Workshop Users stories, Work Package 2, June 27th

The location of the first workshop for Work Package 2 is the former Philips building at Strijp-S in Eindhoven. An attractive and inspiring environment with an industrial design and many meeting rooms.

PhD Bas Michielsen, active in Work Package 2 in which a data platform is to be defined and developed that will be connected to smartphone apps, led the workshop. For more information about Bas and his work, please read his blog on the website.

The workshop was intended for consortium members, and employees of those organizations working with ICT and applications.

After a welcome and introduction, the first assignment soon followed; describe a high- and no-tech lab. In other words, a living lab with a maximum of  technology and a variant with minimum of technology. We started our brainstorming sessions in three groups.

At 10:30h there was time for a coffee/tea break during which the consortium members could catch up with each other.

After the break, postdoc Irma Arts explained the follow-up assignment regarding the previously visualized living labs: look for the ethical boundaries, find the balance between control and autonomy.

What can work and what can’t in daily practice? It turned out to be quite difficult to find a middle ground, because there are so many different people living and recreating in the living lab and they each have their own needs, preferences and motivations. In the end, we had to come up with a few sentences for a prompt; a short piece of text that serves as a starting point for an AI visualization tool.

Photo from left to right: Ine Dorrestein (UU), Bas Michielsen (Fontys) and Tim van Dam (Smart Parks).

Lunchtime. Seat2tomeet had set up a buffet and we could all join together at a long table. 

After lunch, we were presented with the visuals of our Living labs, which led to some hilarity. AI (thankfully) doesn’t understand everything yet.

Task 2 was introduced, developing the user stories for the apps. First, the various user target groups were specified: recreationists, local residents, site managers, farmers, researchers, etc. In several groups, the user needs were inventoried and presented to each other. A lot of information was gathered, and many tips shared to take into account when further developing the stories. We are definitely not done talking about this yet, because information will also be gathered from the most important group; the end users.

Another workshop is planned for the consortium in November in which we will take the user stories of these app(s) a step further. For now, Bas Michielsen and Gerard Schouten, Professor of AI & Big data at Fontys University of Applied Sciences, will process the information gathered.

 Photo: from left to right  Bas Michielsen (lecturer researcher Fontys), Niels Gilissen (fauna ecologist Natuurmonumenten) and Annemarie Horn (postdoc RU).

There will be a summer break from the blog, after the summer we will pick it up again.

This blog was written by Sonja Meijer, communications manager WildlifeNL.