Category: team SIA

Storyboard (Extra) of SIA

Here is the storyboard of SIA in today’s presentation and here I will explain it in detail.

Our aim is to introduce the treasure hunter game to the young children within the community and the idea is to enhance the neighbourhood relationship within the community. Treasure hunter game will be a team work. Children will be set up into groups with 2 or 3 members. It is better for the game as well as knowing each other. Firstly the treasure hunter game will be started from the gate of nearby park or a street the community. The start point can be vary but the concept is to relate to the community, but need to consider the safety of players as there will be many people gather together in a place. Secondly, there is a function called ‘Map’ on the app and players can use it to find locations they need to go next. First place’s location will be give to the player and use the map function to find the place. The clue of the location can become harder step by step. Thirdly, when reach a location, take photos and the player’s QR code will be scanned by the staffs. Volunteers and parents will become stuffs in the game and the QR code is in the ‘My Account’ function and players using cellphone to take photos so easier to upload the photos later in the App and the key idea is to let players know each place in the community better. After that players have to go to all locations shown on the map, take photos, let the QR code be scanned. Finally the finish point of the game will be at the Arthur’s Hill. After the game players can upload their photos taken during the game and give some interactive feedback of the game, for example, what activities you would like to see in the Arthur Hall.

This is the general idea of the storyboard.

 

WEEK 9 USER TESTING

User Testing – Blog 9 

Who will test it?

For our user testing plan we aim to find out both the successes and failures of our design from the key stakeholders in our project. We want to invite Katrina, Nigel and also potentially some youths living in the area whom Katrina may have some connections to, to also invite, as our design is focused around giving the youth an opportunity to explore their area and create a link between them and 250 Philip Street.

Setting

Our test will be conducted in the Wingrove area as this is the base context for our design intervention therefore we would be able to receive genuine feedback of how well the explorer/game works within the setting.

We will need a smartphone for the interface and we thought about including paper charts with factors which we would ask users to rank from high to low, in terms of the games; ease of use, engagement, how well it responds to the brief, the longevity of the game and the overall enjoyment and fun element.

As for team numbers, we decided only 2 or 3 people in our group will take part in the user testing so we avoid the potential for us coming into their community and intimidating the users to respond positively. We want the testing to be as natural as possible as if we were not testing at all, with us occasionally prompting users to ensure we get all our questions answered as Herzum (2016) suggests, for instance:

  1. What would you do next?
  2. How would you use the navigation tool?
  3. Encouraging them to think aloud and ask why they did a certain thing.

We want to achieve “rich verbalisations…by employing relaxed thinking aloud” with the aims of gaining a more insightful response to usability problems and successes (Herzum 2016).

Prior Questioning 

Before testing the prototype however, we want to gain insight into the users’ knowledge of the area now, if they know about events and get involved in them and also their current digital abilities, as some may have little experience with a digital interface. This is one reason why we wanted a simple prototype with obvious navigation features.

Key testing elements

Running briefly through the testing, the participants will engage in the navigation feature and explore their area, completing tasks and activities. We want them to explore the routes and experience the active side to the game. We would also want them to interact with the background features of the calendar, chat, picture albums etc. to determine the success/failures of these as well.

In terms of measures of a ‘good’ design, we want to capture the users view on the ease of use, the durability of the game, and ratings of the ‘fun factor’ etc.

We will document all these through media images, basic charts and stickers, and written statements from users.

We want to ensure the design is a good idea and if it would actually help the community to improve the social connections within the area. The design we are proposing is a unique social explorer into the Wingrove community. At the beginning of our task, the digital scene was scattered with unused Facebook pages, Watsapp group chats and website events. We are aiming to combine all these features and create one interface in which Wingrove residents can check events, interact with one another with regards to these events, with a focusing on the youth as our target users as during our user research many mentioned the need for a youth program in the area. This explorer could be the start of the beginning to bringing the youth into community events, with use of 250 Philip Street, a building which was once a youth club itself.

We want users, particularly the youth, to progress this narrative and allow them to engage with their area through active exploration.

References

Hertzum, M. (2016). A usability test is not an interview. Interactions, 23(2), 82– 84.

Week 8 Log – Greening Wingrove

Week 8 Log 

 

What is an interactive Prototype? 

