Women Safety (NL)

Final concept

The final concept has been decided on, but before discussing this, the other 2 concepts should be discussed.

Concept 1: Jullie Buurt.

This concept entails a workshop for people from a specific neighbourhood in Nieuw West where they make lamps together from recycled materials in order to get more agency, improve the environment and get to know their neighbours. During the workshops, discussions can be started about problems in the neighbourhood. Figure 1 shows how the lamps would be spread around the neighbourhood and improve the atmosphere.

Why?

The workshop improves the feeling of safety in the neighbourhood, because neighbours get to know each other. It will improve the feeling of safety in public space, since lamps enhance the overview of the neighbourhood. It will be for women, but not only for women, since everyone can be a part of the workshop.

From research, it became clear that social cohesion is an important factor that can influence the feeling of safety. When neighbours know each other, they will ask for help more quickly and this is useful for when someone is in danger. Also, the policy advisor of Nieuw West told us that you have to give people agency which will make sure they’re involved. That is what is done by the workshop, which is bottom up approach. The lamps will improve the feeling of safety in the environment, since light has a positive influence on the feeling of safety. Research also showed that some problems remain undiscussed in a lot of neighbours which can be made possible during the workshops. An example of this can be different opinions on waste on the streets. When people will discuss this, there will be no more problems with it.

Figure 1: Jullie Buurt

Concept 2: TouchéBag

It is an accessory for a bag which provides haptic feedback (vibration) when in close proximity to a neighbour. The accessory has 3 LED lights which would start blinking when the residential address of the user matches with one of their neighbours. When there is a positive match for the building number/neighbourhood, the ToucheBag accessory would vibrate giving users the information that the person close to them is their neighbour. Therefore they could initiate the conversation with their neighbours. This in turn would increase the interaction amongst neighbours and help in community building.

Concept 3: Posture aroma

A PostureAroma is a wearable device which can be worn around the neck. Good Aroma is emitted from the device when the user has a bad posture. It informs the user for the good posture naturally, not obtrusively. In this concept, the mechanism will be automatic to detect the posture and emitting aroma. The design of the necklace and posture detection will be the major factors, the user will not have any connection with other users having the same necklace. In Figure the effect of the posturaoma can be seen. First the use walks benede and feels less confident. then she wears the aroma necklace which will emit an aroma after having detected the posture. The user now stands up straight which makes her feel more confident and therefore more safe.

Final concept

For the final concept, we chose the Posture aroma for several reasons. First of all the feedback from the users was mostly positive. These are some of the most important points: if it works it would be ideal, since it would be really helpful for people who feel insecure. One woman attended a lot of self defence classes and told us that standing up straight is a big part of those courses. This is because when you stand straight, you get a better overview. Also, because if you walk slouched, you are considered a victim. One of them also thought that the good fragrance will make you forget about feeling safe. Women also liked it that it doesn’t draw much attention. One also liked it that it had effect on herself which she liked better compared to the touche bag which needs other people to make the concept effective.

The weaknesses of this necklace are that it might be easily breakable and not easily incorperated in daily routine. Also some women might not like aroma. The biggest problem is that the feedback system will be a challenge to create. Although there are a lot of weaknesses, there are also a lot of strengths. One of the most important strengths is that it doesn’t impose a sexual morality like a chastity belt type wearable. This means that it is not defensive, but it includes a positive approach since pleasant things are added. It is also very innovative, since it is a really different approach compared to existing solutions. Also, it is not space specific. It is also specifically for women.

Interaction Design Workshop bij Flin Nortier (November 4)

Flin Nortier works as an interaction designer at Soda Studio. He visited MediaLAB to tell us about this, which resulted in an assignment which taught us how to take the feelings of the user into account.

Update of our concepts

Before explaining what we did during the workshop, the current state of our concepts has to be made clear. At the moment we are a bit lost, since none of our concepts seem to be fantastic. It feels like we need to look into another direction which is why Robbert Ritmeester (teacher Interactive Media at the HvA) came in to talk to us yesterday. He threw us back to the beginning of the process by looking at the assignment that CISCO gave us. At first, this was confusing, but then we understood that we should go back in order to get a new perspective. This is why at the moment we put our concepts in the fridge and have to think more about it in a different way. Robbert will come back to get us to the next step. During the interaction design workshop, we were supposed to use one of our concepts, but we could not do this.

