#1 BRIEF

Followed the theme of CHI 2018 and its guideline: engage communities. Set the target community, goal, and deadlines.

#2 USER RESEARCH

Interviewed, observed and volunteered in the community, and analysed the stakeholders’ needs through the engagements.

#3 IDEA GENERATION

Came up with an final idea, the leaves, by rapid ideation, story boarding, wireframing, group discussions and creating the information structure.

#4 PROTOTYPING

Created both physical prototype, a 3D printed leave-like device, and video prototypes, demonstrating the interaction design.

#5 EVALUATION

Conducted Wizard of Oz method to test the prototypes in UCL campus.

Interview

My group and I visited both community gardens to chat with the owners. After that, we conducted a couple of semi-structured interviews and volunteered in the gardens, to take part in the daily tasks. 

Through the interviews, we formed a basic understanding about community gardens and the problem they were struggled with. Moreover, volunteered in the gardens, we got an insight by participated in the tasks, observed and interacted with the members.

A.E.I.O.U. framework

I led two discussions organising the information we’ve got. We categorised the keywords we noted down into Activity, Environment, Interaction, Object, and User, and linked their relationships. 

We found that:
1  The gardens needed more fundings.
2  The gardens are well aware but not many people actually engaged.
They especially hoped to engage more young people.

Giant leaf-like device

I brought the ideas to the group meeting. We came into an agreement and combined our ideas into our first version of The-Leaves, which was a giant leaf-like device planted outside the garden, offered people chances to volunteer in the community garden, and make a quick donation. The leaf-like device would also be lit up in a little degree after someone engaged in the garden, showing the engaging progress of the day.

IDEA GENERATION

Based on user research results, we began the design process.

The design would be aimed to:
1  Raise the awareness toward the community garden in the surrounding park.
2  Engage more local people to the community garden.

I did several rapid sketching practices and had thought of interaction features, such as touch sensor, motion sensor, and gardening tools, that could be used in the physical interaction device we were looking forward to tackle the user’s need.

Storyboard

Conducting the findings we saw and experienced outside the community garden, I created three storyboards with three senior often seen in the park. This helped me to form a more complete picture on what our device should be like.

Information Structure

The application was designed for garden visitors to register for volunteer works and make donations. With the wireframes made by other team members, I created the information structure of the application.

There were two features in this application:
1 Volunteer works registration and the feedback when the works were completed.
2 A quick donation process for the passerby.

Physical prototype

Due to its complicated features, including a interface, buttons, and motion sensor light, we decided to skip a low fidelity prototype, and print a 1:1 Little-Leaf physical prototype instead, which the side with a screen would be the Big-Leaf’s prototype. We created the blue print with Tinkercad, and printed with white PLA. 

We used iPhoneSE as the touchscreen, and controlled an LED wire manually as demonstrating the motion sensor light on the Little-Leaf, and the light-up interaction on the Big-Leaf.

Task completion light-up

In our design, the Big-Leaf will light up when a user pressed the button after completing a task. I therefore filmed the light-up process, and added a photo of our group member as a scale. Also, showed the corresponded interface on the side.

Motion sensor light

This showed how the Big-Leaf echos a Little-Leaf’s sensor light. I filmed the light-up process of the physical prototype which was put behind bushes that would made it seems large and far away, and added the picture of the prototype in the front, illustrating the Little-Leaf.

Most of the scenes were filmed by one of the group members, and the video was edited by me.