Questionairre

 I couldn't have completed my dissertation to the extent that I did without undertaking any kind of primary statistical research, I wanted to not only collect data for image making purposes, but I wanted some actual opinions from people too, as I felt this would open my eyes to reasons for voter apathy.

I found a book particularly helpful when designing the questions for my questionnaire, it talked about remaining objective as to not lead the questions, types of questions, data collection etc:

Oppenheim, A. N. (1999) Questionnaire design, interviewing and attitude measurement. London: Continuum International Publishing Group.

Here's a link to the survey:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/?sm=EFTbKIi9Lg3iMYl7vTtz_2BHl4XHXAzy5P9hAmpV8MepB6_2FVPeTv_2BLC9aPNR2JiX4x8LsD5EJNVSQK9UEy0htvRA_3D_3D 

Ballot Box™

 

 

 I thought that adapting an already existing piece of graphic design that serves as the physical equivalent would eradicate the need for consumer confusion, there’s now no requirement to accept a new service, as anyone who’s familiar with voting will recognise the styling and be more trusting. If you've ever voted at a polling station you'll recognise the design of this box either consciously or subconciously, so that justified my decisions to directly take the stlye from the ballot box and adapt it into my digital brand. After a little thought, it seemed like not only an obvious transistion, but a suitable one too.

Here's how the branding looks after I replicated the style:

 

I also went with the tagline: "The Secure App Based Vote", through reading my dissertation you'll notice a massive portion of what I investigate is the technicality of how an app like this could be secure, and my argument is that it can be. I wanted to stress this within the design itself because I feel this would be important from a consumers point of view.

On that note, that's also the reason I decided to use a 'TM' registered trademark symbol, as it solidifies trust with the user, and if a project like this was to go it ahead it would require some sort of seal of approval.

I've not discussed whether an app like this would be governement owned, or third-party and it is important, however I'm only hypothesising this service. 

 

How I'd Add to the Project

It's always beneficial to address improvements that I'd have liked to make or areas that I'd have developed more had I more time and resources. The clear and obvious choice that strikes me first is the physical development of the app that I've proposed and the actual logistics of how a task like this could be undertaken, personally I'd prefer to get an understanding for how the technology and processes behind app building work than spend money on someone else to complete this task, meaning I also get the opportunity to learn a new skill which in this field is always helpful.

I'm have an already very basic understanding of app building and the software that it takes to complete it, XCode is a piece of software for Apple computers that specialises in this area. To extend and develop this project further I would learn the techniques and skills from this software and develop the concept into a fully functioning service.

And like learning any new skill or technique, we often can take for granted just how easy it can be with the technology we have at our fingertips. As is the case for most hobbies and skills these days "there's a YouTube tutorial for everything'.

Finally I mentioned in my evaluation that there wouldn't be too much I'd have to alter in order to turn this project into a pitch or business model. Which is something I'm still considering. Yet I believe that could be the final chapter in turning this into something that's got actual gravitas and potential to really change the political landscape. Which after all is exactly what I set out to question, 'whether or not it could be done', I feel my written work is very clear about how it could be a possibility, I could take this project further in the hope of truly making a democratic difference which again is exactly the reason I set out in the first place.

Talks with Andrew, Labour Counciller

I knew at some point a very valuable contact would be a friend from back home where I'm from in Workington, Cumbria. Andrew has been a Labour councillor for a few years now and was also the Mayor of my town. To get the point of view of a politician on the themes I've talked about was always going to be helpful; on that note it's worth mentioning I did also attempt to contact other more prominent politicians such as Jeremy Corbyn with no success. Nevertheless Andrew's response was fantastic, I'm thankful for his engagement and I'm pleased he's drawn upon issues I've noticed in my research. Here's the full email correspondence:

Hi Declan,

See my views on what you asked below:

In 2008 I started to pay more attention to what was happening in politics, who was making decisions for me and why, which eventually led me to join the only party that believes in equality and social justice for all; the Labour Party. Upon joining Labour in 2009 I started campaigning on local and national issues in the run up to the 2010 General Election, not Labour's finest hour.

My views on how we vote in national, EU and local elections are simple; how we vote is outdated. In 2015 we still expect people to go to the voting station and vote using a paper and pen? That is fine for people who choose to do that, like the elderly and disabled but we should be opening the options for voting much wider.

Take the view that young people are not engaged in politics and simply "can't be bothered to vote". Doesn't it make sense in a 21st century democracy to allow secure online voting? Political parties Labour and Conservative's use it for their own internal party elections so why not all UK & EU elections? It's my view that the current Government will never allow this to happen because it will rightly increase voter turn out among young people, whom are traditionally left wing; not ideal for the Tories.

I do, however believe that there should be more than one option for voting, not everyone can use a computer or feels comfortable using one. We currently let people vote by a postal ballot. We could use that as a second option and the third being the traditional way of voting. Having 3 options for voting in elections would increase democratic engagement and give the people a better say in how our country is run.

