Mudlarking in Deptford - Futurelab

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“When it was first announced inassembly everyone was like ‘whowould wanna go on there?’ cosI’m a person who doesn’t reallydo this sort of thing. But when wewent to the Centre I found itreally interesting and different”Initial stepsAt the outset of the project, the team workedwith a local student group to create a paperbasedmap of their local environment,beginning with their school. This was thendeveloped into a paper-based tour of themudlarking location (Creekside EducationCentre in Deptford) providing vital data for thedesign of the electronic tour, in which thestudents took the lead with support fromdesigners.Meanwhile, the designers created a prototypeapplication that would be used for the ninemonthpilot project that included wireframing,user experience testing, iterativeuser-based workshops and technical trials.The original application was based on a seriesof workshops involving designers workingalongside students, which determinedessential features of the PDA, both as a datacollection and communication tool. Theseworkshops also produced ideas for the userinterface and specified what tools the usershould have available in order to be able toinput their own stories into the tour.The experts then collaborated with the studentdesign group to develop an interactivelandscape, centred around four majordestination points (or nodes) on the journey:Halfpenny Hatch; the Laban dance centre;Creek Road and Greenwich Reach. Each ofthese nodes has specific attributes thatdemonstrate Deptford’s changing history. Ontheir PDAs users could navigate their presentposition using GPS, which was one of thefeatures of the trial that most excited thestudents, against a suggested map.User data in the form of recorded audio, MP3files, photography, drawings and text couldthen be added into the landscape. This was keyto enabling tour visitors to participate inbuilding an ever-evolving tour, by leaving theirthoughts and memories for future tour users.4
Dynamic activities were suggested aroundeach of the nodes. One of the most popularwas the ‘wobbleometer’, which takes place ona bridge that vibrates in response to localtraffic in a spectacular way. Another was the‘tarantella’ – named after the famous Spanishdance – that referred to the mesh structure ofthe man-made hills near the Laban dancecentre which students thought looked likewebs made by a giant spider.5
Page 1 and 2: Mudlarking in DeptfordA new kind of
Page 3 and 4: OverviewThere’s the standard scho
Page 5: The ingredientsHow we got thereThe
Page 9 and 10: Initial trialThe trial was split in
Page 11 and 12: TechnologyThe underlying technology
Page 13 and 14: ResourcesThe Futurelab website has
Page 16: ILLUSTRATION ON LEFT OF FRONT COVER

Mudlarking in Deptford - Futurelab

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