Nominet Experiment at University of Brighton

October 13 – January 14 Cathy Grundy, Nick Gant.

1. Overview: Over a period of 12 weeks, a group of undergraduate students participated in

a ‘Community Engagement’ module where they were asked to generate

creative responses to a project based on the Nominet aims, with teaching

support, as an optional part of their degree programme. They were cross-

disciplinary in background, two students were doing an Architecture degree,

three others were studying BA Design and Craft at Grand Parade. Additionally,

six final year Design and Craft students participated on a drop in basis to the

weekly activities and produced work to support the Nominet aims, one of this

group also presented a final solution.

A series of relevant lectures, seminars, brainstorming sessions and feedback

tutorials were held with the group during this time. From the University based

Nominet team, Cathy Grundy was present throughout the period, with regular

attendance from Nick Gant; Kelly Duggan was instrumental in introducing

particular Apps during the seminar series and Liz Alsobrook provided guidance

for the work and was present at brainstorming sessions with the group and the

final presentation of ideas. Josh Barnes introduced Aurasma, a key App and

Stephen Pipes worked with the students to help create final videos. There were

also external speakers, who will be described in the weekly breakdown.

The project, based on the Nominet aims required a series of practical

outcomes, these consisted of: 1. A representation of their digital solution 2. A cultural probe to investigate suitable users 3. A blog to discuss their inspiration, information, rationale and conclusions 4. A presentation and final ‘Sizzle’ or brief video to communicate their outcome.

The seminars were intended to address certain objectives: • To present the rationale for the Nominet project and a description of

required outcomes

• To add further contextual information, (for example other projects or

schemes that may be relevant)

• To explain user centred design methods and others that should be

included (for example cultural probes)

• To introduce possible relevant technical skills (for example the use of

relevant Apps)

• How to present their ideas

Each student focused on their own chosen area and developed an App

proposal. The subjects included: student/landlord relationships with the aim to

help with housing quality and choices; learning games based on local natural

environments; crime reduction with a reporting facility and a scheme to

improve interaction/relationships between older and younger people.

The Powerpoints to describe these digital solutions are also included in this

folder.

2. Breakdown of the Sessions:

1. Session 1: 15th October Module Intro to Citizenship &

Community

Talk: Introduction by Nick Gant and Cathy Grundy 1.1 Introduction to the concept of Citizenship, Community definitions and

current work. The localism bill, Community 21 and how these have

affected the rights of local people to influence their neighbourhood.

1.2 A broader perspective on the relationship between people and

technology.

1.3 Icebreaker: Who are you? Mobile Apps:

Students pair up and find out the life history/style and preference of their

partner. Then they design a set of highly conceptual apps that their

partner might have on their phone (Icons only) and introduce their new

friend to the group via the apps.

Conclusions: Further examples of the students work for this week are given in Folder 1.

The students appeared to understand and were engaged by the project aims

and the day’s particular activities. The ‘Who are you’ activity generated

creative responses and started the process of considering apps that don’t exist

and could be valuable for this demographic. In terms of understanding this

audience it was helpful. Many examples also had more direct potential for

community related issues. For example, some were aimed at sharing social

activities, sharing key interests with others, some involved consideration of local

places and information, e.g. local history and understanding more about their

relatively new environment. Aspects of finance are also particularly relevant to

the student cohort. Thus it was a useful primer for aspects of local interaction

and community.

Session 2: 22nd Oct Categorizing and Communicating ‘Issues’

2.2 Talk: How local are their issues, are they also global, are they thinking

empathically? An introduction to some categories for possible

consideration and a brainstorming of possible issues.

2.3 Bringing their ideas together and create a large combined ‘issues

diagram’

2.4 Create a collage using relevant Apps about an area of Brighton

Conclusions: This provided a useful insight into the primary concerns for people this age. The

response to consideration of issues in Brighton as a part of the community was

interesting, as in some cases their concerns were not strongly related to the

locality they were living in currently. In some cases, rather, the University was

their focus and they considered themselves part of the student community.

Issues around well being, including leisure facilities, a sense of community

including sharing ideas, activities or facilities, and environmental issues figured

in the response.

Further examples of the students work for this week are given in Folder 2

Session 3: 29th Oct: Locating issues, Treasure and Trash

3.2 Treasure and Trash

The aim this week was to consider issues from the perspective of locality.

students were presented with two alternative maps of Brighton, one that

represented ‘Treasure’, where they were asked to identify areas on it that were

particularly important or of value to them. The other was the ‘Trash’ map and

they were asked to place points where they felt there were problems or issues.

