The Emotisurvey Site Going Through Beta-tests.

One of the participant's screens from the emotisurvey site.

The video and photo outputs and emotive response maps representing the various participants who helped with the emotisurvey in Malvern are now all working on a test website. The site is presently going through 'beta tests' and checks before it is made visible to the public. 

Once these checks are completed the site will be scrutinised by members of the Route to the Hills project group and Malvern Hills District Council's officers. Once this process is completed, we hope to open-up the site and make it visible to the public in Malvern for their further feed-in and comments. These references will then go towards the Route to the Hills project's findings and conclusions and will hopefully help both them and Malvern Hills District Council evolve the public space in the town. This will include looking at the effectiveness of the existing wayfinding signage, public furniture, paths and pavements. 

I'm really pleased to add that the riverside area in the centre of Worcester has now been hugely improved in terms of lighting, pavements, new public seating, tree plantings and signage to name but some aspects. The earlier incarnation of the emotisurvey project (then called Riverside Emotimap) helped feed in to these improvements and also helped Worcester City Council win the "2010 MJ Achievement Award for “Sustainable Infrastructure Achievement of the Year” as part of it's successful bid. The project also formed a part of the City Council's successful bid for National Lottery monies to help improve the area and build the new Diglis footbridge over the river.

Can I just say a big "thanks" once more to all who helped take part and Manda Graham, Malvern Hills' Community Development Officer for bearing with me while I took time putting the site together.

Emotisurvey Malvern Outputs: Online Site Build Underway

A sample of how the online outputs might look.

We're presently working hard to get a basic working interactive version of the early outputs of the emotisurvey visible to the public. There's more work to be done yet but we're underway..

Examining Audio and Video Feedback..

We're busy analysing the feedback from different emotisurvey participants this week. There's a vast amount of footage, audio and imagery to go through in this process so it's very slow and step by step.. It really brings it home to you once again though how many varied perspectives we've recorded - many saying similar things at similar points on our route through the town.

Last Emotisurvey Participant Completed!

Participant number 8

We've just recorded the final emotisurvey participant in Malvern.. Student Dom and I now have a lengthy set of video and audio analysis [as well as other considerations] to undergo while bearing in mind further specific requirements set by the Route to the Hills steering group..

So to take this opportunity to say a big "thanks" again to all those people who kindly gave up their time and energies to help us build up a picture of how various participants "saw" and thought of our definitive route through the town. We've truly got a diverse view of the town now with inputs from the disabilities perspective, children's perspective, transition/sustainability as well as various residents.

We've still much work to do but the 'recording' element of the project is now complete. Assuming all is well then we're hoping to have a working version of the consultancy interactive at the end of Jan 2012.

Emotisurvey User Interface Design Ideas

We're soon to record the last emotisurvey participant and we're now embarking on arriving at the best layout for an interactive interface that links our findings with the various audiences who will need to look these over. We're preparing ideas based on our last projects and the bespoke requirements of this latest project. 

The very early ideas will be put to the Route to the Hills steering group in an upcoming meeting to gain their feedback on which we'll then evolve a bespoke interactive solution. It's an exciting time with some further challenges ahead in tying together our recorded data in such a way that it can be easily accessed and digested by a wide audience including Route to the Hills project staff and Malvern Hills District Council Landscape Architects.

7x Participants Surveyed to Date

 

Participant Peter

We're well underway with surveying the various participants to date and have heard some really interesting perspectives on the same route from people of all different perspectives and backgrounds. In particular the perspectives we've had to date have included: Malvern's history/architectural/arboreal history, effectiveness of the existing public realm from senior MHDC staff's perspective, the perspective bearing in mind people with various disabilities and a child's perspective on the route when walking with a parent. All very, very different and all picked-up and highlighted a wide range of unforseen aspects of the same walk. Genuinely fascinating to hear and many, many thanks again to those who have given their time to help us.

Thanks again
Thanks again to Manda Graham RTTH Project Manager for her continued patience and to University of Worcester design student Dom Gambetta who is presently starting to look at possible methods of putting these experiences across to the RTTH project steering group/Malvern Hills DC.

Emotisurvey in the press!

We've been covered recently by various press including [BBC Hereford and Worcester], [The Malvern Gazette] and the [University of Worcester].

Emotisurvey Participants Underway..

A participant from Transition Malvern en route.

 We'll be surveying a range of participants over the next few weeks. To date we've had perspectives given from local Malvern Hills Council Economic Development staff, Malvern residents, representatives of Transition Malvern [looking at the sustainability angle] and also historical and architectural. It's been fascinating to hear all of the different perspectives already and we're only part way through working with participants. 

In addition we'd like to welcome Digital Arts student Dom Gambetta to the team. Dom's undertaking a negociated study at the University and helping to further getting the eventual outputs into an interactive interface that can be used by the Route to the Hills Project.

In addition, to quickly thank Malvern Hills Council staff for all the help they've already been in sourcing the various participants. Special thanks go to Manda Graham - Route to the Hills Project Co-ordinator for putting up with all the challenges to date and being flexible with us..