Events and conference appearances will be in chronicalogical order with most recent at the top of each list.
The Open Design team has been accepted and invited to the excellent Open UP Global Summit in Taipei, Taiwan November 30th to December 01st 2019 to deliver a workshop.
Open UP summit is the first interdisciplinary conference focused on open source projects and products in Asia-Pacific, aiming to provide you a unique conference experience by integrating global resources and developing open source products with a guided and enjoyable process.
Open Design Team will be running a talk and demo of Open Design and then running a split workshop across two days on ‘Open Design Workshop for Humanitarian Challenge’ where attendees will get started with contributing design to OSS with TenFour, the crisis communication tool from Ushahidi.
Open Design is a project-based approach to including Design in the creation of Open Source Software that makes a meaningful impact in the world. It is led by led by Ushahidi, in partnership with Designit and Adobe.
The workshop will be focused on TenFour issues relating to Cyclone & Typhoon preparation and response.
Issue 225: Chained Check-ins as task lists for volunteers helping post-disaster. Issue 215: Create a location-based group when someone add a location on their profile. Issue 130: Create and manage sub-groups within TenFour. Issue 224: Understand and see what skills volunteers in a specific TenFour organisation have in a crisis scenario. Issue 112: Check-ins and messages should have “severity” levels. In keeping to the Open Design methodology, the workshop will also include witnesses: people that have direct experience of the humanitarian challenge (in this case the Typhoons, Cyclones and the resulting effect on the people and country). Before the event, participants will receive a packet providing links to the TenFour/OSS sticker sheet, activities like Empathy maps, storyboards, Inspiration boards, and other relevant information.
The Open Design team has been accepted and invited to the excellent DesignUP! conference in Bangalore 2019 to deliver a masterclass workshop on the 14th of November.
DesignUp is an annual design conference focused on design in, and for, tech. The aim is to encourage conversations and work that make Tech and Businesses more human and humane as well as more impactful to people and the ecosystem in general.
Open Design Team will be hosting a full-day masterclass workshop on Creating impact with open source and humanitarian tech at DesignUp.
Open Design is a project-based approach to including Design in the creation of Open Source Software that makes a meaningful impact in the world. It is led by led by Ushahidi, in partnership with Designit and Adobe
The workshop will be focused on TenFour issues relating to the Kerala floods:
Issue 106 and Issue 66: SOS button & Status updates Issue 215: Create a location-based group when someone adds a location on their profile Issue 131: Check-in urgency – When replying to a check-in Issue 57: Messaging between TenFour and Users
In February 2019, the Open Design team ran a second Design Jam as part of IxDA’s Interaction Week in Seattle, USA. At this event we tackled issues around the impacts of intense rain and flooding in Seattle, a school trip gone wrong, and the flooding of a nearby wastewater treatment plant.
An article about the results of the event was posted to the Ushahidi blog and the call for entries and goals for the event is available online.
The Design workshop structure The Jam day started out with building teams, defining the OSS tool ‘TenFour’, it’s history, what it does and how to access resources and who to ask questions about the process of building prototypes and designs for the tool.
Nathanial Manning was present to give the background history on TenFour and the current product build focus and product planning.
The workshop took place while an unusual snowstorm shut down airports, public transit and individual traffic in the Seattle area. While the coincidence didn’t help conference attendees in getting from A to B that very day, and had quite some impact on Interaction Week as such, some locals and local media described the weather scenario as an actual crisis.
The attendees then went through several discovery exercises including Empathy Mapping, Defining the problems, Ideation, Story-boarding and then Prototyping and then presenting the results back to the attendees.
Briefs & Scenarios Water Treatment Plant in Shilsholebay West point is a Seattle based waste water treatment plant with over 121 employees that work across the various functions in the plant.
Since the 2017 early hours flooding, the management team has increased effort on communication when heavy rains are near.
TenFour is a pre-installed app on the company phones. Employees use their own phones, but all employees know about and were trained on the app and luckily it was not needed in 2017.
Who’s taking part:
Maria, a 32 year old performance manager who has worked there for 4 years. She is the good soul of the team.
Stuart, a 25 year-old technician intern who just recently joined the plant. Stuart is rather shy and introverted.
Jeff, a 34-year old sampling technician, who is the company’s expert for water quality.
Eireni, a 36-year-old technical engineer who’s been at the plant for over 10 years. She knows the layout of the plant very well.
Ali, a 46-year old General Operative and pump engineer. Ali is HIV positive and has a weakened immune system.
Kurtis is a 65 year old security guard that finishes their 8 hour shift at 13.30.
