Category: User requirements

Digital Civics Entry Blog 3

User Research Methods

The team decided to conduct interviews and site visits for user research. We will be interviewing people who are representatives of the government, local residents and community organizer. These people are highly knowledgeable about their community needs, as they either live in the city or work directly with the community. Additionally, the team will conduct site visits in understanding the spatial connections and relationships with the residents. During the site visit, the interviewers will ask the residents to identify meeting points and vacant properties. This will help us figure out where the residents gathers and which areas could have the potential to be redeveloped for community needs.

Aside from the interviews and observations, we are doing literature reviews on digital platforms that could create co-production in the community. Falco and Kleinhans (2018) displays the different types of digital participatory platforms (DPP). DDP functions as a two-way form of communication, bridging the gap between the residents and government. In this article, it provides successful DPP that are exercised in other cities and countries. We will be conducting research on DPPs that foster collaboration and co-production of ideas within the community. Ultimately, we hope to find DPPs that would align with the three User Goals.

These examples include CitySpidey, Commonplace, Block By Block, Fix My Street, Co-Urbanize, and Bang the Table. These digital application examples research serve as references to how we could potentially develop a product for the community.

After these interviews and observations, personas and customer journey mapping would be explored. Grudin and Pruitt (2002) show that persona is an excellent technique to focus on the main audience and enhance awareness on the user experience. The personas could be created after these interviews and site visits. Marquez, Downey, & Clement (2015) demonstrate that customer journey mapping is essential for understanding the overall experience and paths taken by the users. This method is important in establishing a connection between the designers and users, so the designers could determine which pathways would fit best for the users. These two techniques will be further explored in our research, prior to developing a digital application for the community.

Interview Questions & Observations

References

Falco, E., & Kleinhans, R. (2018). Digital Participatory Platforms for Co-Production in Urban Development. International Journal of E-Planning Research, 7(3), 52–79. doi: 10.4018/ijepr.2018070105

Grudin , J., & Pruitt, J. (2002). Personas, Participatory Design and Product Development: An Infrastructure for Engagement. Retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/9b03/ca765977dc9cf2dbcc25377e71aefa986164.pdf

Marquez, J. J., Downey, A., & Clement, R. (2015). Walking a Mile in the Users Shoes: Customer Journey Mapping as a Method to Understanding the User Experience. Internet Reference Services Quarterly, 20(3-4), 135–150. doi: 10.1080/10875301.2015.1107000

Lois

Digi Civics 2020 Blog Entry 2

This week we met with Jayne Hopkins, our project partner from Best of Bensham, with which we discussed our project brief and gained a greater understanding of the area of Bensham and its community. 

We addressed the challenges and opportunities within Bensham as a starting point for our project focus, some of which included: 

Challenges: 

  • Lack of financial resource amongst large proportion of population. 
  • Inaccessibility to shops for residents who don’t have access to a car. 
  • Unclean streets (Littering/ Vacant lots). 
  • Best of Bensham is unclear of its unifying theme. 
  • Best of Bensham is set on an asset-based approach but there is a lack of understanding about what this is. 

Opportunities: 

  • Bensham is a very diverse area. 
  • The population possess many valuable skills (especially its affluent residents)/ knowledge. 
  • There is a large opportunity to achieve results with the locals within the next 12-18 months due to the current motivation surrounding the topic. 
  • There is a great interest in the creation of more outdoor spaces within Bensham, specifically focusing on garden areas for growing plants/ vegetables. 
  • The group ‘Best of Bensham’, is well-resourced regarding grant funding; can give 10 grants of up to £250 to smaller organisations (e.g. To churches running Christmas day dinners for those who don’t have family to share it with). 

After identifying the challenges and opportunities within Bensham we established a key issue for us to concentrate on, which was to help the residents of Bensham express their needs and aspirations for their community.  

We then discussed potential stakeholders in the project, which we identified consisted of a few main groups: 

  • Gateshead Council; Including Neighbourhood Management Services. 
  • Local Community Groups/ Voluntary Organisations. 
  • Business Owners and Private Landlords. 

Our stakeholders influenced the next steps in our project, which were to determine a number of activities which would help us in developing our research further. We decided to arrange some next steps regarding our project plan which were to organize a series of interviews/ meetings with known residents and community members who are involved in the community activity in their area, and one member of the council. These include people such as, Dave Andrew, Phil Donovan and Robert and Marilyn Rae. The aims of these meetings are to gain knowledge about residents’ opinions of Bensham, relating to the challenges and opportunities we have discussed and learn their thoughts on residents’ ability to express their opinions about the community, as well as the councils point of view regarding the matter. 

