REDESIGNING CONSULTATION. Engaging Teens in Urban Planning.
Four week group project.
A Playful City is a non for profit organisation advocating for more playful urban interventions. They believe a city is for everyone, where all participants should actively partake in the design of their city. However, they struggled to engage teens and gain meaningful insights from their demographic. In total we held six workshops in two different locations. The final result was a report on our findings, a tried and tested framework, activities which gave meaningful insights, and a set of open-ended tools to help teens engage and express themselves in the process of urban planning; designing a city for them, with them.
Learning Outcomes; Research, Co-Creation, Co-Ordinating Workshops, Experience Prototyping, Iteration, Graphic Design.
AIM
As a class of fifteen, our aim was to evaluate A Playful City's (APC) current methods for engaging and consulting the public, in a bid to improve and build upon them.
RESEARCH
As a collective group, our starting point was to test trial and breakdown APCs current methods. This involved unpacking their consultation device The Spiel Mobile - a portable, fold out wooden frame designed to engage the public. We set up the Spiel Mobile in various locations across Dublin to see how it worked.
Hello Lamppost | Brighton
Kids Tracks | Online reseach
Superflux | Play as reseach
Talking to local teens
We also did some online research reviewing notable consultation projects looking at current consulting techniques and technologies.
FINDINGS
-- Residents felt their opinions didn't matter. The general public did not trust the consultation process and cited it as a waste of time.
-- Even though most residents claimed they were involved at the early stages of the process, they felt it wasn't enough as they were not involved and often lacked information on the latter stages. The end result lacked any real value for the resident.
-- Often residents would refer to a local man (or a local hero) who was heavily involved in the local community. He was often seen as the bridge in gaining trust with the wider community.
-- APC struggled to reach teens. Previous attempts to engage the wider public had failed on teens, leaving their demographic under represented. They needed to go one step further with teenagers and meet them where they were at.
-- Speaking with an APC team member who had previous ran a workshop with teens, she cited how difficult it was to effectively communicate with them. When asking for information on what they would like for their city, they would often draw a blank.
As a group of three we decided to tackle APCs most difficult demographic - teenagers.
HOW MIGHT WE
Develop a framework to engage and empower teens in the debate of urban planning?
FURTHER RESEARCH
From here we narrowed our focus on the teenage demographic. We spoke to local heros who had experience in working with teens in a day to day setting, for instance in schools and youth clubs and those who had worked with teens in the consultation process. These interviews gave us great insight into working with teens.
From all our research we designed a set of guiding principles.
From our early research we learned that the process is not linear, but a loop. In order for teens to get a sense of ownership, it was important that they were involved at every stage of the process. We designed a framework for APC to do this. For this project we decided to focus on the first two phases of the loop - namely Initial Contact and Continued Research.
TOUCHPOINTS
It was important to meet teens where they were already at. For this reason we explored a number of touchpoints in a bid to connect with teens. This involved workshops run in local schools and youth clubs, physical artefacts to be left in areas popular with teens - such as local parks and hangout areas and online via popular social media sites.
THE WORKSHOPS
We started with the first phase Initial Contact which was to run a workshop with teens in their local school or youth club. These were usually run in conjunction with an existing local hero in the establishment. We set out with three questions: What do teens think about their area? How do teens use their area? and What did teens want from their area? We designed a set of activities and tools around these three questions.
Introducing ourselves
Ice breaker - making aeroplanes
An Ice Breaker was used to introduce ourselves and breakdown barriers. In schools this was important particularly in order to distinguish ourselves from the teachers and create an informal setting. It was important that students could express their thoughts and opinions freely.
Mapping out how they used their area
Using the provided stickers to show how they felt about certain areas
Maps of their local area and emjoi-like stickers were used to understand how they used their area, where they went and avoided.
Drawing out ideas for their local area
Drawing out ideas for their local area
Participants were then asked to come up with ideas for what their area needed. Then then built these ideas with specifically designed open-end cardboards pieces that slotted together.
Building their ideas using our open-end tools
Building their ideas using our open-end tools
Building a swimming pool
Building out their ideas
KEY FINDINGS
In total we ran the workshop four times, inbetween testing, we analysed the results, refining and iterating the design each time.
-- Participants struggled to understand what to highlight on the map. We introduced a legend in the corner of the map to give them a sense of direction.
-- The maps proved as an effective tool to allow teens to reflect on how they use their environment.
-- The stickers were a great conversation starter. However due to the limited coordinators running the workshop, we needed another way to catch the why behind a given sticker. We redesigned the stickers to incorporate this.
-- Teens needed help with ideas. At first they presented ideas that already existed, however given a little bit inspiration helped to really sparked their imaginations. A set of introduction posters were designed to help inspire teens.
-- The open-end tools proved to be too open and in the end a bit of a distraction. Participants spent too long working out the mechanics of building rather than conveying their idea. A new set of cardboard tools were designed to help aid expression. Participants could draw on and use generic shapes to convey their ideas.
Redesigning the cardboard tools to help aid expression
The new cardboard design
-- It was important teens were put into groups to bounce ideas off each other, however we found groups should be kept to 3-4 people. If they exceed this, usually the 5th or 6th participant would disengage.
ONLINE
After each workshop we asked paricpaints to follow us on the social media platform Instagram. We gave them a cultural probe pack to encourage them to get out and about, reporting to us on instagram of potential areas for improvement or for further feedback on their area. We posted their ideas online and daily inspiration of playful design interventions and international urban design projects. Using polls and other forms of social media interaction we aimed to openly share opinions, engaging teens online in the debate of urban planning.
Insta cut outs for our cultural probe pack
A post on our social media of daily inspiration for playful interventions
Idea of a basketball bin for a bus stop generated at one of the workshops
Promoting these ideas on social media
PHYSICAL ARTEFACTS
We also designed a set of free standing cultural probes. The first consisted of a giant shopping list for your area and the second a blank picture frame where the public were invited to draw what they would like to see in the frames area.
Unfortunately these artefacts were easily subjected to vandalism and returned very little valuable insights. Due to time limitations we decided to concentrate on the more successful forms of engagement, namely the workshops and online.
Making the wooden frame
The giant shopping list
Leaving the frame in the youth centre
FINAL OUTPUT
Our final result consisted of:
1. A visual report which analysed of our findings.
2. A set of manuals for both phases, with recommendations and useful tips for running each phase and compiling findings.
3. A set of manuals and printable blueprints for each activity of the workshop.
Below is a video explaining our process.
To review the report please click on the below picture.