3.1 Demonstrate Morfo: The aim here was to provide means to communicate opinion in a novel and

simple way through video that did not actually require the young persons

image. The students were informed about the use of Morfo alongside an aging

app and the exercise introduced at Priory School to encourage young people

to think empathically about their opinions and put it in context with the

requirements of older generations. The point was to introduce its capability for

their evaluation and potential application to their projects. Other uses were

also demonstrated, e.g. to animate drawings and objects and examples where buildings or places ‘speak for themselves’. The students were then

encouraged to create animations that would illustrate their own issues for the

first part of the lesson.

Conclusions: Some still regarded their hometown as their ‘real’ community and were not

always aware of what was available in Brighton. One of the group lives in

Lancing, rather than locally. However, after much discussion several points on

the map were identified and media generated through sketching or the Morfo

App to later add to the map. Treasure examples included the new level

development (including skateboarding) Ghost tours, Fishing history, the

Pavilion, and Urban Foxes. Common themes throughout were natural settings,

recreational areas and places of historical value, especially with a narrative.

Trash examples involved lack of amenities, e.g. shops, litter or evidence of

neglect and a lack of a sense of community in certain areas.

Session 4: 5th Nov. Locating issues, Auras. Joshua Barnes demonstrated Aurasma and how to use this as a tool to add

their media to the maps considered in Session 3 and to connect the media to

the location of their concerns. Some also finished considering ideas and issues

from last week.

Conclusions: Students responded enthusiastically to these activities, just as the younger age

group had at Priory School and the Summer school. The use of Aurasma within

the classroom environment, especially in connection with the use of Morfo and

other graphics apps allows rapid creative application and quick feedback on

the results of their work. There was potential for them to do further work out of

classroom time (especially architecture students with CAD modeling skills) to

add more sophisticated Auras to their trigger points, however they didn’t take

the opportunity, perhaps due to pressure of other constraints on their time. This

was a shame and is something that could perhaps be further pursued with a

different group with a focus on that activity to illustrate potential envisioning

opportunities for those with computing skills. Though younger children or lay

persons do not have CAD skills a parallel activity using MInecraft or similar

interface alongside these app related methods could be investigated.

A ‘Ghost’ created in Morfo to talk about an unused cinema in Lancing.

Session 5: 12th Inspiration from other people working in this area. This week the aim was to get inspiration from recent graduates who were doing

parallel work in the area of using digital media to encourage democratic

decision making among young people.

5.1 There was a talk by the ‘Change the Future’ Group

(www.changethefuture.org.uk). In particular, the presenters had

investigated ways of engaging school pupils in the concept of

citizenship.

5.2 Following the talk the students were asked to start the process of

creating their brief for an interactive device, app, game event or

sculpture to gain opinions, what would the primary features be?

Conclusions:

The event appeared to explore a range of interesting themes for the students,

who were very much engaged with the talk and subsequent brainstorming.

Broader themes of democracy and citizenship came up and the connection

between the two better understood; this also prompted an awareness of how

this perhaps influences behavior and feelings of belonging to a society. This, in

turn, should affect their contextual understanding of the project as a whole.

In practical terms the interface presented for their website introduced

innovations for reviewing ideas that have been introduced by others, to ensure

communication and the process of voting for successful proposals to increase

their presence and value in the community discussion.

Session 6: 19th Location Based Discussions. The aim was to contrast the method of using an indoor map to store and

access digital media (to present ideas about local concerns or planning to

others) with a location based approach. There is a recent movement towards

location based games and activities through the widespread use of GPS on

mobile phones and other devices. This affords the opportunity for community

members to view documents, images or videos placed at a particular location

by others and also to upload their own material.

7.1 Demo of using ARIS, a location based game APP to get opinion and

make notes on location that can be viewed by others

7.2 Creating a location based treasure hunt on paper/ on computer

Conclusions:

The activity of creating a game and placing items

to be discovered while walking around through GPS

is significantly more difficult to learn and implement

than using an APP interface like Aurasma. The

makers of ARIS (a research team) are aware that

the interface is not designed for straightforward use

at the moment and are working on its adaptation

(especially for younger people). Though most of the

students managed to place items though GPS and

discover them outdoors, they struggled more with

the interface than with Aurasa. The pros and cons

of the difference in effort would need to be

carefully weighed to see the benefit of such an

application to the Nominet aims. Alternatives to

ARIS might make this easier. There did seem to be

some benefit in being able to access information in situ, while considering a

local feature, however the use of push notifications would mean that one did

not have to be immersed in the game environment all the time.