There was also some mention of conducting a workshop which the general public of Bensham could get involved with to share their opinions on the matter. This approach was considered to be potentially more effective than individually questioning members of the public on the streets yet would be a challenge to organize. 

We also decided it would be a good idea for some of us to conduct a site visit and  take photographs of the area so we could better understand the characteristics of the location, such as the amount of green/ outdoor space in the area, number of vacant lots and the levels of litter throughout the streets.  

Here are our mind maps regarding the challenges and opportunities identified within Bensham, our stakeholder and process map, and our initial suggestions for project actions. 

Week 3- Team 2- Chase Park

In this week’s seminar we have been deciding on what research methods would be best to use when thinking about our project on Chase Park. Using our current stakeholders we would like to do an interview with Alan on behalf of Friends of Chase Park to see what they want to get out of it, also an interview with Holly from Kick the Dust to get an understanding of how the secondary school students use the park and finally we want to do an activity with the children of Front Street Primary School to get their ideas on paper instead of making them sit through questions that they may be too shy to answer.

The activity with Front Street Primary School will be split up into smaller groups of around 4-6, with the activity lasting from an hour and a half to two hours. For a starter activity we want the children to draw the rough guidelines of the park, maybe noting down where they spend most of their time or what parts they miss out and forget about. After outlining the park, using stickers and colouring pens we want them to identify their favourite parts of the park. Having discussions after to engage the class and other ideas, writing these reasons why it’s their favourite area on post it notes. Then we want the children to use their imagination and scribble down ideas of how they want the park to improve or things they may want added, potentially incorporating activities they could do in the park as Friends of Chase Park seemed to be keen on the idea of having activities for the kids.

SIA week 3 Log

Log 3

This is the week 3 log for SIA. This week we have been working on user research for our stakeholders including Nigel Todd, David Webb, Jude Murphy, Katrina Jordison and the local residents of the Wingrove area. The two methods we chose to use to collect our user research are door to door surveys and interviews with local residents and the project partners.

Door to door survey: We have chosen to survey the local residents as surveys generate quick statistical data about our chosen sample. Surveys can be very useful in this sense as they will help us understand the big picture and provide us with statistics that can help to inform the direction of our project. Since we are obtaining this data in a door to door format, it is critical that the survey is short and questions are concise to ensure we capture the main opinions we are after.

Interviews with project partners: For the project partners (Nigel Todd, David Webb, Jude Murphy and Katrina Jordison) we chose to interview them informally. With these interviews, we can interchange views and ideas and hopefully collect information that will enable a deeper analysis of a given problem. Hopefully we will engage in a lengthier conversation which touches on their current aims for public engagement and digital platform and the issues the organisations deal with on a neighbourly basis.

What insights we hope to gain:

From our user research, we hope to gather a much more detailed insight into the project. We chose these two methods as they will help us obtain information on opinions and perceptions on a local and professional level. By collecting this data we hope to gain knowledge on how the area is managed now, and how residents are made aware of events and developments within the community. From the interviews with the organisation members and David Webb, a senior lecture in town planning and also a local Wingrove resident, we hope to gain knowledge of how they feel on an organisational level, as well as a paralleled local level, about how the area currently engages with projects and events, and how they think this could be improved for the future. In addition, we also hope to gain a wider image of their vision for the future of the area.

Questions we have come up with for…

Local Residents:

  1. How do you feel about community interaction within the area now?
  • Do you think this could be improved?
  • Could this improvement be in the form of a digital platform? If so what would you like to see?
  1. What is your experience of the current use of the facilities in the area?
  • How did you hear about the reuse of the building on Arthurs Terrace?
  • Would you engage with the building after its refurbishment?
  • Any ideas for the building?
  1. Do you think that interest in community connection is focused on by a certain demographic? (one of our stakeholders being schools).
  • What do you think to using the primary school as a main stakeholder?

Project Partners:

  1. What is your role and background, in the area/community?
  2. How do you feel the area receives information and communicates internally now?
  3. How do you currently attempt to engage with the public?
  4. What are your aims for the area? And for public engagement?
  5. Could public engagement be progressed by the involvement of a digital platform?

David Webb

  1. What is your role and background?
  2. How do you feel, as a local resident, information is distributed now between the community? Is there a social space for the residents?
  3. How do you feel, as a professional, the area is managed by the different organisations? Is there anything that could improve this for future progression?
  4. Do you have any opinions on the current use of social media to connect the different events/organisations within the area?