What is happening:
A typical day at the plant has started early. The plant is staffed 24 hours a day for security reasons.
Moderate rain was forecasted for today and the plant was prepared for it. Around 8am the rain began to fall heavier than forecasted and expected. The rain continues to fall increasingly heavier…
It’s early in the afternoon already. With increasing nervousness, the engineers/technicians go about their checking of machinery in pairs. Ali, who is monitoring from a central computer gets up as he sees water drops coming from the ceiling and is alarmed when he starts observing dangerous water levels in the treatment tanks. The whole team decides to check with the other colleagues in the building and to leave to arrive home safely.
But when they open up the door to the hallway, they can see that there is already water running down the stairs and some of the lights have come down with water running over them. They can already smell electrical faults and the light start flickering. Will it be safe to step into the water with all these cables hanging down?
Maria worries about her colleague Kurtis who was doing a final patrol before finishing his shift and handing over to another staff member Pete. Is he safe? She decides to try to locate Kurtis.
Stuart and Jeff are preoccupied with containment protocols and reporting to be aware of their immediate surroundings.
They really need to get out of here, no matter what…But how can they make sure that everybody gets out safely and on time?
University of Washington: Student trip to Oso The Geography department of UWS has taken 35 1st year university students and 4 faculty members out to the area of Oso to investigate the environment for an assignment. There is a staff member based in the central University campus as a HQ contact.
Since the mudslides of 2014 the faculty members are careful to avoid previous areas of high-danger and there route has been planned.
TenFour is installed app on the faculty’s phones but maybe not all the students. All faculty know and were trained on the app and safety protocol.
Students are less aware…as are their families back home…
Who’s taking part:
4 faculty members including:
Ajara, who’s had family emergency texts throughout the day and is distracted.
Freya, Who lost distant relative in the 2014 Oso mudslides.
35 students including:
Ishra, who doesn’t feel comfortable to walk long distances, but is too shy to tell anyone.
Tom, who’s long-term boyfriend is currently on a one week business-trip in Rome.
Cleo, who is trained in first aid and emergency response who does regular recreational climbing.
Jason, who is bold and a little fool hardy. Wants to explore the area more than is safe.
What is happening:
The faculty and students are together in a safe but remote location in Oso on the edge of the warning zone from 2014. They are preparing for a day of collecting samples and recoding data and have heavy backpacks, waterproofs and boots on.
Around 09.30 Ajara receives the first middle severe weather alert by text, where the region would only mildly get influenced by the outer skirts of a thunderstorm hitting the region during late afternoon. They’re prepared with water proofed equipment and have a pre-approved route. But two hours later it a cloudburst arrives and Ajara receives another alert stating that the severity of the heavy rainfall unexpectedly changed so they might end up closer to the center of the event than expected.
They’re preparing to find a way to end their study trip, while it starts raining more and more severely. The water starts collecting rapidly in basins. Half an hour and suddenly Cleo states that they are losing visibility in the storm downpour and suggests signalling for help.
One can sense the tension in the group, although everybody tries to remain calm. But suddenly Tom notices that Jason, along with 3 of their fellow students are not in the larger group. They start calling out and panicking trying to use their devices but the signal has become patchy in the location.
What are the key challenges and questions they’re facing? In addition the team in the main campus in central Seattle want to know if the field trip is safe. They all have their smartphones with them and the TenFour-App installed. What would you do and how could the app help in order to get out out of that situation and make sure everyone gets back to safety?
Seattle Software AG: Roads of Seattle Seattle Software AG is a Seattle based software company with 400 employees that develops IT solutions for a mobile and interconnected world. As communication is crucial for their business, all employees receive a smart phone when entering the company.
Some of the staff members live outside of central Seattle in the areas of Duvall, Snoqualmie and nearby areas. The company is not sure how many are in those areas and staff regularly visit clients outside central Seattle.
TenFour is a pre-installed app on the company phones but not on their personal phones. The reception has been mixed to use the app…
Who’s taking part:
Hector, a 36-year-old designer who used to work as a voluntary firefighter in his twenties.
Ben, a 24-year-old trainee who has just started at the company. Ben is rather shy and introvert.
Eden, a 40-year old project manager, who likes to always have an overview about things going on.
Max, a 16-year-old, who is just visiting Seattle Software AG as High school intern. He has no company phone. Travelling with Eden.
Jean is a 78 year old woman who lives in a retirement home in Duvall and just finished an interview with Hector, Eden and Max.
Clint is the office manager and arrived in the main central office before 6am. An early bird.