What did we have to do during the workshop?

During the workshop, we were supposed to look at the core of one concept and think of one user scene. So, to take an example, the Cinekid team looked at the first time that a kid would use their game. The following process was considered when the user would use the product:

1.Moment

2.Response

3.Design solutions

We were supposed to first describe a moment in the process of using the product. Then we were to think of the emotional response of the user after which we had to think of design solutions.

What we really did

Moment

We could not use one of our concepts, since we need some new perspectives. That’s why Flin thought of the idea of considering the needs of a woman when she is in a certain situation. We thought of a woman walking home, but she has to pass a group of guys hanging around. What is her need at this moment?

Figure 1: A drawing of our user moment

Response

She doesn’t want to walk around them, because that would mean that she gives in. But it depends on her personality, because she might also choose to take another route. She would like to have someone else with her, so she feels more safe. She might also take into account that her stuff can be stolen, so she thinks of where she keeps her valuables. Some of us thought she would turn off her music, so she could hear what is happening, but others thought she would turn it on in order to get distracted. It can also be that she acts as if she doesn’t care that the guys are there, so they won’t bother her.

Design solutions

One way of making the women feel less scared we could have humor as a solution. We can also improve her confidence. But how can we do this? In order to put humour into the solution we could for example play a song, give the woman a silly walking assignment, make a weird noise or wear weird clothes (based on the story of Henriette van der Linden during which one of her friends went to New York all dressed up in a weird way so she wouldn’t be bothered by guys) Or to make her more confident, she can get the assignment to change her walking style, she could call someone, get to know the guys hanging around, start singing, or win a game.

What we learned

We did not come up with actual concepts, but it made us think about the problem all over again. It was useful to think of the needs of the woman in a specific situation. We thought of some different ideas like humor, which got us a little tiny bit further. We still need some sort of change in our way of thinking, so we don’t end up at the same kind of ideas. This was a step towards our different kind of thinking, but we need more help of Robbert to steer us in the right direction.

Problem definition workshop (September 11)

This morning we attended a workshop on problem definition by Charlie Mulholland who is a lecturer at the HvA. This was about determining the problem of our project and looking at the people and things that are involved. We started by picking our client, customer, user and initial problem statement. Our client, or partner, is Cisco since they are working together with us. The customer, who will buy the product can be a NGO, non profit organization, the government or women. This is due to the fact that we don’t know what we will be making yet. If we make an object that has to be bought by the women, then the women will be the customer. If the object is placed in the environment by the government, the government will be the customer. The user will be women in Amsterdam. The initial problem statement will be: How can we improve women’s safety in public spaces in Amsterdam?

After this, we defined the various stakeholders. We did a brainstorm session on defining the stakeholders, which gave us some interesting insights. We came up with the following stakeholders: woman, technology organisations, family, surrounding people/society, government, security services, neighbour, children and a dog. During the next step was writing down the views of the various stakeholders. This meant that we checked how the stakeholders are involved in the problem. The family will, for example be interested in the problem since they are scared that their daughter will feel unsafe.

Eventually we did the 5w’s + 1h exercise. It started with Who, which would be the people involved. The What included what is happening which were comments, following, staring and physical harm. The Where was answered by public spaces in Amsterdam. For When, we chose times of day (night especially), drunk people at night (after a party) and early morning in the park. The why can be answered by the initial problem statement. The How can not be answered yet, but it could be a device, a change to the environment or something completely different.

After the exercise, Charlie, explained more about the design process. It is all about iterating, iterating, iterating. He told us about induction and deduction. Also, he showed us a video which is very well known. (People throwing a ball. You have to count certain passes of the ball) The point of this video was that when you focus on a certain thing, your brain will not receive certain information anymore. Well, it will receive it, but will not process it.

So if you look for an elephant, you will never spot the giraffes anymore.