Below are photographs of our session together in which we brainstormed different questions and ideas for the user research process.

 

 

Week 3 Log – NUTC

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.  

  1. What is your main usage for Heaton Road ?
  2. What are your usual methods of transport when on this road?
  3. Do you find parking spaces easy to find and are there a good amount of them?
  4. Would you find travelling along Heaton Road a positive experience, and why is this?
  5. 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.

  1. What is your main usage for Heaton Road?
  2. What are your usual methods of transport when on this road?
  3. How do you feel about parking along Heaton road?
  4. Do you find spaces easy to find and are there a good amount of them?
  5. What would you change, if anything, about Heaton Road if you could?
  6. Do you believe the changes would be beneficial for the area?
  7. What incentives would you think would lead people to want the changes made?
  8. 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.

 

Week 3, NUDC: Stakeholder meeting

Hello again,

So far, we have held a meeting with two of our stakeholders, Ali Lamb and Ed Barrington. Ali Lamb works for Newcastle City Council and is part of the Streets4People (S4P) programme. By meeting her we hoped to gain a second opinion (the first being Tony Waterston) on what our goals and main focus should be. She had a slightly different viewpoint in that she thought the residents of Jesmond were already willing and able to provide feedback on planning applications whereas Tony was concerned the JRA were only reaching about 10% of the local population. Ed Barrington, who is a member of the S4P reference group, gave us insight into what difficulties might be found in trying to place some sort of digital technology around the school areas to gain feedback as he is a parent and long term resident of Jesmond. In this meeting we also involved our academic mentor, Sean Peacock, to give us assistance in managing the meeting as he had worked with our stakeholders previously and use his expertise in digital civics and experience as a student to give us a more clear focus of what our role is. Afterwards, Sean told us to not put too much emphasis on trying to reach children as the meeting had a large focus on Jesmond primary school.

We came into the interviews with some pre-prepared questions in mind that had come up from our meeting with Tony Waterston but by carrying out a semi-structured interview, we allowed ourselves to use the new information that the stakeholders told us to think of new questions.

According to Ali the council received money from the Cycle City Ambition Fund (CCAF) to invest into improving cycling routes and walking alike. Ed had informed us that locals often miscomprehend planning goals so instead of adopting to improving cycling they cared more about the council creating more parking lots which contradicts their aims.

The council beforehand became involved with Commonplace, creating a Needs Analysis (interactive feedback map) utilised for 3 months. Jesmond had done considerably better than other areas, which had 467 people registered and producing comments, between them creating 1500 comments. The council has 7 locations in Jesmond in mind, based off of activity and analysis findings which we could utilise as locations for our product placement. Moreover, Jesmond was identified as the most behaviourally malleable area from mosaic profiling, as residents often consist of students and alike. This means they’d be more likely to adopt greener transportation methods such as cycling to the universities. Ed also highlighted the significance of having the physical product we’d create indoors to make it more comfortable and potentially more secure from both weathering and vandalisation.

We have also started thinking about our midterm presentation about our user and stakeholder research. Currently we feel like we’re more or less in phase with the module work and looking forward to meeting our mentor again during the next seminar to further discuss our meeting and what we should do next.

Week 9 – Prototype User Tests

Users reacted to our prototype mostly highly positively, with notice board idea being the most appreciated by all users. Every user put high emphasis on improving feedback system, which would encourage constructive criticism and that there should be a follow-up for feedback from organisations receiving it. Bud and Will agreed that regular newsfeed on social media, especially Facebook, but possibly also twitter should be present to keep younger Walker residents informed and, over time, convince them to use the website more often. Heather insisted on creating an introduction guide for new users. This could be solved by an overlay on the home page, adding new, separate subpage for this or just having the guidance on the main page. Overlay seems to be most effective, as it allows for user interaction, instead of only having passive information somewhere on the page. For all users it was highly important that the whole initiative, including the website will stay in hands of the people, and/or the organisations present in Walker, as it is a matter of distrust to the local council or ‘outsiders’. Unfortunately our idea of having achievements and volunteer points systems  was not well received, user’s reason for this was that it would rather confuse the general public, rather than helping them to be more committed for the local causes, but they did not exclude a possibility of adding it later, as the wide user group gets used to the website.

