During these 10 weeks working on our ‘design sprints’ we have learned to work on a project in a team while considering advice and demands from people that would use what we would produce. We learned the benefit and challenges that digital technologies would provide. We also learn the various ethics, statements, ideas that were involved when creating a digital technology.

The words ‘Digital civics’ started to be widely used during the last decades. Depending on your position you can view and define digital civics in different ways. However, it is a form of interaction that involves digital technology and civic groups. Most schools of thought would go towards a digital technology that would go for the benefit of the user. But there are many digital technologies that are designed for surveillance and data collection. To create a digital technology that would go for the benefit of the users there is an absolute necessity of involving potential users during the design of the project. The concept of digital civics is still something that is vague and depends on your ethics, point of view

Our project is a smartphone application that involves the participation of residents of Bensham for their benefit. It permits residents to be more involved in their community but also, it promotes interaction between people and share their knowledge. Furthermore, it permits residents to solve problems that the local government is not in the measure to solve. The project was achieved through deep thinking from the team but also through participation from people that would benefit from it. We have done with them a contextual interview and tested the prototype of the project which enabled us to adapt and verify our design project. So, our project offers services that tend towards the benefit of the public.

During our presentation of the project the feedback was positive. However, as our project is an application on smartphones, people who do not have smartphones are not able to use it which can create inequalities. This can be due to socio economic factors, but also culture, religion can have an influence towards digital technologies. To make it accessible to a maximum of people that is targeted, an internet website version can be created so that people who do not have a smartphone or internet at home can access the application by using, for example, a computer in public spaces such as in a library.

Hadrien

My group asked Jayne Hopkins to arrange prototype demonstrations with 3 participants from Best of Bensham. We wanted to ask the people from the Best of Bensham, as they mostly represent the residents of Bensham. The participants live in Newcastle and they have worked in the Bensham at least for several years. Even though they may not live in Bensham, they interacted with the Bensham residents and they would understand their needs. My group could have asked our friends to complete the prototype demonstrations, however, we concluded that our friend groups do not have background knowledge and understanding for the Bensham community.

Participant Profile Questions

Before we began with the demonstration, we asked them a couple of personal questions and they are in the following points:

How many years have you stayed in Bensham?

• Participant 1: She doesn’t live in Bensham but she worked in Bensham for about 25 years.
• Participant 2: She doesn’t live in Bensham but she has worked in the community for 12 years.
• Participant 3: He doesn’t live in Bensham and he has worked in Bensham for nearly 3 years.

What is your occupation in Bensham?

• Participant 1: She works with a small charity and also as a project coordinator.
• Participant 2: Project Support Officer
• Participant 3: Community Development Worker

What is your experience like in solving local matter in Bensham?

• Participant 1: She finds that it is difficult for people to talk about the issues.
• Participant 2: She mostly works with low-income families and the community issue with food poverty.
• Participant 3: It is hard to engage a diversity of people from different backgrounds and education.

What are some of your hobbies?

• Participant 1: She keeps hens, likes to keep fit, walking outdoors and knitting.
• Participant 2: She enjoys reading, writing, walking outdoors, Pilates, swimming and cooking.
• Participant 3: He likes to hike, camp, cook, make beer and make music.

Tasks

              There were several tasks that the participants were asked to complete during the interviews. The tasks are listed in the following points:

1. You are new user to the application. Set up a profile with this application.
2. You found a issue in the community and you would like to report this issue through the application.
3. You would like to join a volunteering group that interests you.
4. Make a volunteering group with this application.

All 3 participants were able to complete these tasks with ease. There were some difficulties in using the Figma website itself, but overall, all the participants enjoyed the process and commented positive opinions.

Evaluations

At the end of the prototype demonstration, we asked the participants to give their honest feedback on the application.

• On scale of 1-5 (1 being the least and 5 being the most), how easy was the application for you to use? All of the participants answered a 5.
• On scale of 1-5 (1 being the least and 5 being the most), would you use this application in the future? All the participants answered a 5.
• All of the participants would recommend this application to other people.

