at 10:03

Team 1: Hi fidelity App development, physical artefact cast and Lap style user testing

Today was another busy day as Dublin Bike, Clean Link pushed forward in many areas of our design phase. We began looking towards high quality prototypes of all aspects of the design, while grounding all developments in user test, constantly bringing reiterating through tests from volunteers.

Our intention is to have a working example of the various different touches points ready to display by Monday 2pm.

Following on from a lo-fidelity paper prototype app click through, realised in Marvel app, we pushed on towards a more finished mobile application which will then be made interactive through Principle.

This time consuming process was highly rewarding as we ironed out the issues that had arisen from early iterations and sketches. We began to gain a better feel for how the feature would be perceived by the public within a new version of the Dublin Bike App.

Down in the workshop, we began to work with the Cellacast cast of the bicycle dash-board that we had made, which was taken forward to a 2 part plaster mould to be vacuum formed in plastic, to house our programmed LED interaction. This was a laborious process to take the initial cast to a state that was able to take the liquid plaster pour. Creating a bed of clay around the cast and building up the walls to have a flat backed finish on each side of the plaster moulds.

In the evening it came time for a lab style test of the LED navigation tool. The product is intended to be used out on the road with a lot of variables and unpredictability, this threw up difficulty in testing. We felt the easiest way to recreate the experience in a safe manner and enabling us to take the navigation out of the control of the tester and place it on the bike so the cyclist must follow the LED instructions, was to head out a get some GoPro footage of a route. Bringing this back into the studio and projecting onto the wall, we set up an elaborate bike rig to so user can have the feel of taking to the streets with Dublin Bike, Clean Link.

Even with all our preparation, users were encouraged to keep in mind that the bike they were using was not a Dublin Bike, 3 speed cruiser, which has the cyclist in a more upright seated position. Another disturbance to the testers experience was that the projected screen had the road appear at disorientating sharp angle. With these taken into consideration, we were given brilliant insight into the overall feel of the navigation tool. 

We now continue and move forward to correct issues highlighted and realise a high degree of finish to all our touch points.......

at 09:54

Team 1: Pushing forward, User Testing and Implementing Final Iterations

Today we pushed forward on the exploration of a next generation version of the Dublin Bike, which caters to the most vulnerable road users to Air Pollution, inner city cyclists.

Dublin Bike, Clean Link: The bicycle navigation tool that allows users to choose cleaner routes to get to their destination and an additional app feature which enables the commuter to plot their path prior to collection of the bike. For interested members of the public there is a detailed break down of the stats of each route, the red route being the quickest path to the station and the green route being the cleanest. For the novice user the simple choice of 2 paths offers an alternative to the quickest route, which will gently entice cyclist to be more conscious of emissions on the road, that air quality changes and has an impact on health.

The day began by having a lengthy discussion about the details of both the interface on the dashboard of the bicycle, and operation of the Clean Link feature within the Dublin Bike mobile Application. We imagine that the version 2 of Dublin Bike would be part designed in conjunction and under the guidance of the EPA.
We sketched ideas and brought these together to settle on the final design.

With the help of our technician Ed Devane we quickly programmed the interactions of the dashboard LED navigation display, to enable the team to user-test the concept. This was realised in two iterations, the initial version was hacked using handle-bar mounted lights for night time illumination of a cyclist. Once we had this prototype operating we brought it to the Dublin Bike, and based off feedback came back to the studio to begin the build of a more hi-fidelity navigation tool. This is how we imagine the final design would look. 

Deciding upon the colour sequence, we believe the centre 6 lights in green give a intuitive direction to follow forward (Green for proceed). The yellow rows of lights on the left and right, alert a user that a turn is approaching, yellow being the symbol for decrease speed, preparing to make a turn.


Our next aim was to try and replicate the
dash-board of the Dublin Bike which will have the circuit board incorporated into it, this process consisted of taking a first mould from the bicycle
 using  rolls Cellacast.

In the mean time, we began to digitise all of the Design tools that we had used to test and explore the service. Testing this design against our primary user ( from our personas the design is specifically looking to target Stephen and Claire) and the context of use of our product. This involved a service blueprint, heuristic evaluation and persona scenarios.

We also began the process of using Adobe After Effects as a way of demonstrating the functions of our design, as many of our early user testing has required the tester to self direct the navigation tool.  This is a problem that we believe through careful thought, a projector and a static cycle bike we can over come to get the best insights from users........

at 20:20

Team 3: Developing the prototype - week 5

We arrived to the studio at the beginning of week 5 and came together to iron out the final details about the form of our piece, the materials is would be made with, the mechanics of how it would work, its scale etc.

After a lot of discussion we decided to stick with the tree form, specifically an abstract angular tree. We also agreed that the piece should have a strong base to support it, and that the Airen 'tree' trunk should be encased in perspex. The rational behind creating a secure base for the piece would be to protect the public, and the piece itself from damage or injury. This enclosure would be hexagonal, so that information about the six different pollutants being monitored could be explained in further detail on the piece. We plan for the information to be etched onto the perspex casing.

We realised that enclosing the tree may encourage people to litter, so we designed a hexagonal pyramid shape to sit on top of the case. This pyramid would fit tightly around the tree trunk so that there would be no space for anything to get in or out.