Interactive prototypes aim to show how the interaction will work in practice. This is a much better way to evaluate design. Commercial prototyping software allows you to define clickable areas, transitions and events, in order to produce an interactive prototype that captures the user flow process and demonstrates interactivity, without having to write a single line of code. Basic programs such as PowerPoint and Keynote can be used to create such prototypes. You can use interactive prototypes in user tests before any code has been written. The whole point of having an interactive prototype, and prototypes in general is to ensure that the proposed design will work effectively in practice before spending money, time and effort developing code. 

Our Prototype  

This week we began to work on our prototypes for our Wingrove Community explorer application. The prototyping tools we have decided to use for this project are in a 2D digital format through the use of Microsoft PowerPoint. Our application has two primary uses for its user. The first is to easily and effectively communicate with other residents, which is achieved through the use of a contacts search bar whereby the user can message other people to organize community events and gatherings. It works the same way as your contacts on your phone. The application also includes a calendar to pin community events that are of interest to the user, which is followed by a map which shows the locations of various events organized by the Wingrove Community in the local area. In practice, the map will be interactive giving the user the ability to tap and select locations on the map that they wish to explore. Once a location has been selected the user will see a picture of the location on their screen, and from there, they will have the option to select and search for activities within that vicinity or building. This is where our idea then overlaps with the creation of an interactive form of leisure for the local community. We have done this by implementing an activity section whereby the user can take part by completing tasks designated to various locations e.g. taking a picture of a community landmark within a certain area to prove that it’s been visited, or carrying out some kind of community activity and evidencing it with a picture. Though this feature was designed with primary and secondary schoolchildren in mind, anyone can use it. The whole purpose of our application is to provide community information on the go in a compact and simplistic format, whilst giving the user ways of interacting with and contributing to the local area, or simply keeping in the loop with other residents in the area. In terms of what still needs to be done to complete the prototype, we just need to add some finishing touches that explain and display all the features we intend to include within the application, such as the treasure hunt game. Our idea is basically a social media app for the local community to increase the participation and awareness of local residents.  

 

SIA Storyboard (Extra)

This one is the extra post of SIA’s storyboard blog and this is Zhaodong. This is the storyboard of the Greening Wingrove Community App and it is a little bit late to post it to the blog because of my personal issues so very sorry about that.

Basically the idea of the App is to provide a stronger connection between the community and one of our previous ideas was to make a treasure hunter game within the community and now we put the idea into the App which let it become a part of the App.  Apart from the front page the App has four basic functions: Chatting, Calendar/Activities, Local Map and ‘My Account’. On the front page you can see the local temperature and weather today as well as the news and announcements within the community. The treasure hunter game is set as the latest news here and can be clicked for mor info. and we made some analysis on it (you can open the picture attached and have a look). The chatting function is similar to the iMessage but apart them a new function is designed called ‘Moments’. You can share your own special events happen around you here and let your friends to look and make comments. Calendar/Activities function looks like the calendar on your phone but also shows the activities that will take place as well as the activities that you will attend and show you the location of the activities. For the Local Map function, the location with schemed activities will be marked and able to be clicked and you can see different activities within the area and these are related to the Calendar/Activities function. ‘My Account’ is very easy to understand: manage your personal account, make self-introduction to others, add more friends and precious pictures into your album. More infomation of the App can be seen in the picture attached within this post.

BLOG 7 – Preparing to Prototype

Leading on from last weeks extended storyboarding/sketching session, this seminar we worked on improving our location-based game idea and expanding the interface to include a map of Wingrove in which users could click on certain ‘hot spots’ and find activities or local information. We wanted to broaden the initial GPS game into something more tangible in which implementations to the local context could be made.

We began brainstorming some ideas for what could be included in the digital game/interface as we did not want to overcompensate and flood the interface with options. We narrowed in to focus on exploration activities and interactive digital inclusions such as camera options that would prompt digital probes in order to gain wider opinions on the local area and Greening Wingrove activities. We wanted to preserve the idea of having a treasure hunt feature, furthering this to think about engaging with the idea of including schools or families, to tackle the safe-guarding/ethical implications a location-based game may have.

For our initial plan, we thought about having a map as the home screen and placing pointers which the user could click on to participate in different activity options. Such as history tours or nature walks. Including options such as these it begins to broaden the location-based games into potentially becoming part of both youthful and family livelihoods, as it could be something that families want to use together to explore their area and get outside. This gives users a broadened scope of activities they could engage with whilst using the service as, although we are mainly focusing on a younger target market, the wider aim of social cohesion can only be met with a developed broadened user base. Our new refined storyboard will be uploaded in a separate blog post as we wanted to ensure it portrayed our ideas seamlessly.