Strengths

• Simple, clear, user-friendly, and easy to navigate through the application
• Likes that the users can report community issues and they will receive automatic updates when the Council takes action
• Loves the voting feature, allowing the users to express their opinions
• Likes that the users can invite their friends to vote on an issue or join a volunteering group
• Thinks that this application is a better alternative than Facebook to make volunteering groups – more controlled

Opportunities and Future Obstacles

If our group had more time, we would ask other residents of Bensham to participate in this demonstration. These 3 participants were all from the same organization, so they may share similar perspectives and opinions about this application. By reaching out to the actual target audience, this would definitely enhance our feedback. One of the participants brought up a good point that this application would be really effective if there is a large number of users. However, the challenge is to convince the residents to accept this new change into the community. The initial process might result in a limited user base, so this might not be able to give the application its intended use. At the same time, there needs to collaboration with the Council to update the administration process online.

Lois

This blog entry will introduce the readers to the work and presentation that our Digital Civics group has made during week six of the project. It will introduce the storyboard sketches made in the seminar session; there will be an upload of a final storyboard that our group has decided to present (Figure 1). Furthermore, the text below will include a discussion about the context of the use of our prototype, its entry and exit points and what the users would be able to do with it. This post will mention how the storyboard relates to user research; what is more, it will quickly describe how our mid-term presentation was presented and how the feedback that we got will be addressed.

The seminar session this week helped our group to understand what exactly a storyboard is and how it should look including its sketches and a finished draft. “Storyboarding is a common technique in HCI and design for demonstrating system interfaces and contexts of use.” (Storyboarding: An Empirical Determination of Best Practices and Effective Guidelines, 2020) During the seminar, we produced three different sketches of a storyboard. Our main goal was to produce different situations with different user personas, which would enable us to further understand how our prototype would work in various situations. In other words, we did not want to make a prototype idea and then test it just in one scenario; we wanted to test different scenarios and how they would evolve into a story that could be made into a storyboard.

The final storyboard draft used a persona which was likely to be involved in community organizations, is a middle class, middle-aged woman (the persona square in the storyboard will be added later in the project). The context of use in this storyboard can be seen quite clearly while looking at the storyboard. The idea behind it is that a person, who is socially active in his or her neighborhood, sees a problem that should be addressed by the council or by people around the problematic area. In the storyboard, our group used an example of an unmaintained green space. The persona who sees that space notices it and takes a photo to upload it to our prototype idea, an app that lets people share issues around Bensham, the area in Gateshead which the prototype is designed to help make a better place to live in. The storyboard then visualizes how the persona can make a change to such place. The app sends information to the local council and shares it with other users as well as the Bensham community group. Then the council decides if it has the finances and required resources to solve the issue; if not, the Bensham community group will then organize volunteers who will solve the issues without the help of the council.

Our group’s storyboard has been influenced by the user research we have done throughout the project. We have done the research with interviews with local residents, council representatives and site visits. The data produced from this helped us to understand more deeply the problems with the area of Bensham and what the residents want to be happening in the following years. Furthermore, the interviews with government representatives helped us to understand what kind of aid and cooperation we could expect as well as what is happening in Bensham nowadays. With all this information gathered It was quite clear that we had to do a storyboard about a prototype app that help to clean up and maintain safe and welcoming urban spaces in the area of Bensham.

Our mid-term presentation this week has been done with relatively positive feedback. All our group has had a say in the presentation and everyone was feeling that they have something to say and talk about. During the presentation, we introduced our team, talked about project context, the main purpose of it, user and digital application research and tried to show how our prototype would look like in the following weeks.

To summarize, the work that was produced during week 6 has really helped our project to go into the prototyping stage. We have agreed on further work needed to develop the project to be fully presentable in the final pitch.

Mindaugas Rybakovas

Bibliography

Citeseerx.ist.psu.edu. 2020. Storyboarding: An Empirical Determination Of Best Practices And Effective Guidelines. [online] Available at: <http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.110.6354&rep=rep1&type=pdf> [Accessed 7 April 2020].

This week we focused on putting a plan together for our prototype demos. The plan involved our actions before, during and after a potential prototype user test we are aiming to carry out in the future. The purpose of our prototype test is to “gauge users’ experience with [the] system” (Hertzum, 2016) and identify the positives and negatives of our app at its current stage, whilst receive feedback on its usability and design from a fresh perspective. 

Before carrying out our prototype demonstration, we had to establish a set of parameters for our test, including our target participant, our aims from the test itself, how we intend to carry out the user test and the different roles we can each take.  

