Design

1. Ask yourself regularly: what techniques can you use to keep checking that your design has the important basic ingredients. This means that it is:

• Accessible
• Safe
• Welcoming
• Attractive
• Right for the users’ shared interests and
• Where users feel a sense of belonging

2. Which intangible factors make people feel safe and welcome (design, images etc.)? (See Hybrid places checklist)

3. What are the users’ shared needs and interests? (See ‘All That We Share’ video for inspiration)

4. How can small interventions make a big difference? (See PPS)

5. How are you making the best use of the diversity in your own project group?

6. What techniques are you using to co-create your place/product/service so users are ‘actors not factors’?

7. How does your product empower people and enable them to participate actively in society?

8. Use Imagineering theory to define the experience needs of your users.

These are the characteristics of an ‘experience’ (Kuiper & Smit 2001, 39)
1. There is a heightened concentration and focus, involving all one’s senses.
2. One’s sense of time is altered.
3. One is touched emotionally.
4. The process is unique for the individual and has intrinsic value.
5. There is contact with the ‘raw stuff’, the real thing.
6. One does something and undergoes something.
7. There is a sense of playfulness.
8. One has a feeling of having control of the situation.
9. There is a balance between the challenge and one’s own capacities.
10. There is a clear goal.

9. Are your users looking for a ‘meaningful encounter’ with others? Here are some guidelines:

• The establishment of a place (or ‘contact zone’) which feels safe for both parties
• Identifying shared interests (such as sports)
• A trusted community leader and professional facilitator trained in conflict mediation
• ‘Hanging out’ time i.e. the banal time spent together between organized activities.