What is happening:
Hector, Eden and Max are on their way back from a user interview with a community in Duvall looking at improving government services with the Elderly and have just started driving back to the central office.
It has been raining quite heavily, so they’re trying to get back as fast as possible. After 10 mins of driving in low visibility they start driving through larger pools of water.
But travel time should be a 1/2 hour only, anyway – so they keep going with their review about the specific client situation when they suddenly notice that there are cars stopped by the side of the roads. There’s no information available, so they just carry on driving for a bit.
Max is using his phone in the backseat and nobody checked whether he has a seatbelt on.
Eden and Hector are starting to worry about the retirement home and also whether they will get back home let alone the central office! Who is going to notify Max’s parents?
Eden tries to check the situation, but they can’t find any advice online.
Clint is noticing that the team are close to arriving but haven’t heard from them since this morning and is worried about the weather.
What are the key challenges and questions they’re facing?
All of the team members have the App Tenfour installed, but barely use it.
How could the App help them get out of the situation safely?
What about the retirement home?
Disclaimer All the information and scenarios included in these slides have been complied and inspired from research and resources online.
We can not vouch for the accuracy and factual information of the sources. They offer us, as non-native Seattle folk, a guide of how the infrastructure of Seattle operates in heavy rain, storm and mudslide events.
We ask that the attendees offer up additional information and facts around these scenarios to inform their work.
One of the fundamental building blocks to the Open Design project happened in form of a workshop on July 21st, 2018, in Berlin, Germany. We’ve been tackling issues faced around Berlin flood risk areas including the subway, rural rivers and office blocks.
There are two full write ups of this event including a video:
“Designing for emergencies” by Thomas Kueber “Ushahidi Works with Designit and Adobe to Give People a Voice” by Andre Jay Meissner
The Design Jam structure The Jam day started out with building teams, defining the OSS tool ‘TenFour’, it’s history, what it does and how to access resources and who to ask questions about the process of building prototypes and designs for the tool.
Erik Hershman and Eriol Fox of Ushahidi, the organization that built TenFour presented the background history and the current tools build focus and product planning.
The attendees then went through several discovery exercises including Empathy Mapping, Defining the problems, Ideation, Story-boarding and then Prototyping and then presenting the results back to the attendees.
Briefs & Scenarios The focus, fictional company ‘AG Software’ based in Mitte Berlin. Background: “Berlin Software AG is a Berlin-based software company with 400 employees that develops IT solutions for a mobile and interconnected world. As communication is crucial for their business, all employees receive a smartphone when entering the company.
TenFour is a pre-installed app on the company phones. All employees know what the app is good for, but luckily it was never needed to use it.
But this will change by today…”
The attendees received 3 briefs to choose to prototype for.:
Brief 1 Office in Mitte Our users:
Maria, a 32 year old developer who works for Berlin Software AG since 4 years. She is the good soul of the team.
Tom, a 25 year-old-intern who just recently joined the company. Tom is rather shy and introverted.
Sarah, a 34-year old UX designer, who is the company’s expert for conducting user tests in their usability lab.
Ben, a 36-year-old technical engineer who’s regularly climbing since 4 years.
Hans, a 46-year old developer. Hans is overweight and has asthma.
What is happening:
It’s one of these day’s where the office in the 5th floor. Most of the colleagues on that floor are at client meetings or at a team building event in the Spreewald. Also the other floors are quite empty today
It’s middle in the afternoon in the afternoon already. As the developers have a close deadline to fulfil, most of them have been working concentratedly with their headphones on the ears. But then Tom gets up as it he sees water drops coming from the ceiling and screams out when he looks out of the window and sees the flooded street in front of the building. The whole team decides to check with the other colleagues in the building and to leave to arrive home safely.
But when they open up the door to the hallway, they can see that there is already water running down the stairs and some of the lights have come down with water running over them. They can already smell the electricity and the light start flickering. Will it be safe to step into the water with all these cables hanging down?
Maria worries about her colleague Sarah who wanted to conduct a usability test down in the basement. Is she safe? She decides to reach out to her and runs down the slippery stairs despite the hanging lamps.
Then the rest of the group hears a strange noise and sees how the printing machine catches fire due to a short circuit. They really need to get out of here, no matter what…But how can they make sure that everybody gets out safely and on time?
You can view the first prototype here
Brief 2 Subway in Mitte Our users:
Who’s taking part:
Leonie, who doesn’t feel comfortable to swim long distances, but is too shy to tell anyone.
Ryan, who’s 2 year old daughter is at the full-day kindergarten
Max, who’s long-term boyfriend is currently on a one week business-trip in Rome.