Firstly, we defined our ideal participants as being residents of Bensham who perhaps had an interest in volunteering or being involved in local issues, as these will be the most likely users of our application.  

Also, during these tests, we are aiming to identify the ease of use for participants trying to navigate our application and their ability to use its functions effectively.  

Furthermore, for deciding how we will carry out the user prototype test, due to the current global situation regarding COVID-19, we considered the most efficient method of contacting with potential participants would be through a video conference call/ meeting whereby users can also have access to our prototype through the ‘figma’ application and share their screens while testing the app.  

Finally, we considered some important roles for us to cover during this user testing phase, which would be: 

• A Facilitator – Leads conversation within the session and encourages user testing through hints etc. 
• Observer/ Note taker- to keep a script of all the important events during user testing (e.g. User confusion/ stalling at certain points using the app? / Opinions of the user) 

During our user testing phase, we considered the actions we need to complete in order to ensure our prototype test is successful. For this section we took inspiration from the ‘Five-Act Interview’ from ‘Sprint’ on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9ZG19XTbd4]. Referenced in this video were five key aspects needed to be involved in your user interview. 

The introduction is the first stage of the interview, whereby we will begin with a friendly introduction in order to make the user feel as comfortable as possible and explain what it is they can expect from the session. It is important to make sure the participant is at ease with the situation so that they can give a critically honest review of the product. Following the introduction, it is useful to ask a series of contextual questions to discover the background of the participant, which will offer a more insightful meaning to their responses and reasoning for being a potential user of the application. 

We then had to consider introducing the application and decided the best action is to describe the aim of our application and a potential situation where it may be used. After this, we considered the tasks we would ask participants to complete during the testing phase and the questions we may ask during this section, as these are vital to the results we get from the test.  

Basic tasks that would be useful for us to explore through user testing would include: 

• The ability to post and report an issue. 
• The ability to set up a volunteering group/ interact with other users on the application. 
• The up-voting and down-voting function of the application. 

Through exploring such tasks as these we can gain an understanding of how easy it is to navigate our product in the way which we aim for it to be used. During these tests it is important we remind our users to speak aloud about what their thoughts are whilst using the app, such as where they may be confused, or whether they like/ dislike certain aspects. We also considered the importance of not guiding them through the app step-by-step and instead allowing them to figure it out (with occasional hints from the facilitator) as this would produce the most authentic experience for a new user and allow us to “find any problems that prevent users from completing their tasks, slow them down, or otherwise degrade their user experience” (Hertzum, 2016).

Once the user has prototyped our app, we will then ask several questions to try and gain an overall review of the product from an outsider perspective, these questions would include: 

• What did you like/ dislike about the concept? 
• Are there any things about it you would suggest changing? 
• How was your experience using the app and would you choose to use it again? 
  Are there any applications like this one that you know of? 

In conclusion, once we have completed our user prototype testing we will evaluate the success of our product and review the results we received from our users. The ways in which we will test our success will include comparing our user tests to our designated tasks to see how many times user was able to complete the tasks with ease or where they needed assistance. Finally, we will document our insights from our demos by comparing each user test and identifying commonalities This will allow us to further design out potential flaws with our app and improve its functionality. 

References:

Hertzum, M. (2016) ‘A usability test is not an interview’, Interactions, 23(2), 82–84, Available at: http://doi.org/10.1145/2875462 [Accessed 27/03/2020]

Sprint. (2016) ‘From Sprint: The Five-Act Interview’, available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9ZG19XTbd4 [Accessed 25/03/2020]

Patrick

This week we tested our prototype app with everyone we originally interviewed, with regards to what they would like from our final product, in order to find out what they thought of it, both good and bad. As last week’s blog explains, we had a script of questions prepared and also an example poster and an A3 sheet of screenshots from the prototype (for if the user wanted to make any comments about a particular screen). Here are the questions we used in all three user testing session:

1. Does the prototype do what it is supposed to do?
2. Do you think the product’s design matches its purpose?
3. Does anything distract you or get in the way?
4. Does the navigation path work? (Can users find what they are looking for?)
5. Do you think this fits the target market?
6. Is anything confusing or unclear?
7. How likely or unlikely would you be to recommend the finished product to a friend or colleague?
8. How would you describe this product using your own words?
9. Does this app solve the problem?
10. What, if anything, would you change?

