Air Quality Intervention (Senior Studio)
10/30/17 — Initial Project Foundations
Our group discussed what each of us had envisioned for the project, our research questions, and other general foundational thoughts for the intervention. Since we each have our own different expectations and visions for how our intervention will play out, I think it’s important for us to get on the same page so we can move forward with as little confusion as possible.
The original idea (which we expanded upon) is essentially an exhibition or installation that incorporates both physical and digital interactions to inform the viewer/user about their habits that negatively affect air quality. We aim to have the viewer/user leave the exhibition with questions regarding their routinely habits and a bigger understanding of how they can shift their perspectives to positively affect air quality.
I’m personally interested in exploring ways to not only inform people about the consequences of their habits on air quality, but also understand which aspects of their daily routines are most “malleable,” or what parts of their lifestyles are more easily flexible and willing to change. For example, looking for things that hold less value to how a person operates is fundamental to understanding what parts of a system are more subject to change than others.
I think our next step is to discuss how we can scope down considering our shortened timeline, and how we can shift our mindset from creating solution-based to question-based projects. Initial thoughts (after discussing with Stacie and one another) were geared more towards figuring out how we can set “constants” and “variables” for intervention iterations. For example, perhaps having different users interact with different habits that affect air quality (e.g. trash burning, smoking, taking the bus) can lead us to better understand which habits are more malleable than others. Ideally, we’ll meet up before the next studio meeting to better scope out our project goals and potential ideas to gear our current intervention towards answering our research questions!
11/1/17 —Understanding the Project
We discussed our research questions with Stuart and Stacie and tried to really get the main purpose and idea for our air quality “installation” project down. Talks with Stuart led us to realize that what we were looking for was too quantitative instead of qualitative.
Our group got into a discussion regarding what it meant to be one or the other; I felt like assigning values to the conversations we were inspiring with the project meant that our research questions were too quantitative. Since our idea (at the time) was to spark discussion regarding air quality through a variety of forms (e.g. asking about smoking, asking about transportation, asking about factories, etc.), it seemed like we were trying specifically to look at which form sparked the most discussion and that was therefore the “best” form. I think what I got out of the conversation was that there is no “best” form when we’re trying to ask questions through our project; a form resulting in a lack of discussion is inherently valuable due to the lack of discussion it brings — perhaps suggesting that such a form is more of a taboo/unwarranted topic for people to normally discuss.
We’re still looking into what context our project would live in. To do so, we’re exploring the concepts of experiential futures and guerrilla futures. Here are some references that may help inspire our direction:
The Future of Meat (http://thefutureofmeat.com/)
Public Health 2030(http://www.altfutures.org/projects/public-health-2030/)
Noah Raford’s Article (http://noahraford.com/?p=1625) — includes links to other projects and talks a bit about Stuart’s PlasticCentury!
11/13/17 — Concept Building
Our team discussed directions in which our project could go. We decided the goal of our project is to understand how cognizant Pittsburgh residents are of air quality. In our research about air quality, we came to a consensus that this topic is “invisible,” meaning that people normally aren’t able to see the results of actions that affect air quality. As a result, we aim to detect people’s understandings and perceptions of air quality, and their awareness of actions that affect it as well.
To do so, we’re pivoting towards creating a “phy-gital” (physical and digital) board game that involves players making decisions that have either short- or long-term effects on air quality. After a “round” or “cycle” (when everyone goes in a circle), players can see visualized results of their actions on a mobile interface. From there, players attempt to piece together the consequences of each of their decisions made in that turn. Ideally, this would help inform their future decisions in the game.
We also played with the concept of having players be given personalized roles, such as a politician or climate change activist. Depending on who they are, they each have their own individualized priorities and goals. This could play into how they make their decisions, because sometimes they would have to decide whether to make a choice that negatively affects air quality, but in turn helps their personal objectives.
Speed Dating Feedback
We received a lot of feedback from the speed dating activity. Our initial questions going into the activity included:
- What is the players’ objectives or end-goals?
- How can time be represented in relation to gameplay?
Our peers gave us some great questions and ideas to think about when moving forward with this concept; because our idea is currently pretty vague in terms of gameplay, we have many different paths we can go down. I think the most important question we need to figure out is the first one listed above. By finding out the players’ end goals, it will help guide us in creating gameplay that can lead them towards completing specific objectives.
We should also look into why we want this game to be “phy-gital,” since it seems like the digital component is shoehorned into the project. One of our speed daters (is that the term for it?) brought up the idea of visualizing air quality in a physical form using different colored beads that represent different chemicals or components of pollution, and its contents are revealed to the players at the end of the game to see their impact.
Overall, I believe that moving forward we should solidify the why’s of each component within our game, which will help guide us to build upon our objectives and purpose.