Sara, who’s a technical engineer who’s regularly climbing since 4 years, currently working in the office.
What is happening:
Leonie and Ryan are on their way back from a business lunch and are awaiting the next subway to head back to the office. It has been raining quite heavily, so they’re trying to get home as fast as possible. After entering the U7, they’re not able to take some seats as there are plenty of people on their way during this time. But travel time should be a 1/2 hour only, anyway – so they keep going with their review about the specific client situation when they suddenly notice that the subway just stopped in the middle of the tunnel. There’s no information available, so they just wait for a bit. After 10 Minutes standing, a guy in the front notices that there seems to be water on the railway, slowly rising.
Some neighbours get hectic, everybody tries to check the situation, but they only observe it rising. After 1/2 hour in the tunnel, a small child starts crying and the first passenger passes out due to panic and panic breaks out! Somebody asks for water and for a professional, but nobody seems to be available. Most people are trying to check-in with their friends and family, but due to connection issues, it’s hard to keep in contact properly.
What are the key challenges and questions they’re facing?
All of the team members have the App Ten-four installed but barely use it. How could the App help Leonie and Ryan get out of the situation safely? Where are the others?
You can view the first prototype here
You can view the second prototype here
You can view the third prototype here
Disclaimer All the information and scenarios included in these slides have been complied and inspired from research and resources online.
We can not vouch for the accuracy and factual information of the sources. They offer us, as non-native Seattle folk, a guide of how the infrastructure of Seattle operates in heavy rain, storm and mudslide events.
We ask that the attendees offer up additional information and facts around these scenarios to inform their work.
The Open Design team has been invited to Interaction 20 in Milan February 2020 to speak about the Open Design project and the learnings from our first phase from 2018 to 2019.
On Wednesday the 5th of February 2020 the team will take to the stage to take the audience through that journey by presenting you the results of the first year into the Open Design project, and to invite you to join our mission to unlock Open Source Design for all of us – to add true scale to advancing the human condition.
You can find tickets to the conference on the Interaction 20 website.
On the first day of Open Up global summit Eriol Fox of Ushahidi delivered a talk 'Open Source Design with OSS Humanitarian Tech Tools' to bring to the OSS and open audience in Taipei the importance of understanding the challenges embedding designers and design in OSS projects. This was done by highlighting the work done on Open Design to that point.
The Open Design team is attending All Things Open 2019 in Raleigh, NC on October 13-15, 2019 to speak on several humanitarian and open source software topics.
All Things Open is a polyglot technology conference focusing on the tools, processes and people making open source possible. Target audience includes designers, developers, decision makers, entrepreneurs and technologists of all types and skill levels. Stay current by signing up below.
You can find more indepth information about All Things Open on their event summary document.
We’ll be speaking about designing for crisis, a panel discussion on diversity best practice and of course, a short talk about Open Design.
Attending and speaking at events like All Things Open are unique chances where all functions that make the technology industry work come together not just in a commercial sense but in advocacy of Open Source Software.
Through our current research, we know that helping designers, corporates and for-profit companies that hire designers on staff understand what the role of OSS and humanitarian tech is, but helping those that build and maintain OSS understand the role and value of design is key to a collaborative, inclusive future for design and open source.
Please come back after the event for a summary of what was discussed and discovered at All Things Open 2019 regarding Open Design!
The Open Design team attended FOSS4G held in Bucharest, Romania in August of 2019. FOSS4G stands for Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial. It is the flagship event of OSGeo.
FOSS4G 2019 was dedicated to enable an asymptotic connection between software and data. Open Design offered a talk that focused on how the attending individuals working at OSS organisations could begin to enable contributions from designers.
We delivered a talk titled ‘Open Source Design with Humanitarian tools’ on Friday the 31st August at 3:00 pm.
Drawing on our interviews and research over the last 3 months we offered insights into the problem space where designers are having difficulty engaging with OSS, reiterated the reasons why and where design can add value to OSS and offered practical tips on getting started with structuring an OSS repo fro design contributions outside of the Open Design event framework.
You can find the presentation slides from the talk here on our open source repo and the audio recording of the talk (in English) here.
Some of the key idea raised from the audience was around the need for spaces and tracks for designers within FOSS/OSS conferences. Explicitly making is known that designers are needed and valued within the OSS space is key to the wider acceptance of OSS both ways between Designers and Developers/OSS manitainers.
More issues raised are around good first issues for designers on OSS repos and asking for specific design needs and how to define those. More info about these can be found in the slides.