Design & Research 2 with Birgit Bachler
With Katerina Sedlackova we outlined a system map, a business model canvas and a value proposition map. I also created a prototype of the light pollution reporting app with Ahmed Turk and we defined our problem, goals, target audience and user personas.
This post takes a step back and puts together everything written so far about my idea of the app to report and learn about light pollution, to review the context the project sits in and start to think about the materials it involves.
Context review
What is the core concept
Light pollution has a big effect on biodiversity and human health, but it stays mostly invisible as an issue. Most people living in cities have lost contact with the night sky, and this leads to energy waste and to disrupted biological rhythms in humans and wildlife. Compared to other, more visible forms of pollution, light pollution does not have the public awareness, the monitoring tools or the advocacy structures that would let people understand it or act on it.
The core concept of my project is a mobile app that merges reporting and instruction. Users can fill out a simple form about the condition of the sky they see, look at a light pollution map, discover the sky through augmented reality, sign petitions and connect with others through a social media function. The app is meant to make light pollution reporting and research easy and accessible, both for normal citizens and for scientists, in order to raise awareness on the issue and inform people, so the problem can be fought collectively.
Finding the gap
Light pollution is an issue that has been growing invisibly, without the monitoring tools or advocacy infrastructure that more visible pollution types already have.
Last semester I analysed the Globe at Night Project during a usability test. It is a light pollution awareness campaign, where anyone can submit measurements of the night sky brightness. I focused on discoverability and usability and concluded that people generally do not know where and how to report light pollution when they notice it and that the reporting form of Globe at Night is difficult to understand for people with limited knowledge about astronomy.
I suppose that reporting platforms like the Globe at Night Project are usually used by people with a shared mindset: environmental consciousness, curiosity about science and value placed on outdoor experience. But a lot of people are unaware of the issue, due to their social and geopolitical background.
Patterns and missing areas
Light pollution is not talked about a lot, and there is no central platform to report it. The platforms that do exist are described as difficult to use. This is really the starting gap the whole project is trying to answer: not enough public awareness, not enough easy to use reporting tools, and not enough of a bridge between citizen reporters and the scientists and institutions who could act on the data.
The project positions itself as trying to close this gap now, giving people a central platform in an accessible form. The goals of the project can be summed up in these points:
- Reaching a broad audience, even people who are not environmentally educated or conscious.
- Educate and map: closing the gap between abstract data and real life experience by presenting information and measurements in a way people understand, free of complex language
- Citizen advocacy: letting users report light pollution in their community, sign and circulate petitions directly, routing community backed concerns to local institutions
- Engagement through gamification, social features and education
- Behavioral change: motivating people to reduce light pollution in their daily lives
- User-friendly interface for researchers: possibility to verify reports for data quality, compare them and organise them and export data in standard formats
Material studies
These are the smartphone sensors that the project might include:
- Phone light sensors, compared to a dedicated hardware like a Sky Quality Meter for measuring sky brightness
- GPS and compass/gyroscope, for an AR sky view
- Camera sensor and its performance in low light, to check if it is a valid measurement tool