 

The user tests went mostly as expected, with an exception of our idea of volunteering points and achievements (a reward for activity system), which wasn’t accepted very enthusiastically by the users. Nevertheless, users ‘rejected’ this system, not because it is bad, wrong, etc., but rather than that it would simply confuse the general public, so they advised implementing the system later on, after most website users get used to it.

User testing with Will and Gerrard were quite informal and pleasant for both sides, as we have already spent significant amount of time talking together before. User test with Heather was also alright, but a little bit more tense, as Heather was very focused on constructive criticism of our prototype and after-test discussion regarding the prototype.

The process was fairly easy to understand for everyone, even for Will, who self-declares himself as ‘techno sceptic’. Heather raised the need for an introductory guide for the website, bearing in mind wider public’s computer literacy levels.

I think the user interviews went very well and that there isn’t much, if anything, that could be changed for better, perhaps maybe organising the user test for all users at the same time and providing each user with a device for testing. Unfortunately this was not possible at the time.

Walker Creative Neighbourhood Week 3: User Interviews

Reflection and Summary of the User Interviews

We have arranged two Users Interviews in Walker on 21st and 26th October respectively. On our first interview, we have met Alice McCreadie, project development worker in Worker’s Educational Association and the other two clients Will Benson, manager from Kids Kabin, a charity for children (primary school students) and Gerard New from Tyneside Outdoors, an outdoor youth work organisation which provides young people skills and opportunities. They encourage people to learn and build. The WEA project in Northumbria and Building Future East helps people who want to start a new business and act as a community directory in sharing of resources. On the second interview, we have met Bud Russell and Liz Coates from Worhoose, Francesca Maddison from Building Futures East.

They stated that usually University students, Local Residents, International volunteers as well as parents of the children and youngsters who benefits from the organisations get involved in volunteering, some ex young-groups participants came back as volunteers but drop in and out occasionally. Students come more often but some may come for placements and experiences. They picture the motivation and the way they wanted to volunteer. However, most of the people only volunteer when they know how to deal with the project. Volunteers may lack of confidence when they experience barriers such as application forms. They are afraid of failure. Volunteers may  participate in it because their families and friends have received the services before and they have had loyal to it. Parents who wanted to volunteer but haven’t been able to commit and not consistent. Problems with housing and children as well as financial stuff, utilities compulsory and debt. Students are more free and available. But the inconsistency of young person is a problem. They don’t based in the same place and maybe have issue to deal with and cannot arrive on time.

Our aim is to motivate and encourage more people to volunteer in the local area. Clients think that the best way to inspire and develop potential volunteers themselves is illustrating to them the benefits of the volunteering. Build up the strong of pride and unity in Walker. They often said that  they want to bring the community together but none of them execute the idea. By offering more opportunities for people to share their resources, such as funds, can help achieving the social needs. People will be attracted to get on volunteering if they are sure that they can have reward and opportunities. However volunteers may come only for reward, such as for CV purpose.

In order to promote our initiative, setting up a webpage and encourage everyone to be on that, increase residents motivation to click on the link, also Get to advertise the organisation and their base through giving out handbooks. Most kids have phone nowadays. According to Will, he will use website for research but not Facebook. Most parents use Facebook but they don’t allow young people to use . School only admit Facebook for age 13+. Sometimes social media might not be an ideal platform for promotion. As we would like to encourage volunteers in a digital way, Internet access is more important as wifi limited throughout the area. The Pottery bank got a suite of computer to offer. The Local mapping idea with tag and present all the barriers, avoid hidden information will help people to know the base for volunteering, so to persuade them to volunteer easily. Other than network, handbook giving to door not run by company but well written might work. It has games, section with local communities group put up their news, spreading their group and organisation around the area. Finding help from local people through the handbook instead of from web found people from elsewhere. It also creates local identity, encourage people to start looking at it. Creating the handbook can be a social enterprising, strengthening social cohesion and awareness of what surround you.

In order to run the project smoothly, we need to encourage local businesses for social reinvestment. They have political investment, they want to invest in a project with good outcome and 100% productive, well prepared, best quality and best time. If these are all possible they will continue to support. We have also concerned about the role of local authorities, the clients suggest that they should have participation but they shouldn’t have a role in it. The initiative is acting for the community’s social health, the authorities should have responsibility to buy and share them as local residents don’t have money and expertise to do it.

Other than our proposed initiative, Building Future East has an education course for the benefit of young people in the area, formal education allows higher education for adult to get back into job.

In Conclusion, our clients looking towards the summer putting together a programme for a family to go in the website and the handbook. Summer holiday planner including activities for different ages, different opportunities for different days. Therefore, volunteers and participants can know whats coming on.