I created a 3D model of what this form may look like using Rhino3D. Seeing the form helped us to visualise the scale of the product and the materials.

We also created a mock twitter account using a template, to show what Airen's online presence might look like.

After completing all this preparation work we began to source materials to use for the next day, when we would begin building the Airen tree.

at 18:33

Team 2: EEK Kit Contents

Pack 1:

Pack 1, the first pack that the students receive, includes activities and fun experiments that eases and slowly introduces the students to Air Quality. This is the pack that we decided to concentrate on and develop the most. Along with all the packs comes a website that the students can log their activities and collections to share with their parents and the rest of the community. This pack contains:

• Catching Air Activity: vaseline and card (main activity) where the students spread some vaseline on the card and hang it outside in various locations around the school/ home. After a few days they inspect the cards for particulate matter they may have collected.
• Paper Pinwheel Activity: paper pinwheel with its arm and leg that need to be assembled. This helps understand air by making it visible.
• Lichen Spray
• Data Paint: visualising data by using paint. Introduction to data.
• Instruction Cards: each pack contains instruction cards that the students will use as a step-by-step guide for the activities.

Pack 1

Pack 2:

I won't go into a lot of detail in this pack or the third pack. The main activity in the second pack are the NOx Air Quality Monitoring tubes that the students can leave around the school/ home to collect NOx samples. This will lead to a brief introduction about the EPA and also an opportunity to start mapping the area for the rest of the community to see. Other activities that might be included would link to the previous pack, for example, documentation of the growing lichen.

Pack 2

Pack 3:

The third pack is the final pack, received during the third school term after having completed the previous two. This is a more advanced pack and it contains sensors that the students can use at school/ home to collect data. This will be further linked into the EPA and data collection. It carries on previous activities by making them more advanced. 

Pack 3

After finishing the 3 packs, after getting feedback from teachers, we decided to not have a reward system. The teachers that we spoke to already had their own reward systems within the class/ school. We are considering various end-of-year exhibitions, showcasing student's work, individual certificates that the students might get and some prizes given out on Sport's Day for best project etc.

at 16:50

Team 1 - User Testing

Back from a weekend of working our concept into an interactive smart glass map above a tactile model which involved testing how the interactive glass would look in after effects.

 We began today by going out into the wild to user test our interactive air quality map with members of the public to gauge their reaction and see what features they would like included or removed.

This process was very helpful and gave us tones of useful feedback and insights about the product.

The public seemed very enthusiastic and yet once brought back to the drawing board we had a good hard look at the concept and felt that it was drifting from the brief of raising awareness of air quality as the more features we added we found the impact of it's air quality capabilities were drifting into the background somewhat.

We called a meeting with our peers in the class in the afternoon to consult them about our fears surrounding our concept. Following a long and helpful conservation, we have decided to change our concept to bring it back more in line with the brief while retaining the core idea of providing air quality data for Dublin bike users in a way that would make the data more meaningful to them.

This will take the form of an app that will allow the user to choose the quickest or the AQ beneficial route to their destination which will then link into the bike as previously with a handlebar light display guiding them to their destination based on the decision they made when picking their route with the app. We look forward to bringing this concept through to our final presentation and doing the large amount of work that has gone into this brief justice.

at 09:50

Team 3 Branding and Colour Palettes

Today we aimed to look at the branding and colour palettes that we aimed to use for Airen our design solution for the EPA and Intel. We examined a number of colour palettes using mood boards and Adobe Colour Palette Selection. We aimed to find a soft colour palette which would also work nicely with the EPA's existing overall branding. We found a nice palette which would wok in this way called pear fizz shown below:

From here, we were able to begin Logo design and Avatar development for our online persona and twitter touchpoint to the project. 

We played around with a number of fonts and colours for both the Avatar and the online persona. Shown below is Airen our online Avatar:

Incorporated into his design is the EPA logo and he is modelled off the sign for an information point. We kept within our colour palette in our design and tried to keep a friendly quirky appearance overall.

The logo we chose to go with also incorporated Airen our little avatar and is shown below. This will be the branding for our final product.

at 15:25

Team 2: Teacher Reviews of the Kit

After figuring out the pack contents we got a group of Primary and Secondary school teachers to come in and review the pack and the idea of our service. We got some really great feedback on how this could be rolled out into schools and also what kind of engagement the students might have, whether they would want to engage with this at all. Our chat with the teachers reinforced our selection of the 5th/ 6th class age group.

Meanwhile we also arranged to go to a local school to speak to a 6th class teacher and to run the Vaseline and card/ jar activity with the class. 

We divided ourselves up: 3 people would run the activity with a group of students and one person would be filming. We prepared a pack for each of us to take. Each pack contained vaseline, jars, card and string. 

The teacher introduced the activity to the class by asking what they thought the phrase "a breath of fresh air" meant. The way we ran the activity was we got each student to put their names on their card/ jar and tie a piece of string on the card. We then went outside into 3 different areas of the school playground and here the students put vaseline on their cards and jars. They then found a spot to hang the cards and place the jars, noting down their locations. The children were all curious as to what we were doing and why, and some of them, surprisingly enough, knew a lot about air quality already.

We are hoping to go back to the school before our final presentation to get the cards back and see if they collected any data. Overall both the students and teacher enjoyed the activity. It did not take up too much time and it was great for us to see it in a real life context.