Week 10: Research and Reveal – Develop key finding, analysis and objectives

Weekly learning objectives

By the end of this week you should be able to:

1. Research a theme or social issue that raises questions connected to your locality.
2. Analyse and evaluate methods of service design thinking and user-centred design processes, which help reveal issues about the group you are studying.
3. Engage with local communities to identify issues that require design intervention.
4. Deploy appropriate field-recording techniques and methods to help research and record information about your chosen theme.
5. Collaborate through group discussion on the Ideas Wall.

Week 10 Lecture: Research and Reveal

Lecture Introduction

Last week, we examined the role of artists and graphic designers to bring about change for the good. This week, we will analyse case study projects when service designers engage with a local community, and analyse the appropriate methods deployed.

The lecture video will:

• Examine service design campaigns that have successfully instigated regional change and awareness;
• Demonstrate how to identify and solve a problem that relates to your location;
• Analyse how user experience can improve the way we live.

After the lecture, take some time to explore the given resources. Make notes and reflect upon these ideas, and use them as a springboard for your own investigations. Use the Ideas Wall freely to discuss, ask questions and share ideas.

Hefin Jones

Welsh Space Campaign – Cosmic Colliery

hefinjones.co.uk

Week 10: Resources

Read | Watch | Listen

Week 10: Workshop Challenge

The Challenge

This week we want you to identify a theme or issue that relates to your locality* and present your findings on the Ideas Wall, prior to the design phase.

1. Research and discover issues that relate to your locality* and post them on the Ideas Wall. REVISED: Direct engagement is encouraged, to identify potential issues, although we understand this is unlikely in the current situation. Show evidence of reaching out, by conducting an email or letter, although we appreciate you may not get a reply.
2. Distill your research to identify one issue you would like to resolve and reveal through a visual outcome.
3. Write a short 200-word project brief that reports on the issue to be solved.
4. Design and produce a visual summary to contextualise your issue and project brief. Your summary can be a digital, print or moving image, but it must be succinct, to enable third party viewers to quickly understand the requirements, needs and challenges.

*Your locality can be broad and refer to your street, district, town, area, county or region.

Addition: Also, your ‘locality’ could be virtual… Maybe your locality could be an online space; a platform, channel, or community group; or indeed, how boundary-less digital communication could enhance the wellbeing of communities or address broader issues. Just thoughts.

Project Brief

Problem:

I don’t like the thought of being knocked off my bike commuting to work.

Hi Tony – not sure how much info/bile you want with this or if you’re planning to use it as first-person case studies, so I’ve tried to keep it objective and suitably appropriate. If you’re putting names to anything public, please can you just quote me as ‘John’. Cheers.

‘John’ – Paramount CRT Shrewsbury

Cycle lane observations – Shrewsbury

Some lanes on the road are too narrow and inconsistent in the way they guide cyclists, particularly so if the person riding is new to cycling.

The cycle lanes between Abbey Foregate and along London Road are a good example of a sound idea badly executed – and then not followed through.

Anyone new to cycling on the road will most likely perceive these amenities as helpful and designed to make cycling ‘safer’. An experienced cyclist will tell you they are not.

From Abbey Foregate heading out of town, the lanes cover precisely the ‘door zone’ for all the parked cars along the road. The lanes themselves are so narrow they don’t allow sufficient room for a cyclist to ride away from that potential danger.

On London Road, there are no parked cars heading out of town but the lanes remain too narrow. They are too narrow as an experienced rider would probably position themselves right on or just inside the white line.

Drivers have a different perception of hazards, danger and safety than cyclists. The result on London Road is a recipe for close passing. Drivers see the cycle lane, see the cyclist and then perceive it safe to pass them well within a distance of 1.5m, especially if a car is coming in the opposite direction. They see the white line as a kerb and the cycle lane like a pavement, so they have no sense they are passing too close only that they respected the white line.

There are other examples of this scenario around town: Featherbed Lane and Longden Road by the Nuffield spring to mind.

Driver behaviour is such these lanes almost encourage them to pass where it is unsafe because they believe the infrastructure is making it safe. The lanes don’t ‘bulge’ near traffic islands on Longden Road, for example.

Where the provision is then not followed through is a reference to its maintenance.

Abbey Foregate up to the column has recently been re-patched after many months of being in an appalling state. It is improved but it remains substandard, especially for cyclists. None of the repairs on the road have been to the cycle lane. It literally appears to be forgotten.

Abbey Foregate has been re-patched but all the gravel thrown out by the deteriorating road surface remains in the cycle lane. There are numerous examples where cycle lanes along roads remain poorly maintained. This further narrows already poorly designed lanes, and makes them additionally hazardous because of what can happen to a bike which gets caught in roadside debris.