Session 7: 26th Nov Considering the View of others

Today’s aim was to introduce user-centred design methods that help us to

understand others, their behavior and lifestyle that might help to design

empathically for other people other than themselves.

7.1 Talk on Scenarios and Cultural Probes in the context of user centred

design.

7.2 Design some scenarios cultural probes for investigating people of your

age and compare with what might be good for younger people.

7.3 Write a game story and characters to for a game based on scenarios

for the ARIS programme and also to learn more about their own

opinions.

Conclusions: Unfortunately due to other priorities and deadlines, the

attendance this week was quite low (2 students) so it was difficult to get an

objective snapshot of their opinions through the storyboarding activity. They

appeared to understand the notion of cultural probes, however, and most

successfully applied the idea to their projects.

Session 8: 3rd Dec. National Strike

Session 9: 10th Dec. Project brainstorm and feedback This week a brainstorming session was held with the students and other

members of the Nominet team to help generate ideas and to ensure that

students were on track with their thinking before the Christmas Vacation. Team

members, Liz Alsobrook, Kelly Duggan, Nick Gant were present .

9.1 Icebreaker: who would you tell and with what technology? The

diagrams that had been used for school sessions were used to

reconsider issues and how they might be communicated appropriately.

The idea was to warm up and review problem areas before considering

solutions.

9.2 The brainstorming session consisted of adding pertinent ideas to extra

large post it notes and sticking them up on the wall. Ideas were

evaluated briefly against the criteria shown in the final post its

Conclusions: The event helped to provide a range of potentially interesting

areas for consideration and broadened the student’s thinking with respect to

the project. Common Themes were intergenerational communication,

creating more of a sense of community in neighbourhoods, safety and

wellbeing, appreciation of local amenities including nature, sharing of skills,

using media to share information and help with practical activities like finding

a house or using social media to encourage positive behaviours. A range of

technologies were evident, including web sites, tangible objects to facilitate

digital communication and apps to generate material or implement GPS

solutions.

Session 10: 7th Jan. continue with project Here general discussions about their work and feedback on progress were

provided to ensure that they were keeping to the aims and objectives of the

project as a whole.

Conclusions: Most students had come up with ideas that were relevant to their

identified issues and in some cases these related directly to their life as a

student. We discussed for each case what the broader implications could be

for wider society and how they related to the Nominet brief so that they could

ensure that they included that awareness to their final presentations. They were

at different practical stages of development and some expressed concerns at

not being provided with the exact technology to be considered as part of the

brief, e.g. ‘develop an APP’. However, this was purposely left open to enable

creative solutions. In practice most did create an App though some had

associated web sites.

Session 11: 14th Jan. Video Creation:

Communicating ideas through a ‘sizzle’, a short video to get the main points

about their design and its benefits across.

11.1 Talk: Stephen Pipes, a professional video producer described to the

students how to communicate effectively through a short video, with a

range of examples from good to bad practice.

11.2 Tutorial Help with their video.

Conclusions: In practice this session also provided an excellent opportunity to

finalize their ideas and get feedback about the validity of their idea and its

communication. It was good to get the opinion of an outside person and

Stephen was helpful to bounce ideas back from. The students were given a

broader perspective on how to communicate their particular ideas.

Sessions 12 21st Jan Tutorial Support

Session 13 28th Presentations and final submission

Four of the students showed their final ideas as presentations, • An app to safeguard and help reduce crime:

Well researched idea which allowed a community of people to note crime

hot spots, add their own observations of any problems that have occurred

to them, add themselves as a witness, or make positive suggestions of local

architectural features that might help to avoid future problems. The idea is

a possible adaptation of the neighbourhood watch scheme and would

work alongside the police website.

• An app and website to allow students to review their accommodation

and make people aware of problems with housing or problem landlords

to help other young people who are choosing their home. The landlords

have the right to reply and add their own case.

• An app to promote skills sharing between the elderly and younger

people so that they can help eachother. It also promotes storytelling

and other information based exchanges to encourage interaction.

• An app to encourage outdoor play and experiences that connects with

Facebook.