This is an exploratory prototyping exercise for the Futurelab project Pleasurable Cities. It uses Google Maps to explore the ways in which some of the tools might work. More background, team communications and the project calendar are available on the project extranet (login required).
Please report bugs to me.
N.B. The main interface to the application for the student researchers will be via SMS/MMS.
Todo:
N.B. All of this information is provisional and subject to change. It is included here solely to give context to the exploratory prototyping activity.
Pleasurable Cities is a NESTA Futurelab project to develop interoperable technologies that would support young people in actively and critically engaging, with their built environment and urban policy making.
Pulling together recent research and development in open mapping, geo data, semantic web, social software and active posters the aim of the project is to ‘reclaim the streets’ and give ‘power to the people’ to construct, refine and realise maps of their (urban, physical, social) environment(s); make those models public, share them with others, and to take ownership of, interest in and responsibility for the future evolution of their environments on a local level.
They will be provided with:
The stickers serve to tie the digital annotations to the real world sites to which they refer and also as visual markers of interest or strength of feeling amongst the core group.
A public facing website with an interactive map/siteplan which locates and provides access to the annotations generated by the student research group and their associated conversations.
A toolkit which can be reused with other communities, ideally Open Source, including the following components:
Student researchers will be able to annotate places on the map with textual comments (and potentially other media, if deemed appropriate).
This can be done either by logging on to the website using a pc or laptop from a desk — or in the field using a cameraphone and the preprinted stickers.
Suppose whilst out in the field a student, Jo, sees something she wishes to comment on — perhaps an alleyway which is slated for closure as part of the redevelopment. She takes one of her stickers and places it somewhere visible on or close to the feature of the environment she wishes to annotate. She then points her phone at the sticker, which encodes the address to which the annotation will be uploaded, writes a text message on her phone and hits send. Immediately the annotation is visible to anybody who visits the public website or who snaps the physical sticker on their cameraphone.
Later that day one of the other student researchers, Pat, is passing and notices the sticker. He snaps the sticker with his phone and receives a text containing Jo's note. He feels strongly about Jo's suggestion and he replies to the message with a comment of his own which is automatically added to the site as a comment on Jo's earlier post.
The public i.e. the wider community and decision makers, will not form part of the core group and will not have the same ownership of the site content. Although their interaction with the project might be confined largely to the website they might also be able to comment on the annotations made by the students via their cameraphone, if they have one. The student authors would have the ability to moderate (delete) any inappropriate comments.
As well as the ever growing annotated map the public website could contain significant background material available made available by the community centre or other stakeholders.
Members of the public will be able to add moderated comments to the conversations attached to the map.