11/15/17 — Solidifying a Direction
After the speed dating activity, our group decided to split up for a brief moment and come into the next session with potential narrative directions given the feedback we each received. Among the most important things I considered when thinking of how to frame this game was relating the narrative back to the audience, and the visualization (digital or physical) of their in-game decisions on air quality.
The idea I contributed to the meeting revolved around the concept of bringing air quality awareness into people’s daily lives, so the goal of the gameplay (i.e. commuting to work) is relatable for most, if not all. I also assumed that most people were aware that gas-powered vehicles contribute to poor air quality, and pivoted the concept to instead emphasize the quantity of emissions that gas-powered vehicles contribute.
Gameplay is simply about players trying to get to work, and they take different modes of transportation to move along the board. Every time they choose to move forward, they add bits of air quality to their individual “air quality gauges.” When their gauges fill up, they’re pushed back to the most recent checkpoint. The reasoning behind having a simpler method of gameplay is to convey the idea that even a daily, mundane task such as commuting to work can significantly contribute pollutants to the air over time.
We’re also going to meet as a group this weekend to bring the project back to its main purpose: looking into people’s cognizance of their impacts on air quality. Tying the purpose back into the enjoyment of the game is crucial to the success of this project as a research tool.
Note: The next few days have been written on December 4, 2017. I’m just trying to catch up :’(
11/20/17 — Figuring Out Gameplay
We attempted to solidify parts of the gameplay. In particular, determining the roles of the cards and the layout of the board were pivotal in our meeting. We decided to have gameplay revolve around “Event Cards,” each of which were examples of things that affect a person’s commute. For example, Event Cards could involve weather, car accidents, or errands to run, and they all affect air quality in some way. Because we have errands in the game, our layout had to incorporate a variety of locations (as seen below).
Since our goal was to understand how Pittsburgh residents are cognizant of their daily life choices, we divided gameplay into 3 parts:
- Getting to work — gameplay is driven by player decisions and the event cards they draw
- Air pollution rankings — players rank the cards they drew in order from least-polluting to most-polluting
- Getting home — players go back the way they came, but now they are given a “codebook” filled with insights regarding their potential choices and respective impacts on air quality
11/29/17 — Playtesting
We playtested our game after determining the cards we were going to print. At this point, the codebook is still under construction.
Through our playtest, we found different problems with our initial gameplay. In particular, we discovered that the rate of drawing cards would make the game take too long — therefore, we set an ideal time limit for the game at 20 minutes to design new rules around it. Additionally, we played with the idea of having players move around the board at the same time and instead draw cards in a sequential order. This made the game move a lot faster. We also solidified the movement options when players move into specific territories, such as shopping malls and school zones (they can move at half speed and one panel at a time, respectively). Finally, we took notes on which cards seemed unclear or confusing to players, and aimed to reword them for our next iteration.
12/4/17 — Assigned Roles
Throughout the rest of the weekend, we were assigned different roles within the group. My part was to continue doing research and understand how people’s daily decisions affect or are affected by air quality. I documented, analyzed, and found relevant research links to each task that all ~26 of the game cards had mentioned (e.g. wind, vehicle failures, construction sites, etc.).
I worked with the rest of my team throughout the weekend and the beginning of the week to figure out how the cards came to together, both the content of what’s on it and the content of the instruction booklet. As a result, much of what was done involved going back and forth through the spreadsheet and filling in gaps of empty information.
We also worked to rank each of the cards in terms of least-to-most air polluting. For example, walking at a construction site has considerably worse air quality than if one was walking in the park. Ranking 26 cards was a big challenge in understanding how different factors such as weather and surroundings come together in determining air quality, as well as an individual’s role in contributing to it.
12/6/17 — Show!
We successfully printed and put together all the pieces of our activity, including the board, instruction booklet, cards, and game pieces! It was great to see other people join our activity and play through. Parts of our game ended up being a bit longer than expected; taking time to go through all the rules was an unintended consequence of making the activity more complicated than we had originally wanted.
I feel that being able to present a topic as complex (and wicked!) as air quality is a huge challenge in its own right. I’m happy that we ended up finding a way to relate air pollution problems back to what people experience in their daily lives; the sheer absurdity of encountering all these problems while going to work also made the experience overall more fun!
I felt that we were able to understand other people’s cognizance of air quality through their reactions when reading our “Insights” section in the instruction booklet. For example, when a person found that snow was given a lower score on air pollution (indicating that it’s better for the air), they seemed surprised at the reveal. We also were able to learn more about air pollution ourselves, as well as the various factors of the environment that affect air quality. In the future, it’ll be rewarding to come back to this project and see how we presented this complex problem in a more playful, yet still engaging and informative manner.