Peter McDonald and Duncan Young Interview Reflection week 3

We had an interview with Peter McDonald and got a lot of background information about Gosforth high street and the air quality concerns. The main thing Peter wanted to change is increasing the public awareness of air quality and community activity. The council and people who live there have already taken some actions to improve the air quality, a local council plan was implemented called The Air Quality Action Plan carried out in 2011, However, Peter believes it is not effective as nothing has really changed in the area. There are still 96 bus routes on the high street which is one of the main causes of air pollution and are still not controlled. Ten air quality monitors are situated along the high street and they gather useful data but the data is not easy to access and understand and is therefore largely ignored by the local community. Peter hopes that less people will drive their cars everywhere and walk their children to school if the data is made easily interruptible for the users. They have a Facebook account and people can leave their comments. It is good for them to know what the residents think about but there are not enough people passionate about their community air pollution levels, therefore peter believes a behavioral change needs to be implemented with the local community to increase user activity. Display boards are the best idea for them because it is easily accessible for everyone who passes along the street and easy to understand for children, adults and the old. To some degree, the goal is to make more people realize the importance of air quality activism.

Duncan Young Interview Reflection

1. What is your Role within Gosforth high street?

Duncan stated that as well as being a business owner he was also a resident on the high street and a member of the trader’s association

He also discussed the existence of the trader’s association but said it was limited by the fact that only the independent business got involved.

 2. What challenges do you feel Gosforth high street faces?

He said congestion was a huge problem on the high street especially at peak times. He wasn’t really sure on how to solve this personally but one idea he thought of was to divert the limited stop X bus routes via Cowgate instead of the high street. I personally felt this was a bit of nimbyism as the bus would just be blighting the residents of Cowgate instead. He also showed us the local council’s red route plan that local shops fought off despite it potentially reducing congestion on the high street as it would have stopped customers/delivery’s stopping on the high street.

 3. Do you know how most of customers currently travel to the Gosforth high st?

He stated that most of his own customers drove to Gosforth High St, he then showed us a survey from 2011 of high street users.

The majority of respondents arrived by car:

66% car

16% bus

6% cycle

29% foot

This was particularly useful as really demonstrated how local shops are dependent on the traffic.

4. How do local shops on the high street feel about the Air pollution?

He said that local shops are concerned but are stuck with the problem that they need the traffic as well. He also said the larger chain shops were not allowed to get involved due to head office therefore their feeling is not known.

5. Do the businesses have an existing plan concerning the high street in general?

They did not have a plan.

 6. Are you aware of the Urban observatory data available online at http://uoweb1.ncl.ac.uk/ that shows real time data from the 10 air pollution sensors on Gosforth high street?

He said he was aware there was some pollution sensors but was not aware there was 10 of them and that the data was available online. I found this interesting as you’d of thought somebody based on the high street would be aware of theses sensors.

7. 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 is Gosforth High St.

He said something as simple a leaflet to inform his would work. He then said big token acts are very good but if the resident’s/shop owners don’t know what there about then there pointless. I took away from this statement that whatever we propose must be simple to engage people and be well-advertised so people know what it actually is.

 He then ended the interview by saying the problem for business is they need to save the high street without killing it.

interview schedule for air quality 2

Week 2

Interview Questions – Duncan

Introduction 

Thank you for your time Duncan, we are second-year students at Newcastle University who are currently looking at air pollution on Gosforth high street. We understand you are the managing director of Sanderson young estate agents which has a branch on Gosforth High St.

1. What is your Role within Gosforth high street?

-How do businesses and shops currently talk to each other? (Is there a traders association?)

– Do businesses and shops (or trader’s association) currently talk to any other groups in Gosforth e.g. Space ?

2. What challenges do you feel Gosforth high street faces?

-How do you personally think these issues should be solved?

3. Do you know how most of customers currently travel to the Gosforth high st?

-Do you feel that is reprehensive for most businesses on the high street?

4. How do local shops on the high street feel about the Air pollution?

-How would local shops feel about a reduction the car traffic to achieve lower air pollution?

5. Do the businesses have an existing plan concerning the high street in general?

–    If yes, does this plan mention air pollution?  

6. Are you aware of the Urban observatory data available online at http://uoweb1.ncl.ac.uk/ that shows real-time data from the 10 air pollution sensors on Gosforth high street?

–  If yes, do you ever look at these sensors ?

7. 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 is Gosforth High St ?