Our idea of location and mapping is key in driving our aim of social cohesion, nationwide there is a lack of children playing outside, we feel that by having this game/app which enforces people to go outside and explore, with the win-win potential of gaining free or discounted activity incentives, it is responding to and tackling this urban issue on a local level. Organisations such as Playing Out address this, by attempting to ‘activate street play in neighbourhoods’.

In response to the digital interface’s unique aspects, the app is a personalised social media space for the residents of Wingrove, from our user research we found out that the Facebook pages are scattered and become very inactive shortly after starting up. Bringing all these pages together into one system would refine the area’s digital platform voice and provide a space for local events to be promoted and spoken about.

 

Moving forward, we would still like to begin to prototype the locational game based idea, focusing on the youth of the area as that group was at the forefront from the opinions of the participants of our user research. Our demo activity for the prototype may simply be a piece of paper with instructions, questions and locations on and then using google maps to travel around the map to complete the treasure hunt quest, or using development software to create and interactive prototype.

In terms of promoting and gaining further user research from our prototype, a youth workshop would have to take place, perhaps linking in with the primary schools or the Nuns Moor centre.

Our next steps are, to further develop and refine the technicalities of: 1) user narrative, 2) the information architecture and data of the interface and 3) initial design views of the interface. We want the product to be focused on the map idea, therefore having the design be centred around the map of Wingrove.

SIA Storyboarding – Blog 6

SIA Blog 6

This week we began storyboarding our idea with the aid of Erkki Hedenborg, our academic mentor. We discussed many alternative options and finally honed our digital idea into a designed interactive game for social cohesion and community exploration.

During the beginning of the session we began drafting potential ideas for a digital solution, initial ideas started as digital interventions placed around Wingrove in specific points that would advertise activities and allow users to interact with it, by sound or movement for instance. We then moved on to discuss this interaction in a more physical manner by creating an interactive game. With this, users would gain insight into the Wingrove area, meet other locals, and gaining knowledge of potential activities happening. This is important as those we questioned in our door-to-door survey did note that they did not know of many activities taking place within the area.

The idea stems from the concept of location based GPS games such as Pokemon Go, Geocaching, and ActionBound, in which users have to explore an area to earn rewards or learn things about the specific area chosen. We wanted to replicate this idea by giving young adults/teenagers/kids the option to discover Wingrove and connect with other users to enhance their social connections within the area.

Potential ideas for prototyping this concept could initially be a piece of paper with set questions or facts on it and use of google maps to navigate the treasure hunt. Those using the game would have a set route to follow and have to pick up points along the way that would collate into a final league board, with those with the most points earning prizes or gift vouchers (potentially). Some reservations are held by having incentives to play the game, however we did then lead onto looking at having proactive rewards such as a free one hour music session, or one free activity session at the Nuns Moor centre. In doing this, this improves the users awareness of activities within the area, therefore subverting their attention indirectly to other recreational activities for the youth to engage with within Wingrove.

Below are some initial mind-mapping/sketching that led us to the interactive game idea.

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User Research

From this we took insight from our user research, as many of the people we interviewed discussed the need for more youth programmes and activities, by using the game idea it gives teenagers and kids the opportunity to play outside and embrace their area rather than having nothing to do. In addition, the use of the Arthurs Hill building as a central addition to the game to engage the youth of the area with the activities going on there, thus indirectly creating a youth centre/central point by having them physically visit the building. Katrina and David Webb both spoke about the need for youth engagement within the area, we feel targeting this group will then set the path for future generations to converse with one another and begin a narrative with them in Arthurs Hill and community engagement.

After including our user research we developed a final storyboard proposal which depicts the narrative of downloading the game to the end point of the game.

Storyboard

Next Steps

Our next steps include refining the game idea, deciding where the set routes would be, as well as potentially including different interfaces for alternative uses. The game idea does hold some reservations as we do need to define what exactly the user is putting in and getting out of the game, what sets this idea apart that would make users want to actively engage with it and also, perhaps developing what else the interface can offer, so that we define exactly how it meets our project aims.

SIA Week 5 Log

This week we researched further into digital solutions for public engagement and we found some examples which deal primarily with engaging public opinion on a local level. From our seminar work we found the example ‘Viewpoint’, which is a digital interface that allows residents to vote and submit their opinion on local matters. The original Viewpoint technology was developed as part of the Bespoke project and it allowed local councillors and community organisers to ask simple questions with binary answers. A concept like viewpoint would reduce the time needed to complete door-to-door surveys. It would also remove the unpredictability of uncertainty, as we found out, door-to-door are not always successful. Cons of the product however, include the loss of the personal face to face conversation that community thrives on, the lack of explanation or elaboration of peoples’ opinion.

