National Trust

How do you encourage city centre residents in Manchester to spend more time in green spaces using digital means?

This was a student brief run with the National Trust. We worked in a 3 week design sprint covering discovery to testing a prototype with members of the public before delivering a pitch to the National Trust.

Summary

User research | Service Design | Community Engagement

Hyper Island

February 2022 - 3 weeks

Design sprint in a team – Meha Hindocha, Julia Joó, Degmo Daar, Janne Kallinen

Outcome

We designed a pop up stand and gained an emphatically positive response from residents regarding a community led initiative and willingness to visit green spaces they felt connected to.

Feedback at the pitch from community engagement and environment experts commended the concept for its uniqueness and how it could be developed to engage residents.

How we tackled the project

We designed a service exploring community engagement and ways in which to engage communities in the long term. The Design Council take inspiration from Circular design putting the planet and people at the centre of their Beyond Net Zero model. This was particularly important as our conversations as a team had explored how residents could be inspired to take ownership of green spaces in the long run. We discussed the importance of building heritage and the role of the National Trust in leading this, telling residents stories, connecting people and with their vision and expertise guiding that change long term.

As the team discussed scalability and building loyalty and advocacy this fed into the circular loop of involving residents with this project regularly.

Framework: Design Council's Beyond net zero Double Diamond (2021).

Overview

The goal of the project was to explore digital ways of connecting residents to green spaces, however residents we interviewed didn't tend to use any digital tools to find green spaces. As we dug deeper into the research we discovered that Manchester's green spaces aren't particularly welcoming (litter, public drug use, noisy) and were quite hard o find. We dug deeper into what users considered a good green space and built our ideas upon engaging residents to get involved with designing green spaces and forming connections with them.

Project Goals

Explore digital approaches to connecting city centre residents with green spaces
Design a project that could be piloted at the Castlefield Viaduct (a space the National Trust had applied for funding to redevelop)

Business Challenges

Manchester city centre residents have very little access to green space in the city centre (private gardens or parks)
Residents were dissatisfied with existing green spaces
Residents had a lack of time and awareness of green spaces

User Difficulties

No budget was available to conduct research or pay users for their time in the research
Residents don't engage with digital tools to find green spaces in the city centre
The green spaces we explored were generally empty

Explore & Reframe

Tools: Mural

Explore

Semi structure user interviews and guerilla interviews in and around green spaces
Analysis of quantitative data from research done by National Trust
Data Walks - Exploration of Manchester's green spaces

Reframe

Sequential question and insight diagram
User journey map
Empathy maps
Synthesis, clustering themes
Development of How Might We

Create & Catalyse

Create

Crazy 8s ideation
Scripts & storyboards
Alignment

Catalyse

Ethical and wider picture considerations
Development of prototype
Test with members of the public
Iterate
Service design considerations:
- Making residents aware of project
- Engagement and encouragement to participate in green space development
- Creating a sense of ownership and belonging

Circular design

Development of pitch

Story telling
Loyalty & Advocacy
- Brand ambassadors
- Residents take ownership
Scalability
- Annual Plant Your Memory day
- International reach
Road map

Plant Your Memory Concept

At pop up events residents would be asked to:

1. Sign up to the Plant Your Memory site

2. Share a memory

3. Plant seeds into a pot and name their plant

4. A photograph of the resident and their plant is shared to a digital platform

5. A physical keepsake of the photograph is given to residents to take home.

After the event residents could access the location of their plant and information about the growing trail, along with upcoming events, online or on the PYM social media links.

ACTIONS

Our Crazy 8s ideation led to the creation of Plant Your Memory (PYM) as a way of connecting residents with green spaces in Manchester. I have provided images below showing a sketch of the steps involved for PYM and the service blueprint.

We prototyped a pop up stand and tested the concept with residents on a rainy day in Manchester, I have provided an image with feedback from users.

Plant Your Memory pop-up stand with feedback from residents during testing. 15 people participated over a 45 minute time period on a rainy day in Manchester city centre.

Digitial Design

Following the pitch with the National Trust and further feedback from industry leaders I worked on the digital element of the service and have developed low fidelity wireframe sketches and mid fidelity wireframes using Figma.

Low Fidelity Wireframes

Initial sketches

Impact & Reflections

Impact

Using a pop up stand we gained an emphatically positive response from residents regarding a community led initiative and willingness to visit green spaces they felt connected to.

Feedback at the pitch from community engagement and environment experts commended the concept for its uniqueness and how it could be developed to engage residents. At the Castlefield Viaduct pilot project the National Trust have been working with residents to grow new plants at the site.

My Role

Analysing quantitative data to provide a starting point for interviews with users
Designing interview questions, conducting semi structured and geurilla interviews
Synthesising information, development of empathy maps and How Might We problem statements
Crazy 8s ideation, promoting the concept of Plant Your Memory to the group and gaining alignment for the idea
Sketching and developing the prototype concept, testing with users and iterating
Developing a story based on user interaction along with a roadmap for the pitch.

Reflection

Project reflection

A key reflection the team made during our research was that potential green space sites tended to be owned by property development companies and some by the council. There appeared to be little connection or sense of heritage around spaces in the centre. Residents passed through green spaces, didn't actively seek them out or go out of their way to engage with them. Manchester city centre is an urban landscape largely void of green spaces. When we began the project we considered nature as a stakeholder as well as residents. One resident we interviewed said they wanted to hear the sounds of nature and feel like they weren't in the city centre. General consensus was that existing green spaces were too noisy or littered and not multi functional. A number of the nicer green spaces were also empty. Our research was developed to understand how could we build a sense of connection between green spaces and residents. What would encourage them to visit green spaces? How could they also take control of this in order to develop green spaces they liked and felt comfortable in.

Another consideration when using digital tools was not alienating any users that did not feel comfortable with digital tools or didn't have access to the internet. Our solution was developed with inclusivity as key parameter. The use of digital screens along side plants enabled us to into account user feedback of wanting interactive elements to engage children or users. Development of a trail would encourage users to explore green spaces further, using portraits of residents on the digital screens another insight taken from our research was to show the variety of people that reside in the city centre and aim to make it more welcoming to residents that related to them.

Personal Reflection & takeaway

My first observation after this project was that digital tools need to be useful to a project and there must be a need for them prior to development. Digital tools can feel exclusive for users that don't have access to devices or the internet. A solution that can allow anyone to engage with a service was my biggest takeaway from this project.

Using the Design Council's circular design framework encouraged me to zoom out, develop a narrative and explore ways the community could rebuild the ecosystem for the future and engage the community to continue regenerating it. I felt particularly inspired by co-design and have further explored best practices, opportunities and challenges of engaging users in co-design projects since this project.