#smartcitizen

More typical neoliberal smart city discourse?

-  future seduction and gadget fetichism over concern with what kind of place the smart city would be to live -  insatiable hunger for total data centralisation (a fantasy?), control and market optimisation:

Well it is all go here at Changify HQ. On Thursday we hosted our first user test event with our friends at Rockets & Rascals. It was a great afternoon and it was so exciting to see people using the prototype app and interacting with other testers.

The Test:

Our aim for this event was to see the usability of the #SmarterStreets prototype for single-handed use and the navigation of the interface. We also wanted to test how it worked on different operating systems, its appeal across age groups and whether smartphone users and non-smartphone users were comfortable with it. We wanted to find out what they thought about the purpose of the platform, what they liked or disliked about the app and how easy it was for them to use. We were also interested in finding out from users how often they would prefer to be notified, and indeed what they wanted to be notified about. Another idea we were eager to get feedback on was the rewards program we are hoping to put into practice, whereby through using the app more and more, users receive points which can be exchanged at participating local businesses for goods such as a cup of coffee or a bike service. The last and very significant question we wanted answered by our user testers was, of course, whether they would recommend the app to their friends.

The version of the app that was presented to our user testers was a simple click-through prototype that demonstrated key user journeys and gave a sense of the style and interface that we hope to use in the real thing. The screens that users encountered included:

Setup and introduction

Follow suggestions

Creating a field report

Browsing field reports to vote on

Going into the field report in detail

Looking at a report status

Viewing a profile

Settings 

The Results: 

The response that we got from the testers was overwhelmingly positive. They were impressed by the interface and how easy the app was to navigate but had some difficulty understanding the scope of the prototype. 

“[The] design [is] very funky, clear, simple [and] playful”

 The idea of rewards was still new for many of the user testers. Some of the participants felt that by just seeing the roads improve would be sufficient encouragement for them.

“[I would be encouraged by] the feeling that it's contributing to livability in the city...I don't really need the carrot of points/rewards”

 We learnt a number of key things as a result of this first user test that will be highly useful going forward:

There were some smartphones, lesser known brands and older models, which were not as proficient at running the app as the operating systems we had used previously. We will work with our developers to ensure a wide range of smartphones is catered to and tested on.  

Some people struggled to understand that the prototype was simply that; they were expecting a fully functioning app. This should be explained better in future.

App permissions and notification preferences are something that a lot of people felt strongly about. We should aim to have these as customisable as possible, within reason.

The resounding result of the afternoon was that the testers couldn’t wait to get their hands on the real thing and everyone we met was keen to share it amongst friends and neighbours.

If you want to get involved please sign up to the trial on our website and come along to our next user test event on 12th May. 

To sign up for this event please click here. 

FOLLOW US: Remember to follow us on Twitter and Instagram and like our Facebook page for updates and to find out more about our other work.

My name is Laetitia Lucy and I have lived in Camberwell, a bustling enclave of southeast London, my whole life. When I was growing up, it was the sort of place in which walking home late at night alone might be considered dangerous, or you found yourself frustrated that the only food outlets were greasy kebab shops. My mother was a member of our local residents association and I remember the endless meetings held in our house about rubbish tipping, parking problems and graffiti. We would spend hours at the weekend posting flyers about the campaigns through letterboxes. This idea might seem antiquated but before the Internet getting people to engage in local issues was no easy feat.

In fact one of my favourite ideas that I have come across is the Social Street project that began in Bologna, Italy. The concept began when a young couple moved to a new neighbourhood and, not knowing any of the other residents, took a chance and posted flyers through letterboxes inviting people to join a closed Facebook group through which to make friends. The idea took off and is now being replicated in hundreds of communities around the world. You can read about Social Street in a NY Times article here. A simple concept, and yet one that addresses a number of issues seen in many regions, including Camberwell, such as maintaining a sense of community, tackling social isolation (particularly amongst the elderly usually excluded from the online social space) and encouraging a sharing economy. This is the sort of work that truly inspires me, and it is my hope that I can in the future replicate the Social Street here in my neighbourhood as a way of bringing a diverse and steadily changing population together.

In the last five years or so, Camberwell has most decidedly entered the up-and-coming stage of its development. While gentrification is a somewhat dirty word these days, it can bring a lot of opportunity to an area. Changify is an app that is making the most of colourful and enthusiastic communities across the world and I am thrilled to have joined the team as the Project Management Intern.

After leaving school, I went to the University of Bath where I studied Social Sciences, writing my dissertation on prisoner recidivism. Leaving university I found myself in a very tough job market, and decided to take a three-month position at Sotheby’s. The role was interesting and enjoyable but three years on from my initial contract, I couldn’t help feeling that there was something else out there. It was in October 2014 that I first became aware of the concept of a ‘smart city’ when I attended a lecture at the Barbican Centre entitled ‘Cities in the machine age: all systems, no soul?’ It was eye opening to say the least, and in March 2015 I quit my job to pursue a change in career into this fascinating and formative sector.

I took the liberty of travelling for nine months last year after leaving Sotheby’s and found myself in a vast array of cities across the world. This opportunity was invaluable; I saw the desperate conditions left after the August 2014 floods in Detroit, a city already plagued by abandoned buildings and social disharmony, I saw the high-rises soar in Hong Kong with buildings seemingly erected overnight in an already crowded landscape and I saw one of the first modern planned cities, Tel Aviv, which experienced unprecedented population growth from 2,000 residents in 1920 to 34,000 just five years later. Working for the charity All Hands Volunteers in Kathmandu helping to clear rubble in the aftermath of the two deadly earthquakes in April and May last year was a humbling experience. Coming from a country which is relatively unaffected by natural disasters, occasionally feeling tremors whilst we were working made me appreciate just how unpredictable and forbidding Earth can be.

My goal now is to get onto a Masters program in the autumn so that I can really find my feet in the theory of this complex and ever-changing world and understand what our future cities could look like as well as how change can be implemented. I was lucky enough to come across D4SC whilst studying a free Open University course online on the basic principals of Smart Cities. Learning that they were based in Camberwell only encouraged me further to approach Priya Prakash, the serial change agent, entrepreneur and founder of D4SC to ask if there was any way for me to get involved with the work they do. To see Priya in action, watch the amazing TED Talk she did last year in Hamburg here.

In the coming weeks I will be helping a lot with the Plymouth-based pilot program of our Changify app, which we will be launching in May. This Thursday we have our first user-testing event in Plymouth at Rockets & Rascals. We will be meeting the group of new users, getting to know them and gathering their ideas and feedback on the app. If you are based in Plymouth and want to get involved please feel free to come along and find out more about the pilot. You can find out more by clicking this link to our event page. Stay tuned for updates on the pilot program.

FOLLOW US: Remember to follow @Changify on Twitter and like our Facebook page for updates on our Plymouth pilot event and to find out more about our other work.

BOOK EVENT HERE: www.eventbrite.co.uk

VISIT US: www.changify.org