The Viewpoint example can be seen at: https://blackboard.ncl.ac.uk/bbcswebdav/pid-3867159-dt-content-rid-13421720_1/courses/K1819-TCP2031/Reflections%20on%20Deploying%20Distributed%20Consultation%20Technologies%20with%20Community%20Organisations.pdf

We hope to continue looking for more examples in the following days.

We also finalised our user research tasks and performed door-to-door surveys around the streets of Wingrove with one of our project partners, Katrina, the Greening Wingrove CIC Community Organiser. Whilst surveying local residents we also took this opportunity to interview Katrina about her personal thoughts on the area and the aims for the Arthurs Hill building. She spoke passionately about the need of more activities for the youth, ranging from toddlers to teenagers, and about the interconnection and potential link the building could have with other community facilities within the area, such as Nunsmore park.

From our door to door survey we obtained 20 responses. Of the people who answered the door their opinions seemed to echo Katrina’s in their vision for a thriving youth programme within the area. Below are the questions we asked and the most common responses we received:

What activities or events usually take place in this area? This question received various responses including Greening Wingrove events, Nunsmore litter picking, community groups and parties. However, of the 20 responses, 10 said that they did not know of any.

What are the changes Arthur Hill should make to become more socially environmental? The most common response was creating or finding things for the youth to do, such as having kid’s clubs. There was also mention of waste management, a community centre and a social media platform for communication.

 How do you feel about interaction within the area? (Ranked 1-5, 1 = poor, 5 = good) Out of the 20 responses, the average response given was 2.7, which is a fairly poor response. Not a single person gave a 5 response and 1 was given four times.

How close are you with your neighbours? (Ranked 1-5, 1 = poor, 5 = good) Out of the 20 responses, the average response given was 2.6, which is also a poor response. From this question and the one before it is clear that there is room for improving social interaction in the area.

Do you wish to improve your interaction with your neighbours? (Yes or No) 13 respondents said that they would want to improve interaction with their neighbours.

Do you think a digital platform would help with this? (Yes or No) 15 respondents said that they believed a digital platform would help with improving interaction in the area.

What is your experience of using local facilities? (Ranked 1-5, 1 = poor, 5 = good) The average response received here was 2.9, so just below a satisfied response. Again this proves there is room for improvement.

What local facilities do you often use?  This question received a wide range of responses including restaurants, church, cafes, Time Centre, transport, shops and supermarkets. However, the most frequent response was green spaces and parks.

How often do you use existing local facilities in a week? From the responses, the average response was 2.4 times a week. The most common response was once a week.

Do you use existing social platforms (such as Facebook groups) regularly? (Yes or No) Only 10 of the 20 respondents said they use existing social platforms regularly.

What do you use these social platforms for? Of those that said they used the social platforms, entertainment and news were the most common response. Arranging meetings and reporting issues were the other responses given.

 Whilst surveying door-to-door, we did come to the realisation that this method is not as successful as pre-arranged interviews or meetings, it is a long process with little outcome. We felt that for the most part, a digital solution could be a highly effective potential going forward, taking inspiration from the Viewpoint boxes, which we found in our example search. From this, our digital design could be focused on gaining a broad and ranged opinion from a digital polling system. Whether this could perhaps be an interface inside/outside the building or in local shops/cafes is something we would have to discuss further.

Another idea that came from the user research was potentially creating a digital interface for the youth of the area to connect with the building, and the area, as we learnt of the hardships of many of the families within the area. It could potentially be worth-while to create an interface for the youth of the area, as many come from disenfranchised homes, some even being crammed into a house with 5 or 6 families, as we learnt from Katrina.

Our next steps for the project is to begin mapping out and sketching our digital interaction solution. Bringing together both our example search and user research to create the best solution for public engagement and interaction within the Wingrove area.

SIA Week 4 Log

Week 4 Log

This is the week 4 log for SIA. This week we carried out part of our user research, meeting with various project partners and also began searching for examples of products/services/devices that serve as state of the art in our project.

User Research:

As part of our user research we went to the Greening Wingrove Annual Meeting on the 16th February. We felt as though this meeting would give us a huge opportunity to meet some of our project partners and potentially even meet some local residents in the area. The event was also useful as it took place at 250 Philip Street, Arthur’s Hill (the building that part of our project is based on) and so we got a much better idea of the actual building we were working with.

