• Skip to content
  • Skip to footer
  • Accessibility options
University of Brighton
  • About us
  • Business and
    employers
  • Alumni and
    supporters
  • For
    students
  • For
    staff
  • Accessibility
    options
Open menu
Home
Home
  • Close
  • Study here
    • Meet us
    • Open days
    • Virtual tours
    • Upcoming events
    • Applicant days
    • Meet us in your country
    • Chat to our students
    • Ask us a question
    • Order a prospectus
    • Our campuses
    • Our four campuses
    • Accommodation options
    • Our halls
    • Helping you find a home
    • What you can study
    • Find a course
    • Full A-Z course list
    • Explore our subjects
    • Our academic departments
    • How to study with us
    • Undergraduate application process
    • Postgraduate application process
    • International student application process
    • Apprenticeships
    • Applying through Clearing
    • Transfer from another university
    • Fees and financial support
    • Undergraduate finance
    • Postgraduate finance
    • Our funding and support options
    • Supporting you
    • Your wellbeing
    • Student support and guidance tutors
    • Study skills support
    • Careers and employability
  • Research
    • Research and knowledge exchange
    • Research and knowledge exchange organisation
    • The Global Challenges
    • Centres of Research Excellence (COREs)
    • Research Excellence Groups (REGs)
    • Our research database
    • Information for business
    • Community University Partnership Programme (CUPP)
    • Postgraduate research degrees
    • PhD research disciplines and programmes
    • PhD funding opportunities and studentships
    • How to apply for your PhD
    • Research environment
    • Investing in research careers
    • Strategic plan
    • Research concordat
    • News, events, publications and films
    • Featured research and knowledge exchange projects
    • Research and knowledge exchange news
    • Inaugural lectures
    • Research and knowledge exchange publications and films
    • Academic staff search
  • About us
  • Business and employers
  • Alumni, supporters and giving
  • Current students
  • Staff
  • Accessibility
Search our site
Research-project-banner
Research and knowledge exchange
  • Postgraduate research degrees
  • Research features
  • Research organisation
  • Research environment
  • Groups
    • Groups
    • Applied geosciences
    • Built environment
    • Biomaterials and Drug Delivery
    • Brighton and Sussex Medicines Optimisation
    • Chemistry
    • Stress, ageing and disease
    • Ecosystems and environmental management
    • Education
    • Environment and public health
    • Healthcare Practice and Rehabilitation
    • Interdisciplinary Management and Higher Education
    • Management and Employment
    • Mathematics, Statistics and Operations
    • Musculoskeletal
    • Nuclear physics
    • Past human and environment dynamics
    • Paediatrics
    • Product design
    • Sensory neuroscience
    • Social Science Policy
    • Society space and environment
    • Sport and Exercise Science and Medicine
    • Sport, Tourism and Leisure
    • Sustainability and Resilience Engineering
    • Transforming sexuality and gender
    • Values and sustainability
  • Social Science Policy
    • Social Science Policy
    • Research impact
    • Research areas
    • Research projects
    • Collaborations
    • Events
    • About us
  • Research projects
    • Research projects
    • Collaborative Poetics
    • "I will tell you something of my own"
    • Project page
    • Designing healthy prisons for women
    • Making a meal of collaborative learning
    • Material traces
    • Older people: care and self-funding experiences
    • Rehabilitation by design: Influencing change in prisoner behaviour
    • Researching discrimination through poetry: Developing a method of collaborative poetics
    • Resilience and friendships
    • Monitoring, evaluation and impact: Making data work for communities
    • Aesthetics of protest: Visual culture and communication in Turkey
    • Anti-social behaviour enforcement action and young people
    • Brighton Citizens' Health Services Survey
    • Carer Information and Support Programme (CrISP)
    • CCTV: Lessons from a surveillance culture
    • Cheers!
    • Connected Communities projects
    • Dance and dementia
    • Disruption: unlocking low carbon travel
    • Domestic abuse and LGBT people
    • Domestic elder abuse in Japan and England
    • Domestic fire safety evaluation
    • East Sussex carers' break
    • Electronic Patient Records (EPR) evaluation
    • EmERGE
    • ENSUE
    • Fairness in Brighton and Hove: an analysis of public voice
    • Health Trainers in West Sussex
    • Information for healthy living
    • LifeLines
    • Live well with dementia evaluation
    • Mobile phone app for HIV patients
    • Neutralising deviance
    • Older people and human rights
    • Older people wellbeing and participation
    • Older people with sight loss in care homes
    • Older people's experiences of online and offline communities
    • Prison architecture design and technology
    • Protest networks and the Pitchford inquiry
    • Responding to child to parent violence
    • Section 136 in Sussex
    • Service user and practitioner experiences of community treatment orders (CTOs)
    • The Brighton systems knowledge exchange project
    • The problem of personal debt and mental health
    • Social factors, care and Community Treatment Orders (CTOs)
    • Working towards prevention
    • Writing the landscape of everyday life
  • Material traces

Material traces

In this study, we collaborated with researchers from the University of Sussex and older residents of Newhaven to develop interactive technologies for their local community. This involved participatory design workshops and interviews with local residents looking at the possibilities for more community-oriented interaction through technology.

Material-Traces-2

Project timeframe

This research commenced around July 2015 and ended in October 2016.

Project aims

The aims of this research project were to:

  • look at ways of engaging different generations (older and younger people) in public spaces by developing prototype community-oriented displays and interactive technologies.
  • use a participatory design approach which involved older people as part of a design team working on interactive digital 'exhibits' for their local community that would encourage fruitful interaction with the younger generation.

The research used participatory design workshops with older people to develop lo-fi prototypes and then took these out onto the streets of Newhaven to gauge residents’ opinion. We were particularly interested in finding out how people of different generations would feel about knowing more about one another through such technological interactions. 

Material-Traces-1

Project findings and impact

There was great interest and enthusiasm about the project itself and the prospect of developing a greater awareness of the local community through new technologies. However, the specifics of potential interactions and the problems associated with any personal data being shared in a public space were seen as real obstacles to any implementation in Newhaven. First, the specifics of place had to be acknowledged and detailed before they could be embedded within the design of any community-oriented technologies. We continue to work with members of the Newhaven community on possible future implementations.

Research team

Dave Harley

Output

Light, A., Hamilton, T., Howland, K., and Harley, D. (In Review) ‘It Wouldn’t Work Here’: The Significance of Place in the Design of a Digital Tool for Supporting Sociality. Proceedings of CHI'17 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 2017.

Partners

Creative Technology Group at Sussex University: Ann Light, Tom Hamilton and Kate Howland

The Meridian Mature Citizens Forum and the Hillcrest Community Centre, Newhaven

Back to top
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • TikTok
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn icon

Contact us

University of Brighton
Mithras House
Lewes Road
Brighton
BN2 4AT

Main switchboard 01273 600900

Course enquiries

Sign up for updates

University contacts

Report a problem with this page

Quick links Quick links

  • Courses
  • Open days
  • Order a prospectus
  • Academic departments
  • Academic staff
  • Professional services departments
  • Jobs
  • Privacy and cookie policy
  • Accessibility statement
  • Libraries
  • Term dates
  • Maps
  • Graduation
  • Site information
  • Online shop
  • COVID-19
  • The Student Contract

Information for Information for

  • Current students
  • International students
  • Media/press
  • Careers advisers/teachers
  • Parents/carers
  • Business/employers
  • Alumni/supporters
  • Suppliers
  • Local residents