Councillor Andrew Lawson
Labour, St. Michael's Ward

Wireframes

As mentioned previously I needed to mock up my designs to a screen to show the basic aesthetics of how it would look. The design of various different pages within the app were basic enough to design and make, yet add that extra level of context to the overall picture. In keeping with the styles and attitudes I applied towards the branding of the rest of the project, I adopted a minimalist approach which in effect made for easier navigation and composition of the page and a natural hierarchy. All the colours and typefaces I've used have been referenced within my brand guidelines. Here's a closer look at the final images I produced in order to take that extra step in contextualising the app concept:

Interviews

Due to the nature of my investigation, it was always going to be important for me to collect a variety of qualitative and quantitive research; statistics and figures collection have been a vital part of my research methodology, but qualitative opinions and discussions I feel are as important. So as well as my questionnaire that I sent out, I've also conducted a couple of interviews with peers and senior tutors to better ground my own opinions on the matters in hand.

Firstly I have two audio interviews: The first with Tutor John Watters, and the second with peers George Boreham & Kieran Walsh.

Follow the link below to see the two mentioned interviews, it's in a shared Google Drive folder where anyone from Leeds College of Art can view:

https://drive.google.com/a/students.leeds-art.ac.uk/folderview?id=0B42Cfzzmj1graDU4WWk0ajdLX3c&usp=sharing

Finally I have an audio & visual interview that I've uploaded to my academic YouTube channel. It starts with a run through of parts of my dissertation, then moves on to a formative conversation where myself and peer James Horrocks discuss the themes I've raised.

This type of interview style qualitative research has been exceptionally valuable. While I think it's vitally important to have a decisive dissertation that explicitly outlines my focus, I think we often take for granted how much further we investigate conversationally, in the company of like minded individuals. My essay will finish between 6,000 & 9,000 words, and while that's important, I know for sure that through talking with peers, tutors, friends, family etc. that I'll have spoken a lot more than that figure. It's been an essential part of my methodology, and I'll certainly look to develop this research technique in the future.

Coding Crash Course!

Me and James have scheduled ourselves the challenge of learning to code this week before we go back to Uni on the 25th. Or at least get a basic understanding of the elements that make up a webpage. We've found a brilliant tutorial online that shows the basics of building responsive websites, ranging from small screen sizes (mobile devices etc.) to larger desktop displays. We've watched about an hour of the video today; so my plan is to sit down at my computer, go back through the process, and make material for my own comprehensive website. Here's a link to the video we're referencing, and below is a photograph of the notes I took:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBK_1WrM294

Templates, Drafts & Planning!

PLAN TO SUCCEED.

PREPARE TO FAIL.

FAIL BETTER TO IMPROVE.

Today I've been in college again with the sole purpose of creating my brief templates so I can hit the ground running on September 25th. I've taken the default provided template, altered slightly to make it more appropriate and applicable to myself and I've formatted in a way that not only reflects my attitudes as a designer, but functions better as an important document.

I've also had the opportunity to talk briefly with our Tutor about the specifics of writing briefs with the intention of a final year based heavily around collaboration and studio based work. It's great that myself and James have cleared up that we need to approach any work we credit to our studio from our own perspectives, and clearly deliver a recognisable, individual portfolio to cover ourselves in case of changes to any plans. As much as we're serious about [ B R A C K E T ], we need to personally develop as designers as well and make sure we're both individually hitting programme criteria if we want to do well this year.

Here's a look at the brief template I've designed:

The Beginning of the End.

Or the end of the beginning, I suppose it depends on which way you look it at. Over the past couple of months, myself and James Horrocks have been discussing at length our plans for when we graduate next year. It has been my intention for a while now to launch my own studio, instead of just joining a studio as a junior designer and ending up being another cog in someone else's machine. My motivation? The studio's I'd otherwise be applying for had to start similarly, they all took the plunge and did something right. I want to the same. We've decided we want to go ahead at making our studio a reality, and launching this year as a test run. Last year as part of our PPP we made the hypothetical plans for:

[ B R A C K E T ]

A collaborative creative studio that boasts a wide range of creative solutions to everyday design needs. Today we've been drawing up time management plans for the next three weeks prior to enrolling into our final year. We've also got basic plans as to which briefs we'll be tackling this year, the nature of them, and any potential clientele & collaborators. Tomorrow we've scheduled creating a template for our briefs, as well as fleshing them out fully with more consideration. Here's a quick look at some content I've been emerging myself in to prepare myself for what to expect:

4 Deadly Mistakes Most Startups Make When They Launch from Ross Simmonds

Top 100 AngelList Startups to Watch in 2014 from Stinson

As well as that, I've personally been continuing with my research for my dissertation concept. I've been into the library and taken out some books that I think will be a great starting point for justifying my field of interest.

COP - Making the Publication

There were a lot of parts to putting together this publication, from the printing, cropping, binding etc. Here's a few photographs of certain parts of my process and how I went about doing them:

I've learned the importance of always remembering to print colour bars, crop marks, and registration marks. It makes for much easier assembling at a later stage.

I used a long folded spare sheet to wrap around each individual spread before using the bone fold to get precise folds, this essentially stops the publication getting marked or shiny from the folding process.

I fashioned myself a make-shift 'horse', so that I could properly poke holes in the pages.

Binding was a long and tedious process, but with patience it came out pretty well in the end, and serves the versatile function of separating the sections of the book which was my original intention.