 

The first prototype demo session was with Nigel Brown, who works in the planning department at Newcastle City Council, and myself and Cindy were in attendance. Nigel represents a planning consultant, that developers would visit in the pre-application stage of the development, and who would advise the developers exactly on how successful their statement of community consultation was. Cindy opened the prototype on her phone, through the Marvel app, so we could demonstrate exactly how we intend the app to be used (rather than on a computer, which we had been designing it on). We then asked the questions from the script, which we think incorporates questions on how exactly Nigel used the app (timings, gestures, etc.), between us and I made notes of Nigel’s answers, which were as follows:

 

 

• Does the prototype do what it is supposed to do?

 

Yes, it definitely fills the gap.

 

• Do you think the product’s design matches its purpose?

 

Yes, it is simple and easy to navigate.

 

• Does anything distract you or get in the way?

 

No

 

• Does the navigation path work? (Can users find what they are looking for?)

 

Yes, I found things very easily

Very self-explanatory

 

• Do you think this fits the target market?

 

Yes, most people will be able to use it because it is simple and well designed, but I suspect it will be mainly younger people using it, which would match the target market of ‘young professionals’.

 

• Is anything confusing or unclear?

 

No

 

• How likely or unlikely would you be to recommend the finished product to a friend or colleague?

 

Very likely, I think most people could use it.

 

• How would you describe this product using your own words?

 

What I was looking for.

 

• Does this app solve the problem?

 

Yes I believe it would, however I would include a questionnaire to determine the demographics of people using the app, and then the developer could use these to show they are being inclusive.

 

• What, if anything, would you change?

 

1. • Make sure the developer and council can see who has commented- no anonymity .
   • Include a structured questionnaire AND the ability the comment (rather than one or the other)
   • Look into ‘geofencing’
   • Terms and conditions
   • Third party filtering
   • Perhaps a page explaining limitations (what exactly is the app for?) or a help page (but not a step-by-step tutorial)
   • Add a link to the council portal
   • Need a cut off point for how long people can comment for
   • Perhaps produce an automated report of the statistics from questionnaire, ratings, likes and dislikes, for the developer
   • Developer should be able to add ‘overall’ comments
   • Perhaps get developer to put link or QR code on their website to the app- would benefit us both

 

Next was the meeting with Peter Cockbain who works in the ‘Fairer Housing Unit’ at Newcastle City Council, working on turning council-owned land to delivered housing. He works closely with developers when it comes to planning and public engagement, so for us, he has been representing a developers point of view. Ellie and Rory met with Peter and these were their findings:

 

• Does the prototype does what it’s supposed to do?

 

 Yeah, if I was a resident it seems simple to sign in and find information about developments

 

• Do you think the design matches the purpose?

 

The colour scheme gives it a nice style. I would make the icons clearer with words telling you what they do.

 

• Does anything distract you or get in the way?

 

No, not really

 

• Does the navigation path work?

 

 Although I don’t really use apps on my phone it’s fairly easy to get through. I would use it on my iPad. 

 

• Does it fit the target market? 

It seems it will serve the purpose for residents well. Maybe bigger fonts for older people with worse eyesight.

 

• Is anything confusing or unclear?

 

No, not that i can tell

 

• Would you recommend it?

 

 Again, don’t really use apps on my phone, I wish we all went back to old phones really. But if I did use my phone I would recommend it.  

 

• How would you describe the product?

 

An easy to use app that allows for the community to get access to information on developments near them

 

• Does the app solve the problem?

 

It does to a certain extent. People use the website ‘sky scrapper city’ for pictures and comments on developments. Architects and planners like myself spend hours sifting through the comments on the progress of developments  

 

• What, if anything, would you change? 

 

Maybe somewhere where users can upload pictures of the progress developments near them so people can be aware of developments that people aren’t aware of.

 

Finally, was the meeting with Sheila Spencer  who has worked with Ouseburn Valley Trust, as a trustee, for over 20 years, so is involved with community participation in the planning of projects in the area. Cindy and Thomas met with Sheila; these were her responses:

 

• Does the prototype does what it’s supposed to do?

 

 Yeah it is clear. The app will help community involvement.

