Xplore - National Parks

XPLORE - NATIONAL PARKS

Group Project: Myself, Jake Yard

September - December 2016

BRIEF:

Propose innovative services/products that respond to the theme of ‘Smart Parks”, which challenges you to use digital technology to enhance a local park or playground rather than replace it. Your work may be submitted to an international design competition and/or showcased at a local Interaction Design event later in the year. Public parks in the UK are a relatively recent concept with the oldest parks dating back to the 1830s. Initially, paid for my public subscription it wasn’t until Acts of Parliament in the 1850s that local councils were encouraged and enabled to provide public recreation spaces. However, despite additional investments from the Heritage Lottery Fund in the last 20 years to improve parks, recent local authority funding cuts could see parks become run down, become no-go areas or even sold.

Our initial research involved visiting local parks and looking into the reasons why others visit their local, or public parks. Some of the things that we noticed and then further investigated were:

Fun and Recreation - Pokemon Go
Charitable Events - Pets Corner
Community Projects - Park Lives
Exercise - Park Run

We also went to the park to make some of our own observations, walking around and watching what the other visitors were doing whilst they were in the park. We noticed quite a bit on our afternoon in the park, children were playing, families were taking photographs with each other and there were people walking dogs and looking at the fauna and feeding the wildlife.

We then conducted technology research looking into how technology is currently being used in the public parks and or spaces and examining how successful or, unsuccessful it is. Things like benches that can charge smartphones and outdoor gymnasiums were the two examples that stood out the most as being successful and useful. An example of something being unsuccessful would be the use of solar-powered bikes in one park, which hardly ever worked due to the lack of sunshine.

RESEARCH AND ETHNOGRAPHY:

After concluding our research we began to create and develop a concept based on the problem that we had identified and one that offered a solution to it.

Problem:
There has been a steady decline in the number of children playing outside over the past decade. Younger audiences would rather be indoors using technology than going outside and experiencing the real world.
Opportunity:
Encourage Adults and Young Children to play outside and partake in outdoor activities in National Parks.

Our initial concept going forward for the majority of this project was one that provided smartphone users with the ability to navigate parks and find points of interest on their phone using AR and following the trail of virtual animals. This, however, was ultimately scrapped when we carried out further research and began to develop a much better, simpler concept.

CONCEPT AND DEVELOPMENT:

Further research has revealed that there has been a decline in the number of children playing outside, even though the benefits of them doing so are plentiful. In a paper by Karen Marie Eid Kaarby published by the Irish Centre for Early Childhood Development and Education (2005), we learned that children's play is more creative when they are playing in wild environments compared to ordinary playgrounds. Exploration has a lot do with this, children will look to challenge themselves in the wild whether it be by climbing a tree with lots of branches or scaling a steep hill. It was this research insight that inspired us to create and develop what would be our final concept for this project: Xplore National Parks. A design solution and a service on offer that not only addresses the problem that we had identified but one that also involves working with organizations, using and expanding on infrastructure already in place, such as The National Parks Website.

GOING BACK TO BASICS:

XPLORE:

Xplore would be a service provided by National Parks that offers users the ability to rent out a "Xplore Package" which is a box that contains:

Guide
Local, Rustic Map
Video Recorder Binoculars
Pedometer
Code Card

The whole point of Xplore is to encourage people to get out and enjoy themselves through the means of exploration. Go off the beaten path and find adventure on your own, don't follow signposted walks or bike tracks, just climb hills, explore valleys and have fun. All the while recording your journey on your binoculars by taking pictures and videos, that can later be accessed and downloaded at the rental kiosk or online via the Xplore portal appended to the National Parks Website.

Xplore uses and brings together existing technologies to create a one of a kind experience for its users. Allowing for people to go and do their own thing without having to worry about their phone being dropped by their child or damaged by the elements. The Xplore package replaces the need to use something like a phone as a camera or way to entertain a child by using old-fashioned tradional exploration tools, but with the technological twist. The social features of the website will also help to bring people together and allow for potential groups and friendships to be formed through the common interest of being outdoors, exploring.