Fred Wordie Design for Experience - April 2016
Partick Pieces
Brief
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Initial Research
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Further Research
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Initial Idea
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Development
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Exploring Form
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Final Concept
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My Thoughts
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If the shifts, movements and influx of people continually shape a city, what does it look like beneath its physical surface? What forms the character of a particular neighbourhood and how do different kinds of people perceive it and relate to it? What kinds of experiences create meaningful connections between people and place? This project asks you to design a civic experience that directly responds to a particular area or neighbourhood of Glasgow. The experience should centre on the design, deployment and use of an artefact to promote a deeper level of engagement between people and the area or neighbourhood. 1
Initial Research Discovering & gathering insights on Partick & Hillhead For the first part of this project our group gathered information on Partick and Hillhead. I immediately devoted my attention to Partick as this was a completely new area to me unlike Hillhead. While researching Partick both online and by spending many hours in the area itself, I discovered a couple of insights that interested me. The first insight was that Partick is home to a lot of independent shops, both old and new. This was backed up by research showing that Partick had over the years fought many battles to stop big brands moving into the area. These small shops were collectively feeling threat-
ened from the impending threat of permitted parking coming to Partick. Shops in Partick had long benefited from the free parking in area, for customers shopping and for employees commuting. The next insight was that Partick was going through a series of changes, and slowly becoming a more trendy and student focused area like its neighbour Hillhead. This seemed to be mainly caused by the influx of new student halls being built in the area and a spill over from Byres Road. This was evident by the newer “cool� shops that have opened in Partick in the last few years. From here I chose to explore these insights in more depth by speaking to the business owners affected .
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Further Research Additional research from interviews with local shopkeepers in Partick. After deciding to focus my research on independent shops in Partick I conducted a series of interviews on a Hyndland Street. I spoke to a wide variety of vendors and noticed a big disparity between the old and new shops. This seemed to be mainly caused by a lack of communication between the old and the new. However, there was a definite sense of community between the shops and a loyalty to the area. One key example of this is Owen from “The Owen Binset Boutique”, who had set up a group to fight the proposed parking changes. As well as many shop keepers saying that they took pride in their street and organised yearly
clean ups. One thing that was evident was that every shop valued and enjoyed their loyal customers. They all strived for a more personal relation with their customers. This was clearly shown by Vincent, who claimed to have retired from being a butcher three years ago but was still open three times a week for his customers. Importantly there didn’t seem to be a huge amount of competition between the shops, with them all agreeing that if everyone on the street was doing well they would all benefit equally. This was even true amongst shops in the same line of business.
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Initial Idea Developing an idea for a loyalty card for the local shops of Partick. After speaking to the shop keepers of Hyndland, it became evident that some sort of loyalty incentive for shoppers would not only build on the strengths of the independent shops in Partick but also attract shoppers who were used to shopping at big brands (like Tesco). I then set about researching other examples of area loyalty cards and currency, including The Brixton Pound. I then developed a set of guidelines for what kind of system would benefit everyone in Partick. It would have to be controlled by a collective of partnering small shops, therefore shops rather than an outside company would have the power to set value. It would also have to strengthen not only customer loyalty but
also the relationship between shops. Thus when they wanted to fight something like the parking changes, they would already be in contact and it would be easy to organise their protest. From the consumers point of view, it would have to fit seamlessly into their schedule while being different to what was already in place. This meant it must fit in a wallet but never be an app. By having something physical to hand over, more meaning would go into the transaction and hopefully better relationships would form between people. I also wanted this loyalty system to benefit not just the consumer and shop owner but also the local area.
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Development Creating a few quick sketch models of broad initial ideas.