 

• Do you think the design matches the purpose?

 

The design is excellent. Clear and simple

 

• Does anything distract you or get in the way?

 

No not all

 

• Does the navigation path work?

 

Yes mostly. Getting to comment section wasn’t too easy. Maybe there could be somewhere to view and save your own comments. Or even type without uploading. Are the comments moderated? We don’t want abuse.

Can you sort comments by rating or amount of reply’s?

Will the developer reply to each comment?  

 

• Does it fit the target market?

 

It will serve the purpose for residents. Bigger fonts for the elderly with worse eyesight is something I would change.  And the icons at the bottom should be rearranged with the home button moved to the middle.  

Also in the development page the bottom icons should be rearranged with overview being in the first thing on the left, description in the centre and comments being the last thing on the right.

 What about people who work in the area but aren’t a resident? Or even architects? Can they use the app?  Would they have  a different account?

 

• Is anything confusing or unclear?

 

 The comment section and the personal profile might need tweaking. I don’t see the point in the scoring. I don’t think people are bothered by their score

 

• Would you recommend it?

 

I would absolutely recommend it. I think it is a great idea. When will we be able to use it? 

 

• How would you describe the product?

 

…

 

• Does the app solve the problem?

 

I don’t think it will replace community meetings yet. Although the planning portal is hard to use, it is also used a lot by members of the community. However, I think it is a great alternative, and maybe it will replace the comment section of the planning portal. And I can see it being used heavily by residents. Especially those who can’t make the meetings

 

• What, if anything, would you change? 

 

The fonts might need tweaking. Bigger icons.

A few icons could be rearranged

Change the sign in page to Developers and Community. It will allow other members of the community to use the app. In the your profile you should then specify if you are a resident etc..

Add links to documents in the planning portal so members or users can access the full planning application documents.

 

Positive or Negative Reception?

Overall,  the response from the user testing was definitely positive, with all three users saying they would recommend the app.

All three users also said they liked the design and style of the app, and the only negative comments we got, for things to change, were small changes with regards to font size and icon arrangement.

With regards to other changes to be made, Nigel recommended some fantastic additions, rather than changes, which we would definitely look at adding in; especially the ‘geofencing’ and ‘help page’. Both Nigel and Sheila recommended links to the council planning portal, which again is something we could easily incorporate; our overall goal was to create an app to work alongside the current process, not replace it.

Some comments we would need to discuss as a group, and perhaps decide if it was the direction we would want to go in. For example, Sheila’s suggestion of allowing non-residents to use the app may be useful in some ways, but our brief currently only focuses on ‘Large Housing Schemes’, so at first it would probably be best to just keep the app running for residents and developers.  Sheila also noted that she didn’t see the point of the ‘scoring’ system on our app, which as a group is another point we need to discuss and probably do further reading on, to see if we can enhance it, or just get rid of it.

Peter’s suggestion of having somewhere users can upload photos of developments to make other users aware of new ones is also something we could look into in the future, and perhaps run it alongside Nigel’s suggestion of location tracking to alert you of new developments (which I did some research into and have found out it is commonly known as ‘geofencing’).

All three of the users found the app easy to navigate around, with only Sheila taking slightly longer to find the comment section. With more user testing, we would have been able to find out if this was a problem for more people. But overall they used the prototype as we had intended.

 

Reaching our Goals

Our long term goals were:

• To improve interaction between all 3 stakeholders
• To improve communication in order to make to community consultation process more effective
• Reach the harder to reach members of the community
• To improve visibility in order to make the process and information more transparent, accessible and approachable

I thinking, judging by the positive comments made by all three users, we have reached the goals we set out to achieve. We are definietly bridging the gap between developers and residents, as well as involving the council, so communication will be improved, using this digital platform. It is aimed at harder to reach members of the community, specifically young professionals, but I think the app (with some font size tweaking) could be used to reach out to all members of the community. Hopefully, the app would also improve transparency of the planning process, given all three stakeholders interact with each other as the app requires.

 

What would we do differently?

I think the overall process of our user testing worked very effectively and we received all the answers we were looking for, however I think for the testing to be more legitimate, and had we more time, testing with more than three users would have been very useful. It would have given us a more representative opinion of the app, and could have been tested across age ranges to see just how easy it was for all members of the community to use.