At the meeting, we spoke with David Webb, who is a local resident and the Secretary of Greening Wingrove CIC as well as one of our key stakeholders in the project. Below are the most important and valuable points we obtained from the interview with David:

  • Currently local residents communicate through WhatsApp groups and Facebook pages. The WhatsApp groups are used to contribute ideas and thoughts, but are rarely used, with David mentioning that ‘messages are transferred maybe once every two weeks’. The Facebook groups are slightly more active. However, the problem is that there are many different pages and so trying to organise larger events or communicate on a large scale is difficult.
  • The main issue David said we would have with our project is that not everyone will use one form of social network, which on one of the reasons multiple platforms are currently used.
  • David’s vision for the building involved using it for multiple purposes. Ideas included a post office, renting out the top rooms for storage, use of the already in place music studio and events for the youth including youth clubs and weekly activities.

We also managed to speak with other members of Greening Wingrove with the main points from them being:

  • Not enough is available for younger generations to do, with many just roaming and playing on the streets.
  • There is a difficulty in getting all the locals involved in the area. This is primarily due to language barriers and people not knowing what events are out there.

We aim to continue with our user research in the following weeks with our door to door surveys. We are also hoping to organise an interview with Katrina Jordison, the Greening Wingrove CIC Community Organiser, as we were not able to speak to her for too long at the annual meeting.

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.

 

 

SIA Week 2 Log

This is the second log by SIA for the Wingrove project. This week we met with Nigel Todd who is a local resident and City Councillor, as well as Chair of the Greening Wingrove CIC and Secretary of the WEA Green Branch. The WEA Green Branch undertakes activities such as courses and workshops that can help community groups understand sustainability and work better as a community. With his various roles, Nigel gave us a greater insight into the project and helped us understand what aims and goals the WEA Green Branch has for the task.

This week we made a mind map that discusses all the different stakeholders involved in the project and the various links between them.

Mind map:

 We began by naming the main stakeholders such as families, local residents, community organisations and WEA Green Branch, then branching off from these, connecting in other local groups. We discovered that the WEA Green Branch would have a link with the Greening Wingrove Community Interest Company and also with investors (who provide grants for events and developments). Volunteers and students from Newcastle University were also interlinked within this group as they would help provide support for many of the events done by WEA and Greening Wingrove. Another connection was found between the WEA and schools in the area, as education centres are a central hub for community connection. We felt having schools as one of the key stakeholders would help disburse information more effectively. Lastly, from schools there comes a link with families, the police, businesses and the council, therefore creating a bridge between the different interest groups within the area.

Stakeholder Groups:

Below are the three main stakeholder groups (the council, local residents and community organisations) we have found for the project:

In order for the project to be a success, each group’s wants and needs must be taken into consideration. Therefore communication with the three will be very important when working on the project.

Indicative Project Aims:

After speaking with Nigel, we found that the primary focus of the project was to develop ideas for community uses of the new buildings on Arthurs Hill Terrace. He mentioned existing ideas included a café, offices and potential for a music studio in part of the building. There was also a plan for rooms in the building to hold children’s activities and youth projects. However, the council and community organisations were open to any new/different ideas. Finding ways of enabling neighbours to get to know each other and feel comfortable about interacting is another of the key project aims. From the talk with Nigel it is clear that finding an appropriate use for the building will be a key stepping stone in creating public togetherness and community cohesion in the area.

There was also discussion of creating a digital platform for locals to interact with each other and finding a platform (such as an app, website, etc.) that would be suitable for everyone.

 Next steps:

During the discussion, questions of how we could involve as many people as possible in the project arose, as it is unlikely every user or stakeholder group will agree on the outcome of the renovation idea or digital platform. Nigel himself did hold some reservations towards a larger digital platform, as different groups in the community may exploit it by uploading or sharing inappropriate or negatively opinionated content. At this stage with his hesitance, collecting user research from the local residents would be a natural progression.

Therefore, out initial next steps are to visit the Arthurs Hill Terrace building and the area of Wingrove in general. We are planning on going to the open day at the Arthurs Hill Terrace building on the 16th February where the future use of the building will be discussed. Visiting the area and building will help us collect user research on possible uses of the building and find out which digital platforms locals would be interested in for information distribution and social connections. It will also enable us to get a better insight into the project as a whole, understanding the people and area we are working with.