Car bias in highways thinking

There are countless examples around town of unnoticable-to-a-driver surface defects that are horrible and dangerous for riders.

Perceptions of what is acceptable to someone on a bike are, I believe, made by someone who has not experienced riding a bike in that space. This is generally true for many ‘car acceptable’ surface treatments and repairs but which are a hazard for cyclists.

Heathgates roundabout and down into Ditherington is a good example of how a good repair for cars remains a hazard for cyclists. I believe this is to do with the service level agreement and standards agreed between contractors and the council. I’ve driven the re-patched road, which has had numerous potholes filled in using the same method as deployed on Abbey Foregate.

In a car, it is absolutely an improvement and would score a big satisfaction tick. However, for a cyclist the holes in the road have now been replaced by a series of humps and bumps that when ridden over at any speed make riding a straight course a challenge. One form of hazard has been exchanged for another. The solution an experienced cyclist would adopt here is to move position on the road to avoid the bumps. This immediately puts them in conflict with the other traffic on the road.

It is this ’cause and effect’ situation that I think is missing from the council’s understanding when it comes to cycling infrastructure. It doesn’t connect how its actions will result in something else happening. This is not to me about unfortunate and unintended consequences, it’s a failure of planning, consideration and service in my view. I am not a road engineer or highways modeller but I can tell you with 100 per cent certainty how a cyclist will deal with or be affected by a particular situation, and how drivers behave in particular scenarios. I believe a natural car bias in highways officers means they apply an academic/desk top assessment of cycling acceptability rather than a practical/experiential one. If they did, things would be a lot better for people on two wheels! It’s not something that can’t be addressed.

Shared paths and routes designed by non-cyclists

Shrewsbury has quite a few shared paths, which sounds like a good thing on the face of it but is not as good as it could be.

Some suffer the same lack of care and attention as described above – the one alongside the Battlefield link road is covered in debris. Always.

Signage is poor so pedestrians and cyclists are not clear if they’re sharing or in conflict.

Cyclist behaviour is such that they approach people from behind, often at speed, without warning pedestrians of their approach. Two cyclists approach each other is often an unexpected challenge.

Pedestrian behaviour is such that they walk ‘erratically’ – and almost always on the ‘cycling’ side of the path (if you observe the road markings).

Behaviour is not something that infrastructure can change, but the council can assist with some education and publicity generally and in schools in particular.

If you ride from Wyle Cop to the train station, which way will you go? The riverside and up at Severn Street? You’ll get lost. Town Walls and all the way round? Why put yourself in front of traffic on narrow roads – and then busy roads? If you turn off Shoplatch (between Cafe Nero and Lloyds) that’s a footpath – and at the end, there’s an awful contraflow, which no driver respects or understands as you’ll discover if you want to turn right along Raven Meadows and are waiting for oncoming traffic to clear Rousehill: you are positioned in the most dangerous placen you could be. The shared path along the right-hand side of Raven Meadow is a recipe for conflict and danger with numerous entry and exit points for car parks and service areas. And it’s two-way for cyclists. Bonkers. Better to put riders on the road following the flow of traffic.

The path alongside Smithfield on the river side is another designed-in hazard and potential accident waiting to happen.

At the Victoria Quay end, the road is too narrow to allow cyclists and pedestrians sufficient space to queue while they wait for the lights. If you are exiting the quay, the traffic light sequence is not clear.

Further along Smithfield, past the footbridge, there is a restaurant with a door opening right out onto the path, with no-one exiting the building having any kind of sight line to see an approaching cyclist. There are trees either side of the door, which will make the rider go even closer to the building. And then if everyone survives that scenario, the alignment of the trees obscures forward views for anyone riding towards Coton Hill. Opposite the Alb, the path is too narrow for anyone to pass safely. And that’s presuming anyone at that point has observed any kind of self discipline in terms of where they are on the path, being alert to the potential danger (don’t get me started on pedestrians with headphones) and riding at an appropriate speed.

I really struggle to understand how anyone would create this bit of shared path if they’d actually ridden it on a bike.

Also, as with many shared paths, the signage is poor so the unobservant would not know the path ends at the lights by the station bridge – effectively dumping the rider into the road. Better to use all the wide open space further back, surely?

I could go on, but that’s enough ranting for one morning. Good luck with it all Tony, happy to whinge about lots of other cycling provision anytime!

J

Fast-fix?

Paint the routes/lanes to contrast the road surface to highlight they’re even there. Drivers no longer see white lines (especially faded ones) so a yellow/blue/red strip showing the routes might even help drivers realise the possibility of cyclists crossing a junction.

Design brief summary document Download