taken good care but the poor air quality make them expose under the risk of illness. Commuters come here by private or bus and bring business to this street and shop owners really need them to live. However, they can make traffic congestion as to many cars and buses which is also the main cause of air pollution. As residents, they create a group called SPACE on Facebook, Twitter and website. What they have done is they have posted the problem of the air pollution and explain this to the public. People can say their needs and make suggestions in this group.

At first the council and population wants less traffic on this road because of the
air pollution but the thing is they wants more traffic for the health of businesses. FullSizeRender (4) Besides, there are a lot of data available on a few websites but they are unusable. We think because it’s difficult to understand the data if you are not an expert. For example, for the level of the pollution in air there are only numbers with abbreviations of products. Therefore, to have a better use of data, they need to be more imagery with colours and map for the localisation.

Key Questions for the Sprint

Why does the existing air quality data not work?

We think this could because the current data is hard to interpret and very technical.
One way we could improve this is by colour coding the data so the average resident know it the current amount of air quality is bad.

To what extent are the stakeholders participating with each other?
- Despite Space existing as a community group it is unclear how much corporation there is between other stakeholders such as the GPS forth schools trust.
- We will aim to work with them all in our development process in order the improve links between groups. This is important as the long term goal of improving air pollution in Gosforth will require all the stakeholders to cooperate.

First log entry: Connecting cyclists and transport planners

Hi, this is our first design log entry for the module by Alistair, Derek, Jake, James and Rachel. Only our second week into the course and we’ve already met the client in a workshop as well as set goals for the remainder of the project. By doing this, we’ve also come up with a few questions that we hope will be answered in the coming weeks!

GOALS

To increase the amount of cyclists in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. This is because cycling is seen as a renewable, cost-effective transportation method that does not consume energy and promotes a healthy, active lifestyle.
Making cycle routes more known, accessible and easy to navigate. In particular, routes between the city centre and surrounding residential areas as well as potentially linking neighbouring local authorities to the scheme in the future e.g. County Durham and Northumberland.
Producing a compact, interactive, integrated and easy to understand app that is accessible for a variety of users. Anyone should be able to use and operate our app regardless of their age, educational background or geographical area, for example.
Another benefit of this app is that it provides Newcastle City Council with new data about cyclists and their main routes that they have never had before. For instance, where are they coming from? Who are they? What is their cultural and social background? How long will they be traveling? What is their purpose (e.g. are they a part of a club, student, or commuting)?
It will enable city and transport planners to accommodate for high volume areas of cyclists and will enable them to understand and offer more cycle friendly facilities. These include bike lock/rack locations in Newcastle City Council and suggest where these installations can go. In doing so, it will also address problem areas that cyclists feel need solving.
It will improve the routes to make them more cycle friendly e.g. smoother road surfaces, an increasing knowledge of cycle paths around the city and wider regions, wider and safer cycle pathways.
To consider incentives that increase the amount of people that cycle and for longer. This needs to be done through interactive modes such as easy-to-read maps, user-shared routes and live traffic updates as well as business integration.
Secondary data has already been collected by organisations such as Newcastle City Council as well as key user groups such as Sustrans. Our app will hopefully provide the means to further develop the relationships with planners, developers and cyclists to create a balanced city.

cyclists in newcastle

QUESTIONS

Who: Cyclists of all ages. From families, school children, students, commuters and the elderly.
• Will an app be accessible/appealing to all age groups?
• Our main concern is the elderly age bracket. How can we reach out and involve this audience to this social community?
• Would additional physical resources be more engaging for the elderly or those that do not have access to digital means?

What: An app that creates an online community of cyclists who engage with each other to improve their routes and environment.
• How do we successfully promote the app to create this community? (Engage with local social clubs? Online forums? Physical posters/leaflets? Conduct focus groups?)
• Will this be easy to maintain and will the idea catch on? (Do we need a points system? Prizes e.g. sustained cycling = rewards at local businesses, discounts with retail brands)

Where: To begin, in the Newcastle City Council region.
• Could this develop and expand to engage neighbouring authorities?
• If the idea gains significant interest, would it be credible to work nationwide? Worldwide? Would it be easier to engage by using countries such as Denmark and Holland as examples where cycling is more integrated into normal life? Can we learn from these places to gain more cycling activity data and improve our town planning capabilities?
• Locally, how valid will individual data inputs from users be? Can this be monitored?

Why: To promote a healthy lifestyle whilst also promoting sustainable transport.
• Does everyone have a bike? Or know how to ride one? Can we promote bike hire companies on the app?
• Will the app actually produce the desired effect?