After researching and deciding on a concept I then explored a few broad forms. I decided not to explore a digital card or stamp book as these often have no personalty and seem to be forgotten in one’s wallet. The first concept (top left) was a system in which you need to collect all 8 pieces from 8 individual shops to claim a reward at any of the shops. Even though I liked this idea, feedback suggested it would be annoying for the user to carry around, while also being hard to make a fairly balanced cost-reward incentive for shops. The second concept (bottom right) fixed the balanc-
ing of cost and reward by having segments of the ring proportional to the amount spent at individual shops. However, it too seemed cumbersome to carry and hard to assemble on a shop counter. The form I decided to explore was a coin based system. Users would get tokens from different shops and then a set of these coins would equal rewards at other shops. For example buying a cake from “Cafezique”, some meat from “Vincent” and lunch at “Devil’s Deli” would equal a free muffin at “My Home Bakery”. This seemed the simplest of the 3 ideas and also the most usable.
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Exploring Form Looking more closely into how these coins would look and function. After deciding on a coin based loyalty system I then created many iterations of prototypes to hone in on a shape that was both unique and recognisable. I looked at many inspirations including Gaelic symbols, due to Partick’s strong Gaelic connection, and also Danish currency that allowed coins to be carried on strings. I settled on a 5 sided coin made from varnished MDF, this meant that the coins could be kept with you amongst
real currency but would instantly feel different to the touch. Most importantly it had the je ne sais quoi. Each shop is represented by its own unique icon cut out of the coin. By making them out of wood, they would also be easily produced by the shops and new businesses joining the partnership could make them. However, due to the laser cutting they would also be hard and expensive to forge.
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Final concept Refining my idea with the help of user journeys and personas. The final concept is a loyalty program that rewards both consumers, shops and the Partick community; The Partick Piece. The program would be controlled and managed by the local shops in Partick and be able to be used by anyone who frequents these shops. Users can collect Partick Pieces by spending money in local shops, and shops can offer custom rewards in exchange for a certain number of Partick Pieces. For example “Vincent” may offer £5 off in exchange for any 4 Partick Pieces or “Quidest” may offer a small bunch of flowers for 5 Partick Pieces. By letting the shops choose what to offer and for how much, they can choose the value of the Pieces while promoting special items. Helping the community was something both consum-
ers and shop keepers cared strongly about, so consumers can also donate their discount. This could take the form of consumers donating money equivalent to the discount they are receiving or via the shop keeper offering charity incentives such as “For every 100 donated Partick Pieces, we will donate £50 to...” By creating the loyalty between consumers and local shops, the hope is that better relationships will develop between these two community members. Likewise the shop keepers will have to return spent Partick Pieces to the respective shops and as such better bonds will form between shops. A video prototype was also produced showing a typical user journey and the bonds that would form along it.
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Spend
Collect
Collect Partick Pieces from any partnering shop in Partick.
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Spend money at independent shops to receive Partick Pieces.
The discussion form we designed to help the NHS get to the route of the issue.
Reward
Donate
You can even choose to donate your discount to local charities.
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Trade in your Partick Pieces to receive rewards from shops.
My Thoughts I feel this is one of my weakest concepts to date, and this is mainly due to not committing to the project from the start. I came into the project with a negative outlook and immediately failed to engage with the research phase of the project. This is partly due to issues I have with GSA and the course in general, but was my own fault for bringing these concerns into the project. However, it is hard to ignore them when the studio only has three people in it and tutorials don’t feel inclusive. This underdeveloped research then led to a concept that I don’t believe is particularly strong. However, I had to choose a concept to build on and hence I decided to focus on developing skills I have not always been strong at. This weakness was a performing a thorough experimentation of form and in this regard I am happy. Another thing that I regret doing in this project was not working more closely with the shops in Partick. In any other
project I would have strived to engage and work with the people I am designing for. However, I did not want to take up peoples’ time with a project I myself was not convinced about. To counter this, I opted to build persona based on interviews and then use these to question all of my work. This was definitely a compromise that damaged my work. To try and engage with my work I choose to develop my skills in communicating ideas. I challenged myself to photograph and film things in a way I usually wouldn’t. I think this technique paid off by the time I was developing my video prototype but appears immature in earlier development work. In conclusion this project was tough to get through, I did not enjoy or engage with it in a way I would have done earlier in the year. This resulted in an end product that I feel ambivalent towards but with personal skills that I developed through the project. 16