at 09:24

Trip to Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford

Field trip to Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford. 

         At 9am on a sunny Wednesday morning, five out of our Interaction Design team boarded a bus from the National College of Art and Design and headed south, Co. Wexford bound. The destination was Enniscorthy and the objective was to get the rural populations perspective on air quality. In addition to collecting the general publics ideas around air pollution, our team had arranged to view a mobile EPA (European Environment Protection Agency) monitoring station, which has been carrying out long-term readings within the town for the past 12 months.

The mobile monitoring station

         We arrived at the EPA station close to 11am and Patrick Malone greeted us. Patrick took us through the operation in Enniscorthy and how the monitoring works. We were given access to the monitoring station, Patrick was very helpful to allow us to document our visit and to briefly take us through what the different pieces of equipment were doing inside. Patrick informed us that this station was initially intended to be moved to different locations on a more regular basis, but as of recently the EPA have been implementing more lengthy reads (this trailer has been stationary for 12 months). This is due to a number of variables, there is a difficulty to find safe and discrete areas to house the trailer, also the costs involved with moving an operation (the trailer needs access to a power supply) and local politics plays a large role which makes the EPA’s job harder, as they aim is to give an adequate evaluation of the nations air quality.

Capturing the action as we tour the station

       There were a number of very interesting insights that came from our discussion with Patrick. It is reported that the air quality in the rural town of Enniscorthy is actually worse then the city area of Dublin. The biggest contributor to this startling result is due to inefficient household burning. Enniscorthy County Council have put together a request to enter the smokey coal ban regions, even though they fall short of the required population value of 15,000 people. By Irish standards, this drop in the quality of air compared to Dublin may also be reflected in the geography of the town, it is further from the coast and situated in a low valley which prevents a smooth flow of air to pass freely. Patrick reassured us that by CAFE Directives standards, Enniscorthy annually is still not near the point of having to react significantly to improve the air quality.

Patrick taking us through the different instruments and equipment

     Another key insight that came from this very helpful talk, was the EPA’s hope to engage the public more on the topic of air quality. Using Citizen Science initiatives, EPA have aims to actively involve communities to generate more talk around the subject. Although a lot of the technology for home monitoring is not at the standard currently for professional and reliable results, these methods are good ways of broadcasting the topic.

      Once we had completed our visit of the EPA monitoring station, there was a quick spot of lunch and then we emerged ready for some in the wild interviews. We decided to divide into groups of 2 pairs and a single. We positioned ourselves on the main street, which ran directly from Market Square. We stayed within close distance of one another, which enabled to to move freely between groups. We hoped that there would be 2 people to cover each interview, one who would direct the conversation and one note taker.  

Lunch time for the team

       In all there were 26 interviews conducted in Enniscorthy. These provided us with some key results on the perception of the air in the town and the general thoughts on Air Quality. These interviews juxtaposed with the facts obtained from Patrick of the EPA showed up some very interesting insights into the misconceptions surrounding the subject.

Carrying out interviews on high street

We returned to Dublin returned to Dublin to make sense of the Data.......

at 21:00

'In the Wild' Interviews & Preparing for Friday

On Tuesday we broke off into groups of 2, forming 5 groups to go out interview the public. Before we went out into the wild, the class researched some people or locations that we wanted to target in order to cover a quite wide demographic. That is, we wanted to include expecting mothers to families with young kids who would be most vulnerable to air pollution, cyclists who would be outside a lot, people inside inner Dublin City and people in the outer parts of Dublin, rural Ireland (for which a trip is scheduled on another day) and also professionals within the air quality areas, to name a few.

Majority of the day was spent 'out in the wild' where everyone got a lot of really good insightful interviews. The reason behind these interviews is that we wanted to find out what the public know about air pollution, if anything, whether it affects them or someone they know, would they do anything to help improve the air quality if they knew it affected their health etc. 

Myself and Billy came across some people who knew nothing about this problem and we also came across people who knew a lot, some having grown up before the Smoky Coal Ban in Dublin. Along with the rest of the class we got great insights that would help us develop the personas. It's also very helpful for our project to know what the public's thoughts are.. it might end up being something that they might want to or maybe not want to use. 

Altogether we managed to interview over 50 people within Dublin.

The second part of the 'in the wild' research is going to Enniscorthy. Half the class are talking a trip down there where a meeting is planned with Patrick from the EPA. They will also get a chance to speak to some of the locals so we would get an insight from people in rural Ireland, and what their thoughts are about air quality in Ireland.

The half that stayed in Dublin did some more user interviews, interviewed Martin Fitzgerald and Barbara O'Leary from the Dublin City Council, started working on the presentation for Friday and also started getting the studio ready for the visit.

at 16:45

Public Awareness Interviews

After splitting up into smaller work groups, my sub-group chose to work on conducting interviews with the public. We knew it would be important to interview members of the public to gain a better understanding of their existing knowledge about air pollution.

As a group we brainstormed ideas for our questionnaire as a group and wrote a short description to be signed by the participant which could inform them of the project's background and our motivations for conducting the interview.

We chose to include a mix of both open-ended questions which we hoped would allow for easy conversation, and more closed questions about participants knowledge of air pollution, their home heating habits, driving habits etc.

Our first two interviews resulted from talking to other students on campus. One participant knew a good deal about air pollution, while the other had very little knowledge about the subject. One team member interviewed the participant, while another took notes, and the final member photographed the interview.

After conducting these interviews we realised that we needed to also gain more insight into the attitudes and awareness levels of people living in rural areas, in regards to air quality. With this in mind we decided to make a trip to Edenderry, as it seemed to be one of the most accessible towns which was not included in the smoky coal ban. Edenderry was also an interesting location to visit as it is also home to a Bord na Móna power plant.

In Edenderry we found it difficult to talk to people and get them to agree to an interview as the weather was very poor at the time. In the end we managed to complete some long interviews with Edenderry residents. The overall consensus was that air pollution was not felt to be much of an issue in the area. Participants also didn't seem to have any issue with the power plant located near the town, or the traffic that is constantly moving through the main street. All interviewees felt that the air quality found in Edenderry is much better than air in Dublin. 

After returning to NCAD following this excursion we unpacked interview data, and revised the interview document to tailor the questions to a more urban population in order to prepare for the day of interviews which would take place the following Tuesday.