RED

Touching the State: User Research and Briefs

Last night we unveiled our research to date at the Touching the State:Work in Progress event. Presentations included an overview of citizenship from Ben Rogers of ippr and excerpts of research from Acacia Avenue into citizens' experiences of jury service, voting and the new citizenship ceremony. An audience of designers planning to enter the challenge and those involved in delivering current state-citizen encounters responded to a number of design briefs to have come out of the research so far with lively debate and some great ideas.

A write-up of the proceedings will be available here shortly for those of you who missed it.

In the meantime, on the Touching the State Design Challenge page, we've uploaded:

The full user research presentation, showing the experiences of 9 citizens

More focused briefs for the Design Challenge that have emerged from the research to date (you can still respond to the original one if you prefer)

Video clips of interviews with the citizens who participated in the research

Take a look - there's lots of rich material there to inform your contributions.

We will be uploading useful links for background projects and information as we find them, and transcripts of the interviews with the citizens are available on request.

If you haven't registered for the challenge yet, there's still plenty of time - deadline for contributions is July 19 and you can download the form here.

Good luck!

Jennie Winhall | LINK | BRIEFS + DESIGN CHALLENGE + TOUCHING THE STATE PROJECT | COMMENTS (0)

Touching the State: Work in Progress

We've uploaded a one-pager to the challenge page that introduces the concept of citizenship and it's significance today. We'll be being posting more background information this week and our user expereince research on the 23 June.

If you're a designer and haven't RSVP'd yet there is still time to register to attend our Touching the State: Work in Progress event at 6:30pm in the Design Council on 22 June. We'll be introducing RED, the Project, the challenge and our research to date. Email touchingthestate@designcouncil.org.uk to reserve a place.

Chris Vanstone | LINK | TOUCHING THE STATE PROJECT | COMMENTS (0)

BBC 'Napster' gets the go ahead

The BBC is pioneering new approach to public access rights based on the creative commons licence.

Using the internet, it offers rights holders the opportunity to release audio visual content for viewing, copying and sharing but with some rights reserved, such as commercial exploitation rights.

So, in the case of audio visual material, the public are allowed increased access but the exploitation of the same material in the commercial arena by rights holders is protected.

Via Demos Greenhouse

Chris Vanstone | LINK | OPEN SOURCE | COMMENTS (0)

Community-Supported Agriculture

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farms need to grow a wide variety of produce to meet the needs of their public membership, rather than catering to large-scale food distributors that demand huge supplies of one crop. In other words, CSAs lead to an increase in biodiversity...

Markd | LINK | AGRICULTURE AND FOOD | COMMENTS (0)

Idea: Voluntary Exchange of Citizenship

The countries of the World ought to let any two people voluntarily exchange their citizenships.

If this scheme were adopted, citizenships would become a tradeable commodity.

Markd | LINK | CITIZENSHIP | COMMENTS (0)

Idea: Drive through voting

To encourage more voters during elections local governments should institute drive through voting. Instead of getting fast food, you will be getting a fast vote.

Summarised from an idea posted on the Global Ideas Bank

Markd | LINK | CITIZENSHIP | COMMENTS (0)

FUSEDSPACE: New technology in/as a public space

View the 300 entries to this international design competition that's been run entirely online. Judges include our own Charles Leadbeater.

Chris Vanstone | LINK | URBAN REGENERATION & CITIES | COMMENTS (0)

Voting made complicated

If no candidate gets more than half of the first-choice votes, all candidates except the two with the most are ruled out of the contest.

Read a disection, on grounds of clarity, of the confusing guide to the london elections in G2.

Surely if voting becomes too difficult to comprehend then it looses it's value. What would voting look like if it was designed, from the perspective of the user, so those who vote were able to understand it?

Chris Vanstone | LINK | CITIZENSHIP | COMMENTS (0)