Rae's MCDM Blog

Update: Upon further reflection, I’m beginning to realize that my hopes to cover so many different resources may be unrealistic. Stay tuned for further refinement with regard to which sites/resources I will be critiquing. Ideally, I’d like to choose one from each category: one informational site, one social networking site, one discussion-based site, etc.  but that may go beyond what I am capable of accomplishing in half of an academic quarter.

Objectives

• Examine various interactive media focused on sustainable eating in Seattle
• Evaluate these resources in terms of design, usability, interaction amongst users, and overall relevance of information
• Interview farmers market vendors and customers regarding their usage of digital media
• Create a wireframe and information architecture for a sustainable eating resource that improves upon design and usability of existing resources

Rationale

Interactive media is giving small political and social movements an advantage when it comes to organizing and communicating. In Here Comes Everybody, Clay Shirky observes that, “…certain activities may have some value but not enough to make them worth pursuing in any organized way. New social tools are altering this equation by lowering the costs of coordinating group action” (p. 31). The Internet provides a wealth of information about sustainable eating, but I am curious to see if the websites and other media available are fostering community and a similar dynamic to the real-life interaction at local farmers markets. For example, the website Locallectual.com provides not only a listing of local, sustainable food resources for various areas, but also a phone app and social media solutions for users. My research question regarding websites like this one pertains to how usable the resources provided are.

The importance of sustainable eaters using social media is to encourage their participation in the movement even when they are not physically at the farmers markets or other events. Sharing recipes, reviewing vendors, finding new sources of food, and working to educate others are all tasks that can be accomplished through the use of digital media. Social tools online could also be used for customers to interact with vendors outside of the physical space of the market, giving them the ability to plan more efficiently based on what is available and in season at the upcoming markets. Farmers markets and sustainable eating rely on cooperation and collaboration to maintain their customer base and create new customers, so digital media should correspond with the mission to encourage interaction.

If the media available is poorly designed the usage statistics will drop and negate its purpose. Users need simple, dynamic design to maintain their interest and good usability to encourage their participation. The objective of this project will be to examine how design and usability of available resources impact the social organization of sustainable eaters. After researching, I will create a wireframe and information architecture for a website that will address weak areas in the currently available resources.

Methods

The first research that needs to be done is to establish a working definition for the phrase “sustainable eating” and indentify interactive media resources devoted to the concept. This is a highly subjective term, and I will not be focusing on subcultures of sustainable eating, such as the locavore movement. For my purposes, the definition for sustainable eating will be focused mostly on farmers market customers. This research will focus on nationwide websites that have information pertaining to Seattle, and Seattle-specific websites. Although this narrows down the topic, it’s necessary due to the variations in availability of food and farmers markets across the nation. Seattle has a thriving sustainable eating scene, and so I expect there to be a good number of online resources available to study. This will allow me to address the topic at hand, which is how design and usability affect participation and encourage community, on a workable scale.

A literature review on past research into social interaction at farmers markets and the online presence of the sustainable food movement will be my first step in this project. After gaining background information from previous research, I will search for and identify websites that pertain specifically to Seattle’s sustainable food movement and resources. Those resources will be critiqued on design, usability, and the potential for people to interaction within their framework. Resources that I plan to address are Twitter, blogs, official farmers market and vendor websites, phone apps, newspaper articles, and discussion forums.

As a farmers market employee, I have access to both the other vendors and customers that will allow me to gain insight. I plan to conduct interviews with them about their usage of social media when marketing products and food sourcing. These interviews will include the users’ critiques of whatever digital media they do happen to use regularly. Additionally, I will use participant observation and past experience to create a frame of reference for the social dynamics of those who participate in farmers markets.

Conclusion

This term project will explore how the social dynamics of farmers markets correspond with the social dynamics of the same community online through a critique of the design and usability of online resources.  Although social interactions are difficult to measure, quantitative analysis of commenting and discussion statistics will provide insight into how usable the resources are. I hope to gain a framework for providing better resources to the sustainable foods movement and encouraging their cause through this study.

Outline

I.      Introduction

• Define “sustainable eating”
• Introduction to Seattle’s farmers markets

II.    Literature review

• Research on social dynamics of farmers markets
• Research on what, if any, steps farmers markets vendors have taken into the online realm

III.  Critique of resources

• Summarization and identification of available resources – Newspaper articles, official farmers market websites, Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites, phone apps, discussion forums
• Critique of available resources – design, usability, relevance of information, usage statistics
• Suggestions for improving resources

IV. Presentation and explanation of wireframe/information architecture for improved resource