Community Animator Project

Project Motivation:

The Idea is simple:

Communities are often siloed preventing ‘true’ community vision.

We inspire connections borrowing design of popular geo-social networking apps.

Here + free time = Community Animation

Research Questions:

We are broadly interested in how we might facilitate the role of community animators. Specifically, we are measuring:

RQ1) How are particular design features more or less helpful in achieving civic gains?

​RQ2) How are particular design features useful for facilitating community animation?

What We’ve Done:

Role: Leading Researcher, Mentor Undergraduate Students, Project Management, Plan Research Studies and Development

Methods: Survey Study, Scenarios, Application implementation in Android, Developed JavaScript Website

Project Procedures:

​FIRST, INSPIRE A MEETUP

We surveyed potential users to determine which of three use case scenarios would lead to a set of civic gains.

• Interest-based

• News-based

• Task-based

Example of Scenario of Use:

Use case: Shared interest

This scenario describes a person who is interested in sustainable agriculture. He shops at the farmer’s market, chats with close friends and follows related newsfeeds on social media, but he is unaware of other forums to discuss this topic. Upon entering a local deli he sees a sign about an app that uses GPS on smartphone to search for citizens nearby his location with similar local interests and hosts an introduction so they might carry out a face-to-face conversation. He downloads the application, selects “Food and Agriculture” as one of his interest areas, indicates he is “animated” and available for conversation. Soon after, he is introduced to someone also having lunch and indicated the same interest. They sit together while eating and each learn more about vendors and events they were previously unaware of.

Use case: Local news

This scenario describes a student who is interested in architecture and often follows the local newspaper on social media and read stories about local development. She is excited to see new, taller buildings in the developing downtown but wonders why others comment in newspaper forums that the tall buildings are bad for the community. She learns of a GPS enabled app to search for citizens nearby her location who have read similar local news stories and hosts an introduction so they might carry out a face-to-face conversation. She downloads the application, selects “New High-Rise Apartment Building” as a new story that she is eager to discuss and is introduced to a local resident that also interested in the same issue. The two learn from one another’s perspective and reshape their own opinions of the proposed high rise.

Use case: Shared task

This scenario described someone who is interested in being more involved in volunteering since it has previously given him the chance to meet new people while doing something constructive for his community. He downloads an app while downtown at a community hub to search for nearby users that are “animated” in a task that could be carried out as a group. He downloads the app and selects “Volunteerism” and is then introduced to a person is in the same building and is involved with liter cleanup. The two meet-up and walk to the cleanup site with a group of students who share the same desire keep the community clean. While cleaning together they brainstorm more flash cleanup opportunities around the area.

SECOND, A HAPPENING®

After adopting interest-based as our meet-up category, we hosted a happening, or event to test the app, in a campus cafe as an user study.

Results: So far, the views on potential community gains seem to be consistent, but we are continuing development to improve the design in light of the intended purpose of the app.

Conclusion:

​I have developed an initial mobile application to identify how these community interactions can create shared trust, collaborations, and a “win-win” culture for siloed groups. Also, I developed a web application version to discover ways to preserve these conversations in a low effort manner so that innovative community conversations can be shared with a wider audience.

Project Outcome:

• Community Animation: Exploring a design space that leverages geo-social networking to increase community engagement: https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.02842

• Using Key Player Analysis as a Method for Examining the Role of Community Animators in Technology Adoption: https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.05630